Conference 7.286::space

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from March 11 AW&ST
Date: 29 Apr 91 01:10:39 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
NASA's Precision Segmented Reflector program, aimed at mirrors for space
astronomy, will terminate at the end of FY91.  The excuse offered is that
advances in adaptive optics etc. require some rethinking.
 
The U of Houston Wake Shield project, intended to fly on the end of the
orbiter's arm, is being upgraded to a free-flier, separated from the
shuttle for a few days during a mission.  The intent of the project is
to provide an ultra-clean environment in the wake of a conical shield,
and concerns about contamination from the orbiter have arisen.
 
NASA decides to launch Atlantis despite minor hinge cracks.  The cracks
found in Atlantis are actually closer to being scratches, and are not as
serious as the ones in Discovery and Columbia.
 
The Ariane mission delayed due to third-stage worries flies; no problem.
 
Launch dates for Cassini and CRAF have been swapped to give CRAF more
development time and weight margin.  Cassini goes in Nov 1995, CRAF in
Feb 1996.  The changes also include a Venus gravity assist for CRAF,
which will add eight months to the flight time but increase payload
and provide better fallback launch windows if CRAF can't make Feb 1996.
 
NASA engineer at Reston, asked by visitor why his office and adjacent
hallways lack models, photos, paintings of Fred, comments:  "Are you
kidding me?  This is the Space Station Office.  We don't know anything
about hardware here!"  [Meant humorously, but oh so appropriate...]
 
OSC to get two new NASA contracts:  seven Pegasus launches (plus options
on three more) for Goddard's Small Explorer series, starting 1993 and
running two per year, and five years of data from OSC's proposed SeaStar
commercial remote-sensing satellite, starting in Oct 1993.  The latter
is noteworthy as the first government purchase of such data from a fully
private venture.
 
DARA (the German space agency) recommends cutting the size of the Columbus
lab for Fred by a factor of two, mostly to cut costs but also to permit a
fully-equipped launch.  "If NASA is going to reduce their space station,
I think we have the right to reduce ours as well."  The resulting module
will be about the size of Spacelab.  The change would also help keep
Columbus logistic support within its current allotment of shuttle space.
NASA has not reacted officially, but Lenoir has said in the past that the
NASA changes might well spark changes in the foreign modules, and that
the US:foreign interfaces remain unchanged and the impact thus is minimal.
 
ESA has also asked NASA whether the Columbus man-tended free-flyer can be
serviced by the shuttle rather than by docking to Fred.  This would be
cheaper, but another concern is that docking the free-flyer to the station
will be trickier with the more closely-spaced solar arrays of the new
Fred design.
 
DARA also thinks that the man-tended free-flyer and Hermes should get a
program stretch, as both funding and manpower are tight for doing them,
the Columbus Fred module, and Ariane 5 simultaneously.
 
Arianespace is proposing to boost the performance of Ariane 5 [again!]
because Hermes keeps gaining weight.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from March 18 AW&ST
Date: 10 May 91 03:47:43 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[This is the "forecast and inventory" issue, light on current news.]
 
Editorial suggesting that the best way to sort out US space policy, and
lack thereof, is to substitute the word "purpose" for "policy".
 
NRC Space Studies Board criticizes current space station design as being
ill-suited for either life-science or materials microgravity work.
 
Workforce reductions at Reston as station cuts sink in.
 
DoD re-warms to NASP, saying technical progress has been remarkable and
several military applications for hypersonic cruise are now seen.
 
Stafford group will strongly back restarting nuclear-rocket programs for
use in Mars exploration.  Both nuclear-thermal and nuclear-electric systems
are of interest, but nuclear-thermal looks most promising for openers:  it
offers a high enough exhaust velocity to make fast trajectories possible,
greatly reducing worries about radiation and free-fall effects, and it has
enough thrust to make far more abort modes available in case of trouble.
 
The downside of all this is public antinuclear hysteria and its political
effects, very uncertain costs, the possibility that the push for high
performance may lead to exotic designs that worsen development problems
(in particular, sources say "They're doing a lot of evaluation by rocket
people and not enough by nuclear people"), and lack of effort on important
but unglamorous supporting technologies ("either way you go, chemical or
nuclear, you're going to need new ways to store and handle liquid hydrogen...
but what's the funding for cryogenic technology?  Zero!").
 
The Stafford group reportedly will reject the Augustine commission's open-
ended approach, and urge setting a specific schedule for a return to the
Moon and an expedition to Mars.
 
First Titan IV launch from Vandenberg March 8, probably carrying a Lacrosse
military radarsat.
 
Titan IV launch schedule to be cut about 30% during the rest of this decade
due to tight budgets and reduced payload requirements.  One problem is what
effect this will have on the work to convert the Vandenberg shuttle pad to
a Titan IV pad:  the new schedule is probably too busy for one Vandenberg
pad but will come nowhere near full use of two.
 
Big excitement about tactical missile defence in the aftermath of the Gulf
War:  it now seems indisputable that the missile threat is real, US nuclear
forces cannot deter it, US conventional forces are not good at finding and
destroying missiles before launch, and missiles can be intercepted.  What
sort of hardware this translates into is another question.  SDIO is basically
reshuffling its organization to bring as much of it as possible under the
new hot "tactical" label, but Congress probably won't buy the same old
programs with only the labels new.  One area where real changes are likely
is sensor satellites.  Another is that SDIO has now formally abandoned the
1993 target date for a decision on major SDI deployment; Congress has always
considered this deadline early and arbitrary anyway.
 
Long overview story on new space-technology efforts.  Current efforts are
pretty small; one of note is a project looking at monitoring rocket-engine
health by optical sensors looking at the exhaust plume, which seems to
have some predictive value and could perhaps detect impending engine failure
ahead of time.  Near-future efforts are planned to emphasize funding for a
small number of major topics:  an advanced space engine to replace the RL-10
oxyhydrogen rocket motor, planetary rover technology, nuclear propulsion,
and life support (particularly radiation protection).
 
Story about planned upgrades and possible future directions at the Cape.
Current approaches to launcher and payload processing, and current launchers
themselves, are considered inadequate for future activity.  "We've forgotten
that launch vehicles are transportation systems."
 
Soviet space program facing budget difficulties.  In particular, the future
of the "Mir 2" efforts is now uncertain.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

Subject: space news from March 25 AW&ST
Date: 17 May 91 01:42:53 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[Light news week.  Just as well, since I'm behind and need to catch up some.]
 
Hiten becomes first spacecraft to do an aerobraking maneuver from deep
space, making a pass over the north Pacific March 12th at 126km to reduce
its velocity 1.77m/s.  This may sound insignificant, but it lowered the
apogee of Hiten's highly elliptical orbit by circa 1000km.
 
Truly, although privately praising the Augustine report, is reported to
be privately furious about one recommendation:  tailoring the schedule
for a Mars mission to the availability of funds.  The report's phrase,
"go as you pay", has been banned from NASA official documents.  Truly
reportedly thinks it is hard enough to get major programs funded with
firm schedules, and volunteering to be flexible is an invitation to
death by slow starvation.
 
Administration working on rallying congressional support for the scaled-
down space station.  The emphasis now is on life sciences in support of
future manned activity, rather than a general microgravity science facility.
There are still some uncertainties about this role, notably the problem of
where to put the much-moved centrifuge.  Interestingly, there is now a
possibility that Italy might add a small manned lab module, perhaps a
life-sciences lab that could hold the centrifuge among other things.
This is quite apart from Italy's ESA involvement; Italy wants to put some
money into manned spaceflight as a bilateral US-Italy deal, and this is
one possibility.
 
Soviets marketing formerly-secret military store-and-forward data relay
satellites as commercial comsat system.  The 250kg low-orbit satellites
go up six at a time aboard a Tsyklon booster; the intent of the Western
consortium that is working with the Soviets is an operational constellation
of 24 by 1995.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from April 8 AW&ST
Date: 24 May 91 04:15:12 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[Unless I've mislaid it somewhere -- possible -- my copy of the April 1
issue didn't turn up.  I'll do it if and when I find/get it.]
 
The cover is "Military Space Technology Advances", the picture being an
ultraviolet image of a sounding-rocket exhaust plume as seen from LACE.
 
Editorial mentioning the 30th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, observing
that the Soviets made a major effort to spruce up Baikonur for the
celebration.
 
Japan's Space Activities Commission approves initiation of Comets (a 2-ton
research satellite to investigate mobile communications) and Lunar-A (an
ISAS project to launch a lunar orbiter with three penetrators in 1996).
 
Soviets approve launch of a US teacher to Mir in 1993, in an agreement
between NPO Energia and Aerospace Ambassadors (a project of the Aviation
Space Education Association).  The teacher will fly free of charge, but
sponsors are being sought to fund a set of experiments "to help defray
costs" [it's not clear quite what this means].  [Hmm.  Very hmm.  With
the Shuttle teacher-in-space program being postponed one year per year,
this might well be the first US teacher in space.]
 
Israel makes second test launch of its Arrow ATBM from a ship in the
Mediterranean.  Photograph, not very informative.  The next flight will
be an attempt to intercept another Arrow, later this year.
 
Major management shakeup at Eosat.  No reasons given.
 
The big space story in this issue is definitely the leak of Timberwind.
AW&ST says it has independent confirmation based on documents, although
SDIO declines all comment.  Timberwind has cost $40M to date [which makes
it a small study program, by the way, not a major development effort],
and would probably cost $7-8G through flight test.
 
Timberwind is a fluidized-bed reactor, with small pellets of nuclear fuel
supported by the gas stream.  Exhaust velocity will be much higher than
an oxyhydrogen engine, despite similar temperatures, because of the much
lower molecular weight of the hydrogen exhaust.  [Exhaust velocity scales
inversely as square root of molecular weight, giving a factor of 2-3.]
At least one fluidized-bed reactor was tested briefly in the mid-1980s,
although it was not entirely successful.  The engine would have a thrust
of 45-75klbs initially, with possible growth to 250klbs.  AW&ST's drawing
indicates use of a telescoping exhaust nozzle to reduce length, *presumably*
extended before ignition.
 
Two design concepts using the Timberwind engine have been sketched.  One
is an Atlas-Centaur derivative, with the Centaur replaced by a huge stage
(fatter than the Atlas and twice as long!!) using a single Timberwind.
The Atlas sustainer phase would be eliminated, with all three Atlas engines
cutting out simultaneously before staging.  This configuration could lift
about 27klbs to low orbit.  The other concept is an "advanced Titan" scheme
which sort of jacks up Titan's SRBs and slides an entirely new rocket in
between, using three Timberwinds igniting at SRB burnout.  Payload to low
orbit would be 140klbs.  [Hmm, I wonder if they've thought about the problems
of nuclear clustering?  One has to beware of interactions between reactors,
since they are unshielded and right beside each other.]
 
SDIO proposes initial engine testing at the Nevada Test Site, followed by
a suborbital test over Antarctica.  (Some small chance of an accident
affecting New Zealand is noted.)
 
NASA is interested in Timberwind but is wary of public outcry and suspects
that commitment to a specific advanced reactor design is premature.  [They
would prefer to spend half a decade studying it first, as usual.]  They are
also skeptical about possible development problems, especially weight growth
that could give it little advantage over a more conventional Nerva-type
engine, and doubt that political approval could be had for igniting nuclear
engines before reaching orbit.
 
Lockheed gets the "technical partner" contract from Motorola for Iridium.
The funding consortium, to which M+L would be prime contractors, remains
unformed, and spectrum allocation for Iridium will be in doubt at least
until the WARC meeting next Feb.
 
First operational Almaz radarsat launched from Baikonur March 31.  Images
will be marketed through Space Commerce Corp.  Some Soviet agencies think
this is a mistake, saying that the Soviet Union needs to develop its own
marketing expertise.
 
Soviet general says USSR "considering retaliation", politically or with
military development, if SDI development continues, claiming that SDIO's
attempts to re-cast its plans in terms of tactical defence and accident
prevention are a smokescreen for full deployment.  He suggests one likely
countermeasure:  mass production of warheads and missiles to swamp any
specific defensive system.
 
The government of Kazakhstan is trying to charge the central Soviet
government rent for the land occupied by Baikonur.
 
Boom.  Upgraded Titan IV SRB explodes during first test at Edwards.  [AW&ST's
pictures, however, are disappointing.  The one on the front page of Space
News was much better.  Must have been quite some fireworks display.]  No
injuries, but the test stand is badly damaged, and that plus the failure
will probably delay introduction of the new (Hercules) SRB.  The current
(United Technologies) SRBs are available in sufficient number that Titan
launch schedules should not be affected.  Cause of the explosion is not
yet known, although some problem with the fuel is considered more likely
than a flaw in the new composite casing.  The new SRB is a major redesign,
using longer segments (for the sake of fewer joints) in addition to the
new casings and other improvements.
 
Major story on military-space implications of Desert Storm.  Smaller and
lighter satellites dedicated to tactical applications are definitely in.
Comsat capacity was grossly inadequate.  An experimental Darpa lightsat
saw operational use for digital data relay.  Tactical missile warning is
another big growth area.  Details of various R&D projects, including the
Truax/NRL project for a sea-launched recoverable booster.
 
Weather-satellite night image of the Gulf, showing oilfield fires and
complete lack of electrical power in Baghdad and surrounding areas.
 
European interest in independent spysat capability, for early warning
and treaty verification, sharply up in the wake of the Gulf War.  One
specific proposal is to follow the two Helios spysats currently planned
with a third carrying an imaging radar.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

Subject: space news from April 15 AW&ST
Date: 7 Jun 91 04:56:20 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
NASA formally approves extended mission for Magellan.  The original
basic-mission goal of mapping 70% of the surface was met on 2 April,
and coverage at the end of the basic mission on 15 May is expected
to be 84%.
 
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory gets NASA contract to do the
ground science center for AXAF.
 
NASP officials estimate $4-8G for construction and flight testing.
This is the first public cost estimate from senior people.  A more
precise estimate will go to Congress next year.
 
Astronaut Manley Carter killed in airline crash 5 April.  No word yet
on who will replace him on the International Microgravity Lab mission
next Feb.
 
Dept of Serious Unhappiness:  Galileo attempts deployment of high-gain
antenna but it doesn't.  The spin rate *did* slow somewhat, but the
antenna-deployed sensor did not report success.  [In fact, it seems to
have deployed partially.]
 
NASA and DoD expected to present NSC a proposal to build a new heavylift
booster resembling Energia, using a shuttle tank and SSME-derived engines
plus ill-defined solid boosters.  They are "reasonably comfortable" with
predicting $500-1000/lb for this, and say that ALS's claim of $300/lb
"never was realistic".
 
DoD approves development of a new early-warning satellite to replace the
current DSP series.  Full-scale development to start circa 1994.
 
Bureaucratic fun and games with the Topaz 2 space reactor that the Soviets
loaned to the US for display.  The NRC is blocking the return of the reactor
to the USSR on the grounds that exporting a reactor to any nation which has
not signed peaceful-nuclear-energy treaty (the USSR has not) is illegal.
Various people, notably including SDIO (which is planning to buy a Topaz 2),
are pushing for an exemption.  Meanwhile, the Air&Space Museum is asking for
Soviet permission to display the reactor until it is cleared for export!
 
Atlantis, carrying the Gamma Ray Observatory, launched 5 April after a
model countdown in which everything went right.  This is the first flight
for the new uprated shuttle computers.  The only noteworthy aspect of the
launch is that the forward skirt of the left SRB was found to have buckled
around a fair bit of its circumference; this is thought to have happened
at sea impact, rather than during ascent.
 
First shuttle spacewalk in over five years, and an unplanned one at that,
to free GRO's stuck antenna.  The antenna failed to deploy despite power
on the actuator and latch showing "open".  Attempts to shake it loose
were unsuccessful, so Jerry Ross and Jay Apt were sent out to do a manual
deployment, a procedure practiced earlier underwater.  Ross freed the
antenna boom, removed a bolt to disengage the actuator, unlocked the
boom linkage, moved the boom to deployed position manually, and locked
the linkage again.  Total elapsed time about 45 min.  They took the
opportunity to run some of the tests scheduled for their later spacewalk,
and then waited in the airlock until GRO was ready and released.  The
cause of the antenna problem may never be known for sure, although the
prime theory is that thermal insulation shifted during launch.
 
ESA's ERS-1, carrying both optical sensors and radar on a Spot bus,
readied for launch.  There is some concern about whether ERS-2, whose
construction start was delayed somewhat by funding holdups, will be
ready in time for the end of ERS-1's lifetime; various aspects of ERS-1
are considered to be pushing the technologies and the expected lifetime
is only 2-3 years, which will make things tight for ERS-2's scheduled
launch in 1994.
 
Story on Langley project to develop endothermic fuels to cool engine
components in hypersonic aircraft.  Such designs normally use cryogenic
fuels for cooling, but the Navy does not want to handle cryogenics on
aircraft carriers and is funding investigation of alternatives.
 
The NASP materials-development consortium will shut down later this year,
as it appears to have achieved its objectives of sorting out manufacturing
processes and testing large components made with suitable materials.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from April 22 AW&ST
Date: 4 Jul 91 04:58:05 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[Yes, this is late.  Expect terse ones for a while until I get caught
up.  A conference and a couple of short vacations are mostly to blame.]
 
Highlights of the Soviet pavilion at the Paris airshow will be the
full-scale Mir mockup, the first public display of the Glonass navsat,
and the Energia core engine.
 
Pegasus wins USAF Small Launch Vehicle contract, for one launch plus
options on 39 [!] more.  One small dark cloud:  Israel Aircraft Industries
has filed a protest which must be resolved first.
 
First Centaur failure in a long time, as Japanese comsat goes into the
drink 18 April.  Atlas-Centaur launch normal until only one of the
Centaur engines lit.  The Centaur tumbled and range safety blew it up.
 
Atlantis returning to Cape after Edwards landing.  Engineers are trying
to figure out how a 14-inch external tank grounding strap got caught
in one of the orbiter's umbilical doors instead of being left on the
pad at KSC.  The strap was found on the Edwards runway after landing!
As a further complication, Atlantis landed nearly 600ft short of the
official runway threshold on the lakebed.  Steve Nagel, the pilot,
blames his own conservatism plus unusual winds aloft.  "Had that
happened at KSC, it would have caused a few more gray hairs, but we
still would have been okay".  (The KSC runway has a 1000ft underrun area.)
 
Germany will delay start of design/test phase for Saenger while ESA sorts
out its manned-spaceflight priorities, in hopes of getting international
partners.  Estimated slip is 2-3 years, putting first flight of the Hytex
X-plane back past the turn of the century and Saenger production decision
back to about 2005.
 
Navstar comes out a big winner from the Gulf war, although the troops say
that the handheld receivers need work:  they want a system that can
run off vehicle power and connects to an external antenna so it can be
used from inside.
 
Much criticism of over-reliance on satellite reconnaissance, on the grounds
that the chain of communications between it and the customers is too long.
A lower-resolution wide-area mapping capability is also badly needed.
Spot and Landsat did a landslide business with the cartographers, who
are pushing for approval of Landsat 7, saying that the big spysats are
ill-suited for mapping.  Mapping problems were definitely serious, with
some Tomahawks being fired against Iraq from the Mediterranean so that
they could get their bearings over well-mapped terrain in southern
Turkey before heading into Iraq.
 
Various improvements planned for Patriot, including a capability to use
its precision radar to calculate the launch site of an incoming missile.
 
Soviets supply pictures and details of a previously-secret Gemini-class
manned spacecraft design that is being converted into an unmanned
materials-processing satellite.  The manned version never flew, although
unmanned preliminary missions flew in the late 1970s... including one
capsule that flew three times!  "And the US claimed its space shuttle
was the first reusable spacecraft."  Various Western customers are said
to be interested, including at least one US experimenter with shuttle
experience who is fed up with endless delays waiting for US flight
opportunities.  NASA, naturally, claims that US microgravity people
"are not wanting for flight opportunities".
 
Energia/Buran is being stacked for an early 1992 unmanned test, although
the program's future is still in doubt due to lack of customers.  There
are also reports that the "Mir 2" project has been cancelled or shelved
as a cost-cutting move.
 
Synthesis Group reportedly will urge putting the F-1 engine back into
production as a first-stage engine for a heavylift booster.  [As per my
usual policy, I'll avoid detailed coverage of stories that have been
rendered obsolete by more recent developments -- in this case, the
actual release of the Synthesis Group report.]
 
Tearing of hair at JPL after Galileo's high-gain antenna opens less
than halfway.  There is no desperate rush to fix it, but Galileo is
in big trouble if the antenna isn't open by Jupiter arrival in 1995.
The Gaspra encounter this October should still be possible with the
antenna stuck [although optical navigation for precise camera pointing
will be hurt badly, reducing the chances of getting good pics].  Cause
is not yet determined, although the obvious finger points at the sun
shades added late in the program.  It's nothing simple, though, because
the deployment mechanism is easily powerful enough to rip through a
loose sunshade insulation blanket.
 
The deployment should have taken under 3min, but in fact the "deployed"
sensors never did trip, and a software timer stopped the motors after 8min.
Motor-current telemetry says they ran normally for the first 17s
(about 7 degrees of rib movement), then slowed until they stalled at
about 50s.  One of the ribs partially blocked a sun sensor, indicating
it was out perhaps 40 degrees.  Current best guess is that the other
side is hung up at about 17 degrees and the ballscrew is being bent by
the unbalanced loads; there is concern that it might break if pushed
too far.  [Worse, private sources say that it can't be backed off --
the motor drive only works one way.]  The antenna is similar to that
used on the TDRS series, which have had no antenna problems.  After
some cautious investigation, things like warming and cooling the
antenna will be tried.  JPL is already thinking about what could be
done if the antenna is a writeoff.  One idea is to send a lightweight
relay satellite to Jupiter by a fast trajectory; Galileo can easily do
high-data-rate transmission through its low-gain antennas if the listener
is close by.
 
Letter from Charles Radley commenting on an aspect of the Cape-upgrades
coverage in 18 March issue.  The Cape people claimed that "payloaders"
want last-minute access to their birds on the pad.  Radley says this is
an artifact of Cape regulations, which insist that arming of rocket
motors and the like be done only on the pad.  The contractors would be
happy to do this before final rollout, as is done at "foreign launch
sites" [presumably Kourou], which would save time and money and reduce
the hazards of having a technician crawling around inside the nosecone.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from April 29 AW&ST
Date: 5 Jul 91 04:07:03 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Editorial urging the US to get its act together on access to space for
materials work.  "Soviet success in luring Western business to its
materials processing flights should rest on the merits of the Soviet
capabilities -- not the dissatisfaction of Western researchers with
their own national capabilities."
 
NASA adds replacement of a failed rate gyro to the list of things to
be done by the HST repair mission.  Meanwhile, persistent software work
has greatly eased the solar-array "flapping" problems, but at the cost
of just about saturating HST's computers, and replacing the arrays is
also on the list.
 
It's the month for antenna problems:  Anik E2's C-band antenna fails to
deploy in Clarke orbit.  [They got it deployed yesterday, to everyone's
relief.]
 
Les Aspin hints that there may be an effort to take theater antimissile
defences out from under SDIO; efforts aimed at such defences can expect
plenty of money but very sharp scrutiny of management and policies.
 
The importance of space systems in the Gulf war has stirred up more debate
about export controls on space hardware.  However, current policy is that
most spacecraft bus hardware will be off the "critical list", as will
civilian comsats without antijam capability.  Policy issues are still
being debated for high-accuracy navsats and high-resolution remote sensing.
 
DoD officially decides to proceed with a new-generation missile-warning
satellite design.
 
Endeavour rolls out, on schedule and under budget.  [One would hope that
NASA and Congress would learn something from this nearly-unprecedented
situation, but they won't...]  The orbiter lifting fixture recently moved
from Vandenberg to Palmdale is being readied to load Endeavour on 747back
for the flight to KSC.  The orbiter will effectively be in storage at KSC
for about five months until the time comes to move it into the processing
flow for its first mission, the Intelsat 6 repair.  Four SSMEs (including
one spare) are finished at Rocketdyne, and will go to KSC shortly for
installation in September.  These are the first SSMEs to have a new improved
engine controller, which is lighter, cheaper, more capable, and built with
more modern parts to ease the increasingly difficult spares situation for
the old ones.  (The rest of the SSME inventory will get the new controllers
over the next two years.)
 
And now the bad news... with no replacement planned, never mind in sight,
the orbiter production facilities are closing.  Nearly half of Rockwell's
people at Palmdale will be laid off when Endeavour leaves, and most of
the rest will go when refurbishment of Columbia is finished in February.
The only thing left is the contract to build a new set of structural
spares (the previous set having been used to build Endeavour), and that
won't last long or use many people.
 
The chairman of Alenia Spazio (formed by merger of Aeritalia and Selenia)
is urging that Italy take over development and production of ESA's Columbus
space-station module if Germany can't be talked out of its determination to
scale down the project.  "It would be a terrible mistake if we cut the
module's length to save a few hundred million dollars now..."  Alenia is
also studying development of a small logistics module to be attached to
the station to support early operations, until Boeing's full-size module
becomes available late in the construction; this would be a straight
US-Italy deal with no ESA involvement.
 
Alenia proposes Ecosat, an environmental-monitoring satellite carrying
an X-band radar and a multispectral scanner.
 
More on the Centaur failure.  The turbopump in one engine did not spin
up properly, which prevented that engine from starting.  The reason is
unknown; all telemetry readings were fine until the turbopump refused
to turn.  It is unlikely that any physical evidence can be recovered,
and the cause of the failure may never be known.  This is the first
RL-10 engine failure in many years.
 
Meanwhile, with the BS-3H broadcastsat joining BS-2X in the water (2X
was lost in the Ariane failure in Feb 1990), NHK and Japan Satellite
Broadcasting are trying to figure out how to avoid suspending a
substantial fraction of Japan's commercial TV broadcasting in May.
That's when BS-3A, now in orbit, may have to cut back from three
channels to two for a while due to unfavorable sun angles.  One
idea is to reactivate BS-2B temporarily, but very little control
fuel is left aboard 2B and it would last only 6-8 weeks.  BS-3B is
scheduled to go up in August on an H-1, but it will not be ready
for use until late fall.  (3B is ready to go, but it cannot be
launched earlier because agreements with the fishermen's unions
limit launch seasons at Tanegashima.)  There is starting to be some
muttering in Japan about the unreliability of foreign launchers and
the need to get the H-2 operating sooner.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from April 1 AW&ST
Date: 17 Jul 91 05:12:54 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[No, this is not a belated April Fools' joke.  The Post Awful finally
coughed up my copy of the April 1 issue.  So, herewith a real quick
look at what got missed...]
 
SP-100 space reactor project undergoing revisions to aim it a bit less
at SDI applications and a bit more at NASA applications, for budget
reasons.
 
Hughes sues US government for breach of contract, the contract in question
being a 1985 agreement to launch ten comsats on the shuttle.  Hughes is
claiming $288M in damages, mostly to cover the increased costs of booking
expendable launches.
 
General agreement that satellite communications will replace HF radio
for transoceanic airline operations within this decade.  Less certain is
whether VHF will be replaced for continental operations; VHF, unlike HF,
works pretty well, and replacing it with satcom gear would be costly.
The transoceanic folks have no doubts about their end of it, though.
Among schemes being tested are automatic transmission of airliner positions
to air-traffic control centers and transmission of weather-satellite data
to airliners in flight.
 
Atlantis preparing for Gamma-Ray Observatory mission with its multiple EVAs.
The last US EVA was in 1985, and the gap shows:  most of NASA's support
crews with EVA experience have moved to other jobs, and only 5 of the 15
shuttle astronauts with EVA experience are still with the program.
 
Various NASP design details settled in the first of five scheduled design
cycles.  The main structure will be the skin, built from titanium-based
composites.  The internal tanks, made of graphite-epoxy composites, will
not be structural.  The hot areas of the skin, perhaps 20-25% of the
exposed area, will be covered by large carbon-carbon insulating panels.
The engine people are still fiddling with their designs, but their
choice of materials has been frozen at those fabricated and tested as
of the beginning of this year.  It was thought that this might drive up
the engine weight, but so far that hasn't happened.  Finally, recent
work at Lewis has resulted in a firm decision to use slush hydrogen
as the fuel.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 6 AW&ST
Date: 19 Jul 91 00:10:54 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Cover picture is the Endeavour rollout.
 
Edsat Institute, which promotes use of satellites for education, is lobbying
Congress for a dedicated education comsat.  Educational programming mostly
comes under "occasional user" provisions, and is subject to being bumped if
demand is high... and comsat demand was so high during the Gulf War that
satellite education work was badly disrupted, including some students who
were unable to complete degree work in time to graduate this spring.
 
Titan 4 improved-SRB failure investigation finds that internal pressures
exceeded 1800psi just before the explosion, against the casing's maximum
normal operating pressure of 1200 and ultimate design limit of 1700.
 
Bush bars export of US components for Chinese domestic comsat, due to
the belief that the Chinese companies involved have been active in selling
missiles to the Third World (a subject of much negotiation right now).
However, exports for Australian and Swedish projects to build satellites
for launch on Long March were approved.
 
Postmortem on STS-39, the first US manned mission ever devoted entirely to
military R&D.  The mission generally went well, despite tape-recorder
failures and unexpectedly high coolant consumption in the Cirris infrared
telescope.  (Schedules were shuffled to complete Cirris work before it
ran out of coolant.)  There was an unusual amount of aurora australis
activity during the mission, and Discovery passed through auroral displays
near Antarctica.  Also of note were television images of thruster firings,
taken from the Spas subsatellite, which showed exhaust plumes visible to
much greater lengths than expected.
 
The Discovery mission went off on time despite a string of minor problems
during countdown.  Novel during this flight were abort options to land at
one of four East Coast military bases in the event of multiple engine
failure.
 
SDI notes that the fully unclassified nature of STS-39 saved quite a bit
of money.  (Well, not quite fully unclassified:  the data is secret,
although the hardware used to get it is not.)
 
Investigation reveals that Jay Apt punctured the pressure bladder of his
spacesuit during his spacewalk April 8; the leak was too small to be
noticed until postflight inspection.  A stainless-steel "palm bar" in
the glove, designed to prevent the glove from ballooning, wore a small
hole and also seems to have scratched Apt's hand -- a small amount of
dried blood was found.  Gloves for STS-39 hastily altered.
 
Senior Soviet official reports that a slight increase in the Soviet space
budget is possible over the next five years, although emphasis will shift.
Gregori Cherniavsky adds that the Soviets lead the world in space propulsion
but have too many different launchers, and suffer from excessive secrecy
in many areas of their space program.
 
Space station budget in trouble in House.
 
Big color pictures of the Gamma Ray Observatory deployment and the spacewalk
experiments that followed.
 
Story on the scaling-down of the KSC space-station processing facility to
match the shrinkage of the station.
 
Landsat images of Kuwait showing the huge smoke plumes from burning oilfields.
 
Brilliant Pebbles suborbital test uses new LLNL wide-field star tracker
for attitude sensing.  Picture showing a star-tracker view from 100 miles
up, including lights from several East Coast cities.  The tracker's
unusually wide field of view lets it orient itself immediately using
only a small catalog of about 500 of the brightest stars.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 13 AW&ST
Date: 23 Jul 91 02:53:02 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Photos from the Discovery military shuttle mission, including a gorgeous
one of the aurora australis over Antarctica.  Also of note was an in-flight
repair done to bypass failed tape recorders.
 
Discovery lands at KSC after being waved off from Edwards due to high winds
there.  KSC people, who are pushing to be considered a normal landing site,
were happy.  They were less happy after the landing, since Discovery's right
outboard tire was in shreds by the time the orbiter stopped.  (Heavy tire
wear was not entirely unexpected, given a planned test of heavy braking on
a hard-surface runway, but this is a bit beyond what was planned for.)
 
Endeavour arrives at KSC.
 
Decision imminent on what is to be done about Hubble.  The Costar proposal,
to replace the high-speed photometer with a device to move corrective
mirrors into the optical path to the other axial instruments, is over
budget but otherwise looks so promising that it is virtually sure to be
approved.  Work is now underway to determine whether a photometer could
be included in it (!) to replace the lost one.  The repair mission is
starting to look crowded.  NASA is willing to budget for four 6-hour
spacewalks, but would like to hold one of those in reserve.  The current
work list -- new WFPC, new solar arrays, Costar, and replacing one [now
two!] gyros -- already pretty well fills three.
 
Meanwhile, the more pessimistic predictions about Hubble are generally
turning out false.  Longer exposures and sophisticated image processing
have things under control except for the faintest objects, and surprises
are already showing up a lot.  "Everywhere we point it we see something
bizarre."
 
Military tactical satellite business is bullish after the Gulf War.  GPS's
stock in particular is booming, USAF commanders having discovered that maps
of obscure areas like Iraq are often wrong or nonexistent.  The USAF has
put a very high priority on a followon to the DSP missile-warning satellites.
Various comsat systems got stressed well beyond expectations.  The military
weather satellites were used both for their normal purpose and, via their
microwave imagers, for assessing soil characteristics for troop movements.
DoD bought a lot of pictures from Spot Image, and is pushing for a better
followon to the current Landsats so the US will have its own system.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 20 AW&ST
Date: 24 Jul 91 06:59:04 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
NASA group, using Landsat 5 images, finds arc of sinkholes in Yucatan,
confirming earlier geophysical evidence suggesting a major impact crater
there.  The significance is that this may be the one that caused the
Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction.
 
Hawaii Space Development Authority selects Palima Point and Kahilipali
Point as possible sites for a commercial launch facility.
 
NASDA does successful 350s test run of LE-7 at nearly full power.  [Notable
because this engine has been prone to fires and other signs of troubled
development.]
 
Space station in trouble as House panel votes to kill funding.  [As usual,
I will refrain from detailed reporting of already-dated news.]  NASA brass
startled:  "this came from the committee that asked us [last year] to do
something about the space station design...  We thought we had done what
we were supposed to do."  Committee staff prepares "sample distributions"
of funding with and without station, carefully calculated to cause uproar
since the with-station one shows cuts in a wide range of other NASA work.
[It's depressing to see how many otherwise intelligent people swallowed
this propaganda tactic hook, line, and sinker, and concluded that the only
hope for those programs was to kill the station.]
 
Successful launch of NOAA-D, a low-orbit weather satellite, from Vandenberg
aboard an Atlas.  NOAA-D will become NOAA-12, replacing NOAA-10 which is
nearing the end of its life.  NOAA-D is an old bird, having spent several
years in storage because its predecessors lasted longer than expected.
 
Germany and Japan to propose recoverable microgravity capsule to carry
payload up to 200kg.  Launch would be via ISAS's Mu3S2 launcher, with
recovery in Australia.
 
Arabsat 1C booked on Ariane, apparently abandoning earlier booking on
Long March.  The official excuse is complications in the infrastructure
and support needed to launch on Long March.  [One might wonder a bit
whether political pressure was a factor.  The Arabs are vulnerable to
US pressure just now...]
 
Arianespace puts ERS-1 launch on hold pending investigation of yet another
problem with the third-stage engine:  a pressure drop in the hydrogen system
during ignition.  The drop is within margins but is not well understood.
Postponement of the May 3 launch will tie into some reshuffling of payloads
expected anyway:  Anik E1, set for July, will be postponed until E2's antenna
deployment problem is better understood, and Japan's Spacebird B will not be
ready for its scheduled November launch.
 
Columbia prepares for Spacelab Life Sciences mission.  This will be the
first flight of the big pressurized Spacelab module since Challenger, and
also the first flight of the animal-holding facility since its troubled
initial test in 1985 (it's been improved).  Also to be tested is a new
"hood" facility to permit free-fall work on chemicals or animals, using air
flow to contain "particulate matter" and keep it from drifting around the
cabin; for this initial test, only some test materials will be tried.
The crew are both experimenters -- three MDs and one medical PhD out of
a crew of seven -- and guinea pigs themselves, with orbit chosen to permit
landing without shifting the crew's day/night cycle and plans to take the
crew out of the orbiter at once so that medical tests can start within
45min of landing.
 
Magellan succesfully completes its first mapping cycle, still running well
despite various woes (including a 32-hour outage in early May).  The second
cycle will fill in the gaps in the first-cycle maps, including as much of
the south polar region as possible.  It will also try constant-angle right-
looking mapping in addition to the varying-angle left-looking method used
for the initial planetary map; this will give better comparisons to earlier
fixed-angle data from Earth and Venera 15 and 16, and will determine how the
varying angle affects imaging.  Also on the agenda is looking for changes
in the surface since the first cycle, and experimenting with new radar
techniques:  interferometry for ultra-precision altimetry, stereo imaging,
imaging at a different polarization angle, and doubling the resolution of
normal imaging by doubling pulse rate.
 
In the longer term, tentative plans have been made for the third through
seventh cycles.  The two big unknowns are whether Magellan can successfully
aerobrake, and whether interferometric altimetry will work.  Aerobraking
into a circular orbit would make gravitational measurements vastly more
accurate, improve radar resolution from 400ft to 150ft, and make a constant
look angle possible for large-scale mapping.  The main worry is limited
knowledge of Venus's atmosphere, especially at a time of high solar activity.
Some data on this will be had when Pioneer Venus, starting to run low on
fuel, makes a kamikaze dive into the atmosphere in 1992.  A secondary worry
is Magellan's flakey attitude-control computer, since tumbling during
aerobraking could be fatal.  Heat load and drag -- estimated at about 1
pound -- would be tolerable.  Also being looked at are other complications
of the lower orbit:  a faster mapping cycle, more blockage of communication
by the planet, less average solar power, and greater heating by sunlight
reflected from the planet (a particular concern because Magellan is already
running hotter than expected).  The other big question mark, interferometric
altimetry, could permit detecting changes of surface height down to a few
centimeters by combining data from 2-3 orbits, if position and timing of
the mapping pulses can be determined accurately enough.
 
If a review board in August okays the two biggies, the tentative schedule
for cycles 3-7 -- not yet formally approved or funded -- is:
 
3. Radar modes.  Various techniques, including interferometry, to get
	altitude information out of the main radar.  Higher resolution.
	Bistatic radar, with Magellan transmitting and Earth stations
	receiving.  Polarization experiments.
 
4. Gravity measurements, plus more radar-mode work.
 
5. 5-8 months of aerobraking.
 
6,7. Mapping and gravimetry in circular orbit.
 
If aerobraking is rejected, cycles 5-7 will do more radar experiments and
re-image parts of the planet to look for changes.  All of this is somewhat
subject to further equipment failures.  In particular, one of the two tape
recorders is already dead, and everyone is crossing fingers that the other
one lasts; gravimetry (which doesn't use the recorder) has been postponed
to get more imaging done early.
 
Matra Marconi Space proposes a major enlargement of the France/Italy/Spain
Helios spysat project.  Helios is currently one Spot-derived spacecraft to
fly in 1994, plus a second as a spare.  MMS proposes launching the second
one too, then proceeding to a second-generation pair adding infrared
instruments, and then a third group adding some specialized radarsats
and eavesdropping satellites.  (An experimental eavesdropping package is
slated to fly on the first Helios.)  MMS says the Gulf War has brought
out the need for sensors that can work in darkness and through cloud.
 
First Hubble images of Jupiter.
 
"Forum" article by Thomas J. Frieling, an aerospace historian, proposing
to forget ALS and Shuttle-C in favor of an improved revival of the Saturn V.
He suggests, in particular, modernizing the computers, using more modern
materials for the tanks, and re-engining the second and third stages with
SSMEs for higher performance and one less engine production line.  Launch
would be from KSC:  one VAB bay would be revised to restore Saturn V stack
and checkout capability, a new mobile launch platform and umbilical tower
would be built (the existing ones having been converted for shuttle use),
and Pad 39C -- planned and provided for but never built -- would be built
as the launch site.  His basic argument is that while this plan is not
cheap, it makes better use of existing facilities and involves fewer
technical risks than the all-new ALS, while having a much larger payload.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from May 27 AW&ST
Date: 26 Jul 91 01:30:38 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Editorial questioning the House subcommittee decision on the space station,
noting that this is the same committee that requested the latest redesign.
"The panel has not plausibly explained, let alone justified, its about-face."
 
Soyuz TM-12, carrying replacement Mir crew Artsebarsky and Kirkalov plus
Juno cosmonaut Helen Mace, docks with Mir May 20 after the damaged guidance
antenna on Mir forces a manually-controlled approach.
 
House defense bill funds SDI at $2.7G but Brilliant Pebbles at 0.
 
White House and NASA gear up to fight the House move to kill Fred, as the
international partners object loudly.  ESA Director General Jean-Marie Luton
says treating such a major project this way "does great damage to credibility
in US international cooperative commitments".  Japanese response, now in
preparation, will be similar; Lenoir says the Japanese have told Truly that
they will pursue their own space station if the US abandons the project.
 
Astro 2 comes back from the dead:  the Astro ultraviolet telescope package
will fly again in 1993.
 
Shuttle management investigating why it took so long to find out that a
defective temperature probe removed from Columbia was in fact a serious
hazard.  The sensor was a minor contributor to Columbia's hydrogen leaks
last fall, but on analysis a much graver problem turned up.  The sensor
was badly cracked and part might have broken off and gotten into the
fuel flow... just upstream of the turbopumps.  There are nine of these
sensors in the orbiter plumbing, and the six monitoring temperatures
just above the engines have no filters between them and the pumps.
Word of this reached NASA well into Columbia's countdown, which was
scrubbed pending checks of all the sensors, underway now.  The sensor
may have flown with the crack several times.  Discovery's sensors, more
accessible since it isn't on the pad, include two cracked and two
others that are being X-rayed.  The underlying problem seems to be a
minor design change made after the sensors malfunctioned during ground
tests of the SSMEs ten years ago.  Sensor spares have been X-rayed, and
nine unquestionably good ones will be installed in Columbia to avoid
further launch delay.  In the long run, NASA is considering deleting
some of the sensors, since they are basically leftovers from early
development work.
 
More detail on Brilliant Eyes, SDI's proposed 50-satellite constellation
of missile warning and tracking satellites.  Each will weigh about 1000lbs
and will carry a pair of infrared telescopes plus a lidar system to let a
single satellite do a full trajectory determination of a missile.  There
is thought to be reasonable hope for this program even if Brilliant Pebbles
goes down in flames, although a name change might be a good idea.
 
Preliminary results from the investigation of the Titan 4 upgraded-SRB
explosion:  a combination of an unexpected pattern of gas flow and
deformation of the fuel restricted gas flow enough to cause a rapid
pressure buildup.  Relatively minor changes to fuel shape should suffice
as a fix.  The second test motor will be modified accordingly before
firing next spring.  Rebuilding the test stand is actually going to be
the biggest delay.

From: [email protected] (news)
Subject: Summary of articles in ESA bulletin 91/01 (february)
Date: 26 Jul 91 07:07:21 GMT
Organization: Philips Research Laboratories Eindhoven, the Netherlands
 
(ERS-1 Special Issue)
From: [email protected] (Harm Munk)
Path: cst3!munk
 
(This summary was due for rather a long time. Because of private matters
 I did not find the time to complete it until last week. If anyone
 was expecting it to come forth sooner, I apologise for the delay.
 Happy reading ... any questions for more details can be mailed to me.
 Harm Munk.
)
 
Introduction
[P. Goldsmith]
This first article in the ERS-1 special issue of ESA Bulletin
presents results of ESA's Earth-Observation Programme: the
Meteosat programme (with the Meteosat and, more recently, the MOP
satellites) for Europe's contribution to the World Weather Watch,
and the Earthnet programme which objective is to make data from
Earth-observation satellites, such as ERS-1, available to a broad
community.
 
ERS-1 Ready for Launch
[J.J. Burger]
The article describes the incentive and part of the history of
the programme which led to the construction of ERS-1. It gives
a summary of the instruments on board ERS-1 and their corresponding
mission objectives: the Active Microwave Instrument, consisting of
the Synthetic-Aperture Radar for all-weather images and for the
derivation of lengths and directions of ocean waves; the Wind
Scatterometer for obtaining sea-surface wind speed and direction;
the Radar Altimeter for measuring significant wave heights, sea-
surface wind speeds and ice parameters; the Along-Track Scanning
Radiometer and Microwave Sounder for measuring sea-surface and
cloud-top temperature, cloud cover and atmospheric water vapour.
Also on board are the Precise Range and Range-Rate Equipment for
determining the satellites position and orbit characteristics,
and for determining the position of points on the ground; and a
Laser Retro-Reflector again for determining the satellites
position and orbit but with Laser Ranging Stations on the ground.
Some of ERS-1 data will be available within 3 hours after
observation, which requires a well organised ground segment.
 
The ERS-1 Mission Objectives
[G. Duchossois]
The key objective of ERS-1 is improving the understanding of our
environment. One of its elements is the understanding of the
ocean boundary layer where the processes of heat, moisture and
momentum transfer take place. Another element is the modelling
of the ocean circulation. The possible responses of the polar
regions to global warming will also be monitored by ERS-1, as
well as the measurement of land-surface parameters such as
surface temperature and soil moisture. It will be possible to
monitor processes such as erosion, sedimentation and currents
which take place along coastal lines and to detect oil slicks
from ERS-1 data. ERS-1 data will contribute to forecasting
weather, sea-state and ice conditions and will provide wind
observations near the sea-surface and sea-surface temperatures.
Tracking ERS-1 precise orbit will also contribute to our
understanding of the Earth's gravitational field, its crust and
its interior.
 
The ERS-1 Spacecraft and Its Payload
[R. Francis, G. Graf, P.G. Edwards, M. McGraig, c. McCarty, P.
Dubock, A. Lefebvre, B. Pieper, P.-Y. Pouvreau, R. Wall, F.
Wechsler, J. Louet, R. Zobl]
Initial mission requirements and the corresponding payload
requirements of the ERS-1 are given in this article. Also, orbit
parameters and the supporting satellite platform are described
besides the attitude and orbit control systems and the on-board
command and control system. A summary of the on-board data
handling and telemetry is followed by a description of each of
the scientific instruments. Next, development and testing of the
satellite are described and the initial mission phase (satellite
deployment) is given in some detail as well.
 
The ERS-1 ground segment
[M. Fea]
The ERS-1 system is, a.o. intended to demonstrate some of the
commercial capabilities of the European Remote-Sensing Programme.
This article describes the way ERS-1 data is handled on the
ground, from reception to user distribution and archiving, as
well as the ground control for ERS-1. It explains the ground
segment concept and requirements, the end-users of the data, the
distribution of the various tasks among centralised and
distributed facilities and the location and tasks of the ground
stations.
 
The Processing and Exploitation of ERS-1 Payload Data
[S. Bruzzi]
ERS-1 data differs in nature, must therefore be processed by
different systems for different users pursuing different goals,
scientific or otherwise. This article explains which studies are
performed with ERS-1 data, and how these data are processed to
reach the anticipated goals of the studies. Because the ERS-1
mission is in fact a combination of several missions carried out
at the same time, the planning of the operations is rather
complex. The various requirements of the missions and those of
the different disciplines using the data are often conflicting.
These conflicts and their resolutions are described at the end
of the article.
 
The Control and Monitoring of ERS-1
[D. Andrews, S.J. Dodsworth, M.H. McKay]
The complexity of the ERS-1 satellite, its payload and the
returned satellite data all have a heavy impact on that part of
the ground segment involved in monitoring and controlling ERS-
1. In this article, the history of the development and a look
ahead at the launch preparations, the low Earth orbit phase,
payload instrument switch-on and finally routine operations is
given by three members of ESOC.
 
ERS-1 Calibration and Validation
[E. Attema, R. Francis]
Before ERS-1 measurement data is usefull, it will have gone
through three phases: it is measured in physical quantities such
as field strength and time, related to other physical quantities
to arrive at engineering data and lastly these engineering
quantities are interpreted as geophysical quantities such as wind
speed and wave height. For all these steps some kind of
calibration must be done. This article gives for every active
instrument on board ERS-1 the method of engineering calibration,
and concludes with the planned geophysical calibrations.
 
Industrial Cooperation on ERS-1
[H. Ege]
In this article a description is given of the bringing together
and cooperation of several industrial firms as well as the
difficulties encountered during the several phases of the
development of the ERS-1 mission.
 
ERS-2 and Beyond
[C. Readings, I. Stevenson, N. de Villiers]
The ongoing effort of ESA's Earth-observation programme is
described in this article, giving an outlook at the proposed ERS-
2 mission (providing continuity of the unique data stream
provided by ERS-1), and several other proposed missions which
should provide insight in the precise structure of the Earth's
gravitational and magnetic fields and provide meteorological
data.
 
Europe's Contribution to the International Space Year
[B.R.K. Pfeiffer]
1992 will be the International Space Year, a worldwide initiative
to enhance international collaboration in the field of space
research to, a.o., better understand the Earth's environment. In
this article the organisation of the ISY, with a description of
the subjects of the three supporting Panels of Experts (Earth
Science and Technology, Education and Applications, Space
Science) and a description of the special events in 1992 is
given.
 
----- End of Summary ESA bulletin 91/01 -----

From: [email protected] (swaraj jeyasingh)
Subject: Space News from Flight International(July)
Date: 26 Jul 91 16:07:26 GMT
Organization: British Telecom Labs
 
Sorry people, I have been slack in getting out space news from Flight
International. Usual excuses (busy, lazy). The posting from Jonathan Leach
got me scurrying to my back issues of Flight to cull what exciting things are
going on the international front. So this is some of the more interesting
news from the last month. I've tried to cover stuff not mentioned in other
summaries:
 
 
Israel is to send a  cosmonaut  to  Mir.  A  letter of intent has been
signed to this effect.   The  flight  will  be  paid for commercially,
unlike the international co-operative agreement which allowed a Syrian
cosmonaut to fly to Mir in 1987.  The Israeli cosmonaut will conduct a
series of space experiments provided by the National space agency ISA.
The next international  commercial  mission  will  be  by  an Austrian
cosmonaut on 2nd October.
 
Still in Israel.  The  ISA  has  approved  a  study  of  a proposed UV
telescope called Tauvex. This is  to  be developed by El-Op Industries
in conjunction with Tel Aviv University and will be launched aboard an
Israeli satellite. [no mention of launcher]
 
 
The Soviets are at the design  stage  of  a  Aero Space Plane (ASP), a
SSTO launcher project. This  secret  project  has been unclassified bu
the Soviet president  because  he  "wants  an  open  discussion of its
feasibility ", "stressing its  great  importance for the technological
progress of this country,  high  expenses  for  its accomplishment and
consideration of possible international cooperation".
 
The Soviets are already working with  British Aerospace on a potential
satellite launch system  using  HOTOL  and  the  An-225. This involves
replacing the original air-breathing  rocket  engine with conventional
Soviet rocket motors.
 
Japan is to launch its TR-1 rocket  for  the first time this August or
September. It was developed  to  test  systems  for the H-II satellite
launcher.  This first launch will be as a sounding rocket and will  be
launched from NASDA's  Tanegashima launch  site.  It  will carry  four
experiments to obtain data  on planned  Space Station  [which one  ?!]
microgravity experiments.  TR-1 is 13m tall and is single stage  solid
propellent  rocket  capable  of  carrying  750kg  to  209km  altitude;
providing 6mins exposure to microgravity.   Experiments are  recovered
from the Pacific ocean after a parachute landing.
 
NASA and the Argentine Comision Nacional de Investigationes Especiales
(CNIE) have  met  to  finalise  construction  of  the  country's first
satellite. The $3m  spacecraft could  be  launched  in 1994. It is not
known whether the satellite will be launched by NASA or by Argentina's
Condor 2 ballistic missile. This  has  been  turned  over to CNIE as a
satellite launcher. Condor was deactivated  as a military system after
US presuure.
 
ESA is still aiming to launch the Infra-red Space Observatory (ISO) in
May 1993 despite development problems that have dealyed th eproject by
seven months. The most  serious  of  these  is  the faulty focal plane
imaging unit which, because there is  no  flight space model, may have
to fly unrectified.  Other  problems  included  a  leaky liquid helium
cryostat tank which has had to be reinforced.
 
Plans to extend Mir's life to  1997  by  replacing the core module and
related Soviet plans are revealed by Yuri Semenov, general designer of
NPO  Energia.  The  original  plan   for  replacement  station  and  a
mammoth Mir 2 have been shelved  due  to budgetary constraints. The old
core and the  existing  Kvant  2  and  Kristall  add-ons  will  be de-
orbited, [more space junk] leaving the  new  Spektr and Priroda modules
attached to the new core. The  Buran shuttle (manned or unmanned) will
be involved with some of the module  swapping  but it is not clear how
since the launch rate of Buran  and  Energia will be restricted. There
are no plans to bring back  the  old  core.  Ther are also no plans to
increase the number of resident crew on  Mir from the present level of
2. No plans to extend the  present  record  of one year stay either. A
manned trip to Mars  only  possible  after  2010  and  that only on an
international  basis.   Not  surprisingly,   the  whole  Soviet  space
programme now hangs on finance.
 
 
 
Swaraj Jeyasingh      [email protected]
BT Labs
Ipswich
England

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from June 3 AW&ST
Date: 27 Jul 91 03:17:53 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Congressional battle over the space station rages, but key committees
agree to permit NASA and contractor work to continue until the dust settles.
Truly notes that nobody has found specific fault with the current design.
Japan joins ESA in expressing alarm that the US would cancel a major
international project after specifically inviting other nations to join
in it, hinting that if the US reneges on the station agreement, Japan
will have to re-think participation in projects like the supercollider
and the human genome effort.  Japan's representative at station HQ is
blunter:  "It's crazy."  He says Japan would probably start talking to
ESA about going ahead without the US.  Truly observes that the Japanese
in particular have reason to be upset:  "They were planning a manned
space program in the 1980s, and at our urging put that aside."
 
Synthesis Group to recommend more aggressive pace for the return to the
Moon than NASA has been suggesting.  Controversy is expected over the
group's views on the space station.  Stafford is reportedly furious
over attempts to turn the report into an argument against the station,
saying that although the group will not recommend use as an assembly
base (preferring a heavylift booster to minimize in-orbit operations),
it will cite an absolute need for space-station life-sciences work to
reduce uncertainties about biological effects of long-duration spaceflight,
saying that alternative approaches could cause major delays in Moon/Mars
efforts.
 
NASA finds another cracked temperature probe in Columbia.  The three
most crucial probes have been replaced with blank plugs, and Columbia
has been cleared for launch.
 
ERS-1 launch slips further, as Arianespace decides to make changes to
Ariane V44 on the pad to eliminate a pressure dip during third-stage
ignition.  The dip has been seen in several recent launches, and there
is concern that although those launches were unaffected, a worst-case
dip might possibly disrupt ignition.  A change in manufacturing process
for some key parts is believed to be the reason why the problem has
shown up only recently.  A July launch of ERS-1 would keep Ariane on
track for eight launches this year.  The original plan was nine, but
delays in payload availabilty had already reduced that by one.
 
First rocket launch by the Spaceport Florida Authority will be from
Tuxpan, Mexico [!], a sounding rocket to study the total eclipse on
July 11.  The payload, at least, comes from Florida.  They had hoped
to use Cape San Blas in the Florida panhandle, but environmental-impact
paperwork has delayed availability of that site several months.
 
Motorola pushes a new use for its Iridium comsat network:  air-to-ground
telephone service, in competition with schemes to provide such service
via Clarke-orbit satellites.  Iridium could be substantially cheaper in
terms of the aircraft equipment, and would provide service in polar
regions where the geostationary birds can't.  Yet to be resolved is
whether Iridium will get the spectrum allocation Motorola wants, in a
band currently set aside for navsats.  (Mind you, Iridium *does* have
a navsat component, sort of, because the network has to keep track of
the whereabouts of its handsets to route calls to them.)  Various
further details on Iridium.  Although there will be redundancy at
latitudes above about 40 degrees due to the convergence of the planes
of the polar orbits, at the equator the coverage only barely overlaps,
and a satellite failure would produce an 8-10 min. hole about every
twelve hours.  Motorola is projecting a six-year satellite lifetime
and planning a continuous manufacturing operation, estimating that
launches of replacements will be needed every few weeks once the
system is operational.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from June 10 AW&ST
Date: 30 Jul 91 05:37:52 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Full-page ad, page 5, for OSC's latest stock offering.
 
ESA attempting to recover control of their heavy comsat Olympus after
orbital and attitude control lost May 29.  [The problem is tentatively
ascribed to operator error, although Olympus is complicated and cranky
at the best of times.]
 
Two attempts at a long-duration test firing of the Ariane 5 main engine
abort due to sensor problems.
 
After spirited debate, threats of a White House veto, and testimony from
representatives of both ESA and NASDA (the CSA was not there because
Canadian government representatives are forbidden by law to testify before
foreign legislatures), House floor vote halts the move to kill the space
station.  The price is freezing of most other NASA programs at current
funding, which will damage some that were [perhaps over-optimistically]
planning for large increases.
 
Synthesis Group higher-up Spence Armstrong describes the group's basic
approach as "no cul-de-sacs", an attempt to avoid dead ends and devise
a program that would provide significant accomplishments with reasonable
frequency.  His comment on approaches that organize everything into a
buildup for (say) a manned Mars mission with no intermediate steps:
"How are you going to get Congress to commit to a 30-year program?"
 
Magnavox shows Inmarsat satellite terminal small enough to fly as
carry-on luggage, setting up in three minutes to provide voice, data,
and fax via satellite.
 
Soviets validate a variant of their K-36 high-performance ejection seat
for spaceplane use, by an unusual approach:  prototype seats went up in
the escape towers on Progress launches, and were fired after the towers
separated from the launcher.  (The escape tower is primarily meant to
get a manned Soyuz out of trouble, but it is retained on the Progress
unmanned cargo carrier because it also is used to jettison the payload
fairing.)  Some minor design changes were made as a result of the tests,
which the Soviets say could not have been duplicated properly by simulation.
Italy's Fiat Spazio, teamed with Zvezda [the Soviet manufacturer], is
offering this seat for Hermes.  [The competition is Aermacchi plus
Martin-Baker, and politics may influence things because M-B is British
and Britain has refused to participate in Hermes funding.  The Soviets
aren't Hermes participants either, but relations there are thawing while
the ones with Britain are pretty frosty.]
 
Pictures of the Energia M mini-Energia launcher test article on the pad
at Baikonur.  Energia M uses a scaled-down core with only one main engine,
plus only two strap-ons, giving payload to orbit of 40 tons against 100+
for Energia itself.
 
Pictures of the second Buran orbiter, now finished assembly at Baikonur.
No launch date yet.
 
Columbia goes up with the Spacelab Life Sciences mission June 5.  One
concern appears, as some insulation has come loose in a position that
could interfere with the closing of the payload-bay doors.  An emergency
EVA is possible if necessary.  [Eventual assessment, proved correct on
reentry, was "no problem".]
 
Two Soviet cosmonaut MDs saw the Columbia launch as part of medical
cooperation on the flight.  Dr. Valeri Polyakov [eight months aboard
Mir] commented:  "Having both animals and humans together for analysis
on the same spacecraft is important to understanding overall zero-gee
effects on physiology."  In a related effort, several NASA scientists
were at Star City recently to use US instrumentation to examine the
latest Mir crew.
 
Columbia having gotten off successfully, after a four-day slip due to
electronics problems and a short delay due to weather, Pad 39B will be
out of service for some months for modifications and upgrades.  Next
use will be the first flight of Endeavour next May.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from June 17 AW&ST
Date: 1 Aug 91 02:04:17 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
NASDA plans a microgravity sounding-rocket launch from Tanegashima
in September, with more to follow in subsequent years.
 
Galileo engineers point finger at galling of locking pins, from the
vibration of ground transport, as the most likely cause for the stuck
antenna.
 
Schwarzkopf testifies to Congress that existing intelligence systems --
mostly satellites -- are geared for Washington consumption, not for
practical usefulness to commanders in the field, and that many chairwarmers
in Washington seem to believe that they can assess battle damage better
than field commanders can.  He says that the raw data was useful, but the
"analyses" from Washington were so full of waffling that they were useless.
 
Eosat expected to sign joint marketing agreement with Space Commerce and
the Soviet industrial group operating Almaz, covering sales of Landsat
data and Almaz radar images.  SCC is also talking to Spot Image and
Radarsat International, but the Eosat deal is considered the most likely.
 
International partners remain uneasy despite House vote to continue
space station.  They're also wondering about the future of EOS, which
is also big on international cooperation:  the project superficially
seems to be on a sounder footing, but the official reason advanced for
the move to kill the station -- "good project but costs too much" --
could easily apply to EOS.
 
NASA says construction of the EOS birds will be based on that of UARS,
the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (set to launch in November),
which was finished under cost and on schedule by maintaining adequate
reserves for unexpected problems and not overselling the program.
[What radical concepts.  NASA will never be able to do that for a
multi-billion dollar program, alas.]
 
Hermes slips.  First flight late in the year 2000 (vs 1998), followed
by about one flight per year (vs two).  This is as yet unofficial, part
of a restructuring plan proposed to the ESA nations, but nobody expects
them to argue.  Hermes is over budget -- partly because of schedule
stretches -- and over weight.  The latter is particularly serious because
Hermes is now at 24.5 tons and Ariane 5 is only rated for 22.5; an uprated
version of Ariane 5, with a hotter engine and larger tanks, is being
proposed.  The decision on Ariane 5 Plus is expected to be postponed
until 1996 or so to see what Ariane 5's performance is really like.
An attempt is being made to sell ESA on the idea of charging A5+ work
to the Ariane budget rather than the Hermes budget, on the grounds that
the extra lift will be useful for other things too.
 
Hermes has also lost some official roles; now its purpose in life is to
service the Columbus free-flier.  Use in conjunction with the space
station is now officially abandoned, simplifying interfacing requirements
for Hermes (and, perhaps not incidentally, ending the free-flier's last
need to coordinate design with the space station).
 
Double-page ad for Raytheon consisting mostly of a fairly striking photo:
cityscape at the bottom, two dots of light in the sky... and two curved
streaks of light going up to meet them.
 
First LDEF symposium, reporting early results from some of the experiments.
Radiation effects on the aluminum structure indicate that Fred's radiation
shielding should be adequate.  Atomic-oxygen erosion of organic materials
was more severe than expected, but even the smallest protective layer on
top kept them intact -- electron-microscope photo of an eroded surface
with what looks like a post in the middle, where a tiny salt crystal
protected the underlying Teflon.  The entire spacecraft was coated with
"silicon deposits" [I suspect this should be "silicone"], of unknown
origin -- outgassing from adhesives is suspected.  Polymers in general
did not survive well, between atomic oxygen and ultraviolet.  Meteorite
impacts caused delamination of laminated materials, which showed up some
penetrations strikingly because silver coatings, once delaminated, were
darkened by atomic oxygen in the neighborhood of the hits.
 
Debris hits were everywhere, but one surprise was the results from the
Interplanetary Dust Experiment, whose tape recorders recorded impact
times until they ran out of tape:  debris storms.  In 3 min. on 4 June
1984, LDEF took 131 hits, nearly 1% of all hits seen in the 348 days
that IDE was recording.  Lesser storms were seen at the same longitude
on subsequent orbits, up to about 25 encounters within two days, with
a single debris cloud presumed responsible for all.  The abrupt onset
and slow dispersal of the cloud suggests some sort of odd event.  No
satellite launches had occurred in the preceding few days, but preliminary
analysis suggests the cloud's orbit might match that of Cosmos 1567,
launched about a week before.  The most noteworthy conclusion so far is
that more attention needs to be paid to debris variations in both space
and time.
 
SDI Relay Mirror Experiment completes its official test schedule, having
demonstrated tracking and pointing precision even better than expected
(as measured by low-power laser beams bounced from one ground site to
another).  Details classified.
 
Columbia crew prepares to return to Earth after highly successful Spacelab
Life Sciences mission.  Supply margins were good enough to keep the Spacelab
module powered up for the seventh day, shelving the original plan to shut
it down, and some extra experiments were done, notably examination and
handling of a rat in the "hood" particle-containment facility.  Analysis
says that the loose insulation in the payload bay will not interfere with
door closing, although the crew will observe closing from one of the
Spacelab portholes and is prepared to extend the mission a day for a
spacewalk to deal with the problem if necessary [it wasn't].  Otherwise,
the only serious hardware problem was the failure of the orbiter's
fridge, which required moving blood and urine samples to the Spacelab
fridges and paying careful attention to their erratic behavior.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from June 24 AW&ST
Date: 2 Aug 91 02:30:36 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Thailand picks Hughes to build its first domestic comsats.
 
Gamma Ray Observatory burst/transient experiment is seeing gamma ray bursts
at a rate of about five a week, roughly three times the previous best
results.
 
Senators Cohen and Warner propose a deal with the Soviets on ABM systems:
US defers development of space-based interceptors in return for a consensus
on permissibility of a ground-based limited defense system.
 
NRC Space Studies Board endorses the importance of life-sciences work on
the space station as a step toward future long-duration missions, but
notes the lack of a dedicated life-sciences lab in current plans.
 
OSC review group attempting to determine why the first Prospector suborbital
microgravity flight went off course and had to be destroyed shortly after
liftoff June 18.  The payload module separated before the destruct signal
but sank before it could be recovered.
 
Soviets provide detailed interface information for their Glonass navsats
to the US's Airline Electronic Engineering Committee, the intent being a
joint specification for combined Navstar/Glonass receivers.
 
Galileo's Gaspra flyby will be done without benefit of the high-gain
antenna even if it is freed first, because encounter planning must be
done well in advance and Oct 29th is getting close.  The current theory
about the antenna problem is a combination of galling between standoff
pins on the antenna ribs and their holes in the central post, and thermal
expansion and contraction.  As the metal central post cooled and shrank,
some of the pins on the graphite ribs became stuck.  As a further
complication, the attempt to open the antenna bent the stuck ribs and
rotated the pins so they are now binding against the bottom of the holes
rather than the top.  This would explain why warming the antenna didn't
free it; cooling it is what's wanted.  That might suffice, and it will
be tried.  Engineers are also looking at other ways of jiggling the ribs.
 
Synthesis Group outlines four possible schemes for space exploration, all
leading to manned Mars landings in 2014-2016.  All call for heavylift
launchers, limited in-orbit assembly, nuclear space propulsion, and
using the Moon as a testbed for Mars.  Nuclear propulsion and a 250T
launcher are cited as absolutely crucial, with nuclear thermal suggested
for the former and Saturn V technology (notably the F-1 engine) for the
latter.  "The US used to own those technologies."  Various others were
cited as significant, as was streamlined management:  "The Space
Exploration Initiative is so great in scope that it cannot be executed
in a `business as usual' manner and have any chance for success."  One
technology the report is skeptical about is aerobraking at 13 km/s or
more in the poorly-known Mars atmosphere.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 1 AW&ST
Date: 6 Aug 91 00:48:45 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
USAF Academy cadets build and fly a small hybrid rocket.
 
Soviet navsat specialists collaborate with Northwest Airlines and Honeywell
to build joint Navstar/Glonass receiver.  Northwest plans in-flight antenna
tests this autumn and full receiver tests by the end of the year, using a
747 freighter currently flying route-proving flights between Anchorage and
Tokyo via Soviet airspace.
 
Astronomers studying IRAS results detect a new object, possibly either a
massive galaxy forming or a quasar in a dust cloud, which appears to be
the most luminous single object ever seen.
 
General Dynamics investigation concludes that the recent Centaur failure
was due to foreign object damage, with some sort of solid -- possibly
ice or frozen nitrogen -- in the failing turbopump.
 
Canada's Telesat Mobile signs with Arianespace for the 1994 launch of
the MSAT 1 mobile-communications satellite.
 
Crippen decides that KSC will now have equal status with Edwards for
shuttle landings, given the excellent performance of the carbon brakes
tested on recent flights.
 
NASDA opens competition for two new Japanese astronauts.
 
AW&ST notes that when Landsat images of secret Soviet facilities were
first published seventeen years ago, the USSR and even some NASA officials
objected.  Now, the Soviets are studying building a commercial Mediasat
to take high-resolution pics for subscribing news agencies.
 
US Defense Mapping Agency buys six test images from the Soviet Almaz radarsat
to assess their usefulness.
 
US prepares proposal for Bush-Gorbachev summit covering launch of two or
more Soviet cosmonauts on shuttle missions in exchange for long-duration
flights of US astronauts on Mir.  Missions would start circa 1993.
 
NASA is also studying conversion of one orbiter for a nine-month [!!]
flight capability.
 
Also in the news in current US-USSR cooperation is the first visit of
US personnel to the secret military Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a team from
Goddard preparing for the launch of a NASA ozone mapper on a Soviet
weather satellite.  The only mapper currently aloft is on the aging
Nimbus 7, and continuous coverage is considered important.  NASA will
launch a third mapper on a dedicated small satellite in 1993; the
Soviet weather satellites have a design lifetime of only two years.
 
Even though the ozone mapper is fifteen years old -- in fact, the one
that will fly on the Soviet satellite *is* fifteen years old, it being
the original engineering test model -- both State and DoD balked at
approving the transfer of the equipment to the USSR until the White House
snarled at them.  Various precautions were agreed on for ground handling.
Commands to the instrument will go via Soviet ground stations, and all
data from it will go to both US and Soviet ground stations.
 
Mir cosmonauts to perform a spacewalk this week to place a UC Berkeley
cosmic-ray detector on the outside of Mir.  It will stay there for two
years and be returned for analysis.
 
Mir cosmonauts replace damaged docking-system antenna in spacewalk June 26.
 
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers comes out against the
space station, saying that it costs too much for its mission.  "We don't
propose abandoning the space station; we propose a different space
station.  We don't propose abandoning manned space; we propose doing it
a different way."  IEEE wants to see a dedicated life-sciences station
using Spacelab hardware and possibly the interior of an external tank,
and suggests this could be done for $10G.  Their main concern is that
the high cost of the station will drain funds from technology development
efforts that have greater relevance to the US economy.
 
Stanford/Soviet study suggests that use of Energia boosters in an
international Mars mission could make it possible for 1/3 the cost of
an all-US effort.  The study proposes pre-launching surface equipment
and an orbiting fuel module to Mars in advance, fueling Energia-launched
spacecraft in a highly elliptical Earth orbit, and using aerobraking at
both ends.
 
Defense Intelligence Agency official testifies to extensive use of Spot
photos during USAF planning for strikes against Iraq.  The USAF is not
happy about being dependent on foreign commercial satellites, and would
like to see an upgraded Landsat system providing such imagery under US
control.
 
SDIO ground tests demonstrate operation of the Alpha laser at megawatt
power levels, clearing the way for integration with the LAMP advanced
mirror system, and a possible space test in 1996-8.  This test, named
Star Lite, would be a scaled-down version of the Zenith Star proposal
of a few years ago (which was inconveniently heavy for existing launchers).
Star Lite's objective is to fit on a Titan IV.
 
Paris Air Show news from Antonov includes wind-tunnel tests of a modified
Mriya carrying Hotol.  The major modification is that the inboard engine
position on each wing now carries a two-engine pod rather than a single
engine.
 
Cape engineers undertake major repairs on the Delta launch complex there,
after a USAF civil-engineering task-force report finds corrosion serious
enough to threaten collapse of the gantries in severe weather.  The
Delta launch hiatus due to problems with the latest Navstar satellite
proved convenient for this.  The task force found various other less
severe problems at the Cape, including a long history of erratic facilities
maintenance (due to erratic funding).  Of particular note is a lack of
emergency power systems for various critical launch facilities, various
electrical and ventilation systems so old that spare parts are no longer
available, and severe deterioration of facilities at important downrange
sites on Antigua and Ascension.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 8 AW&ST
Date: 14 Aug 91 03:24:09 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[An exceptionally light week for space news.]
 
Columbia's pilots used a novel method of refresher training before landing
after the ten-day SLS-1 mission:  they took along videotapes of cockpit
views of practice landings made using the Shuttle Training Aircraft, and
reviewed them on reentry day using the viewfinder monitor of the crew's
video camera.
 
Free fall is lots of fun...  An intravenous fluid pump was one of the odds
and ends to be tested on SLS-1, with an eye to medical care on the space
station.  Back to the drawing board; didn't work.
 
Westinghouse has announced a new microgravity service, Westar, using the
hardware being developed for NASA's Comet program.  First Westar flight
could be as early as 1993.
 
Money is tight everywhere...  CRAF is in danger of dying due to this year's
Congressional budget cuts in the US, while the Soviets too are suffering,
with their launch rate down about 15% (to a mere 30 in the first six months
of this year) due to economies.
 
Large color pictures of the Soviet pavilion at the Paris Air Show, dominated
by the full-scale Mir/Kvant-1/Kvant-2/Kristall mockup.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 15 AW&ST
Date: 16 Aug 91 04:21:45 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Ariane 5 User's Manual published.
 
Anik E2's C-band antenna deploys successfully July 3, three months after
launch, after lengthy efforts to get it unstuck.
 
Canadian Space Agency awards the main contract for Radarsat [finally!].
 
Locstar, the European company formed to exploit Geostar technology, folds.
The shareholders voted to shut it down due to persistent funding problems.
 
IEEE's criticism of the space station angers the Council of Engineers and
Scientists Organizations, a trade-union consortium that represents many
aerospace engineers and technicians.  CESO criticizes a "deliberate
campaign of misinformation" directed at creating the impression that
the entire US engineering community opposes the station.
 
NOAA -- and Congress -- are wondering what to do about GOES-Next.  NOAA
is down to one Clarke-orbit weather satellite, Goes-7, which is expected
to start deteriorating next year.  The GOES-Next program, intended to
produce the next generation, is badly behind schedule and cannot launch
its first bird before Dec 1992 at the earliest.  The choice is between
crossing fingers that the timing will work out, and doing something
difficult and expensive to bridge the gap.  The risk is that the US will
be left without a Clarke-orbit weather satellite, which will badly hurt
weather forecasting and will be a disaster for severe-storm tracking.
 
Senate subcommittee inserts $110M into the NOAA budget for an attempt to
buy a satellite now under construction that is similar to the older Goes
birds.  The trouble is that the satellite belongs to Japan, which may not
want to sell.  Other options being studied are asking Europe or Japan to
move a spare on-orbit satellite to cover the US, ordering one more old
Goes (delivery time 3 years), or trying to accelerate the first GOES-Next
delivery even if this compromises satellite performance.
 
NASA, which oversees GOES-Next development, accepts the blame.  (They
prefer pushing ahead with GOES-Next, unsurprisingly.)  The latest problems
are infrared-imager detectors that have unexpectedly deteriorated in storage
and an unauthorized change from copper to nickel wiring that has made some
of the detectors temperature-sensitive.  G-N is also roughly 100% over
budget.  The contract, which went to Ford Aerospace rather than to Hughes
(which built the earlier Goes series), took some shortcuts for the sake of
speed -- a disastrous mistake, with an inexperienced contractor at the
center of an effort to advance instrument technology rather than just
building a new spacecraft.  Commerce Secretary Mosbacher [NOAA is part of
DOC] tells Senate panel that putting one group (NASA) in charge, telling
another (NOAA) to pay for it, and then handing a third (F.A.) a cost-plus
contract is a recipe for trouble.  Revisions to the contract are being
studied.
 
Senate Appropriations votes pretty much full funding for Fred, but not for
other NASA missions.  In particular, it kills CRAF and slips Cassini one
year, saying that it regrets the fate of CRAF but greatly doubts that the
next few years' budgets could provide the expansion of funding necessary
as both CRAF and Cassini go into high gear.  AXAF takes a one-year slip,
EOS takes a 50% cut plus a request for a more realistic long-term plan,
and NASA is asked to devise a strategic plan based on rather smaller
annual funding growth than the White House wants.  Committee chairman
Mikulski, commenting on charges that science is being sacrificed to
protect the space station, observes that science got a 10% increase while
Fred only got 6%.
 
Navstar launches resume July 3, with an SDI multispectral-sensor payload,
Losat-X, piggybacked on the Delta second stage.  (Losat-X was meant to fly
on the LACE/RME launch last year, but wasn't ready.)  The solar-array
control problem discovered in the previous Navstar is believed to have
been fixed by small design changes.
 
Arianespace announces a new satellite-deployment system to put three birds
on an Ariane 5, with a new small third payload atop an Ariane-4-sized
middle payload and a heavy bottom one.
 
Langley continues refinement on the HL-20 lifting-body design concept,
proposed as a manned spacecraft to fly atop a Titan IV or future launcher.
Various small changes have been made to improve aerodynamics.  Wind-tunnel
tests of a full-scale model are being considered.  Langley's involvement
is likely to end soon, since it's not in the manned-spacecraft business.
 
NASA Marshall volunteers begin taste tests of water recycled from sweat,
urine, and wash water.  Water-quality standards are tougher than those
for normal municipal water supplies; taste is the only remaining question,
and preliminary results say there's no strong difference between this
stuff and tap water.  Various problems are still being looked at, notably
finding a soap that won't contribute too much organic carbon content.
(Some, notably Stafford, have criticized the specs as too stringent, but
Marshall managers point out that they are still in the experimental stage
and would like to meet the medical people's targets if possible.  They
also say that people who criticize the system goal of 50 pounds of water
per day per person have not examined the costs of the alternatives,
e.g. the weight of clothes that would have to be hauled up and down to
maintain crew comfort without on-board laundry.)  Marshall is working
towards a 90-day live-in test in 1997.
 
ESA starts long-duration near-full-power tests of the Ariane 5 engine.
Also, the first batch of fuel for Ariane 5 SRBs is ready, with first
test firing at Kourou now set for March 15.
 
Photos of the Buran cockpit area, from training mockups at the Gagarin
Cosmonaut Training Center.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 22 AW&ST
Date: 23 Aug 91 03:03:59 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Soviet Union joins Intelsat.
 
ESA makes progress on regaining control of Olympus.  The solar arrays are
now facing the Sun, providing full power.  Main objective now is to warm
the frozen propulsion system up slowly, in hopes that full attitude control
and maneuvering can be restored.
 
Senate Armed Services Committee (again) attempts to zero out NASP funding.
 
Analysis of Mir radio transmissions by the Kettering group indicates that
Mir cosmonauts have three designated emergency-landing areas, for use in
the event that they have to take their Soyuz down immediately:  their
normal landing area in Kazakhstan, an offshore area in the Sea of Okhotsk...
and the north-central plains of the US!  (There are also occasional
provisions for a landing in Europe.)  Soviet space officials confirm
that data on such reentries is calculated and passed to the cosmonauts,
although they say the possibility of having to use them is "remote".
The Soviet Union spreads over such a wide range of longitudes that on
most orbits a Mir crew can abort into the USSR, but for about four orbits
a day the choice is central Africa, central Australia, the far southern
Pacific, or the central US, and it's pretty obvious which offers the
most hospitable landing conditions.
 
NASA says US shuttle planning prefers emergency landings in the US or
at US air bases abroad, but in a pinch landings at foreign sites are
possible.  There are informal agreements with "about a dozen" nations
to cover such situations.  The morning briefing for an orbiting crew
occasionally includes a note advising that "political reasons" have
ruled out certain landing sites.
 
Second Pegasus flies successfully... more or less.  July 17 launch puts
seven Microsat experimental military comsats into an orbit somewhat lower
than intended, 245x192nmi vs intended 389x389nmi.  Telemetry contact
showed all three solid stages firing properly, also the first burn of
the new little liquid-fueled fourth stage, after which contact was lost
(as expected -- one of the USAF's range aircraft was grounded due to
bad weather in the Antarctic).  The birds did not show up when expected,
and it was about nine hours before they were found and tracked, in the
unexpectedly low orbit.  The fourth stage apparently did the best it
could, but something had gone wrong earlier; there is some indication
of "an anomaly" in the first/second stage separation.  Aside from the
unintended orbit, the Microsats are intact and operating normally.
 
This was the first test of Pegasus's fourth stage, the Hydrazine Auxiliary
Propulsion System, which will be an option for future launches.  It is
mostly intended as a precision orbit-injection system to reduce the
uncertainties resulting from the somewhat imprecise solid motors, but
also provides for some orbital maneuvering.  Some minor reshuffling
of equipment in Pegasus's guidance/control area made room for three
50lb-thrust motors and 160lb of hydrazine.  This mission also included
a guidance upgrade intended to become standard:  a Navstar receiver.
On this flight it was a redundant backup to the inertial system, but
the intent is that the Navstar receiver will eventually be the primary
reference for trajectory control, as it is cheaper and tougher than
a high-precision inertial system.
 
ESA's ERS-1 remote-sensing satellite launched July 16.  Deployment was
flawless except for some difficulty getting one scatterometer antenna
out, which was cleared up after a short delay.  ERS-2 is already under
construction for 1994 launch.
 
Space station survives a Senate-floor amendment intended to divert its
funding, mostly to veterans programs and deficit reduction.
 
Atlantis crew prepares for STS-43, primarily charged with hauling up
TDRS-5.  The mission will last nine days and carries a variety of
secondary payloads; it was intended to be shorter, but was stretched
in a program aimed at gathering experience for the extended-duration
missions planned in the next few years.  TDRS-5 will go to the West
TDRS position to replace the ailing TDRS-3, which will become an orbital
spare in the East position.  TDRS-1 will stay in the West position as
spare there.  (TDRS-4 is the main East satellite, and TDRS-2 is part
of Challenger's wreckage.)

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 29 AW&ST
Date: 9 Sep 91 04:22:07 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[Expect some slowdown in AW&ST summaries; we have an off-again-on-again
postal strike in progress up here.]
 
Quayle, in speech at Vandenberg, gives strongest White House signal yet
that no more shuttle orbiters will be built.  Reportedly Truly lost a
showdown in the National Space Council.
 
Demand for commercial launch services projected by CBO to continue strong
until circa 1994 and slip somewhat after that, as backlogs clear and more
capacity comes online.  However, small-launcher business is forecast to boom.
 
GAO says GOES-Next program will cost $1.7G, and expresses skepticism
that G-N-1 will perform better than GOES-7.  Congressional hearings
express concern that ITT has been paid 57% of its maximum possible
performance bonus on the G-N contract despite screwing up the instrument
development.
 
Latest Hubble result:  21 exceptionally bright blue stars found in cluster
47 Tucanae, complicating theories of such clusters, in which no young stars
are expected.  Ground-based telescopes can see only a few; the Hubble FOC
observations were done in the ultraviolet.
 
Senate battle imminent over proposal to drastically shift SDI funding
towards limited defences, starting with a ground-based deployment in
1996 at the currently-mothballed Grand Forks ABM site and an attempt
to renegotiate the ABM treaty to permit a few more sites and more use
of space-based sensors.
 
ESA is regaining control over Olympus, although it is not yet known
whether its communications payload has survived the low temperatures.
Details on how control was lost.  Power is now back to normal, the
batteries have been thawed, the propulsion system has been thawed,
and propulsion testing is underway.
 
Boeing and Rockwell make a joint submission to SDI's SSTO competition
rather than separate ones.  McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics are
also bidding (separately) on the contract, which calls for a low-paperwork
fast-track development process leading to a one-stage fully-reusable
launcher carrying 10-20klbs of cargo either manned or unmanned with
very low turnaround time and costs.  [McDD got it.]
 
Atlantis launch slips due to engine-computer problems.  NASA is also
trying to sort out what caused an SSME fire in a test at Stennis:
the mix somehow became oxidizer-rich and the engine walls predictably
started to burn.  Any effect on the Atlantis launch will be sorted
out during the several-day delay while the engine computer is replaced
(the replacement itself is not that bad, but getting at the thing on
the pad is a lot of work).

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 5 AW&ST
Date: 8 Oct 91 05:46:25 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[Okay, so I'm behind again...]
 
Payload fairing for the Ariane launch that orbited ERS-1 was painted with
a new "Earth flag" selected in a French competition:  a central blue circle
on a white, red, yellow, and black background.  French Space Minister Paul
Quilles urges that the new flag be painted on all spacecraft and launchers.
[Talk about politically-correct posturing.]  [Speaking as a person with
pinkish-tan skin, I object to the blatant discrimination against my ethnic
group and skin color. :-)]
 
ESA regains control over Olympus; the bird is stabilized again and it's
on its way back to its orbital slot.  Recommissioning of the communications
payload will start by mid-Aug.  [Successful.]
 
First radar images from ERS-1, of "superb" quality.
 
[Marginally space-relevant.]  Expect DoD's budget to be in big trouble a
year from now, when 1994-5 budget proposals start circulating, because
in FY94 the military budget is no longer protected (by the budget summit
agreement) from diversion to nonmilitary programs.
 
HST engineers face decision on whether to request a late-1992 emergency
repair mission to replace HST's gyros, with two dead and one ailing out
of a total of six (with a minimum of three required).  The corrective-
optics package meant for the currently-planned repair mission will not
be ready until late 1993.  The big question is whether the gyros will
last until then.  (There is a backup gyro pack for emergency use, but
it is intended solely to stabilize HST to permit repairs, and is not up
to observing work.)
 
US-Soviet space agreement signed by Bush and Gorbachev invites USSR to
join Mission To Planet Earth, calls for US astronaut to fly a long-stay
Mir mission and a Soviet astronaut to fly on shuttle/Spacelab (the second
Spacelab Life Sciences mission, set for late 1993, is a good bet), and
generally improves bureaucratic connections.  Gorbachev asked for, and
got, agreement by the US to study relaxing some of the harsher export-
control rules that limit Soviet participation in commercial spaceflight.
Reportedly, Soviet space officials would have liked a much more ambitious
agreement, and think this one a bunch of trivia.  Proposals included a
shuttle-Mir rendezvous and docking of a US-built module to Mir.  NASA
liked some of the more ambitious ideas, but couldn't sell the notion to
the White House, DoD, and State.
 
Anatoly Artsebarsky has to be "talked down" from a 14m tower erected on
Mir after his visor fogs from excess exertion.  Sergei Krikalev, the
other Mir cosmonaut, guides him down and back to the airlock.  (A somewhat
similar problem occurred to Eugene Cernan on Gemini 9 25 years ago.)
This was near the end of a 7-hour EVA, the sixth for this crew since
their arrival at Mir May 18.
 
Gamma Ray Observatory fingers Variable Quasar 3C279 as the most distant
and by far most luminous gamma-ray source yet seen.  Noteworthy is that
it was not seen by previous gamma-ray telescopes in the 70s and early
80s; evidently this source is quite variable.
 
Senate approves new SDI plan, pushing for limited-strike protection
relatively soon, fighting off numerous attempts by opponents to kill it.
 
Story on the four microsatellites that rode up with ERS-1.  UoSat-5,
the latest from the University of Surrey, carrying a store-and-forward
digital communications system for use by remote-area medical teams and
scientists, various small radiation-effects experiments, and a CCD
imager that has already returned clear images of the Earth.  Orbcomm-X,
a demonstration satellite for Orbital Communications Corp (an OSC
subsidiary)'s small-digital-comsat-network project.  Tubsat, another
digital-relay satellite, this one from Berlin Technical University.
And SARA, a French radio-astronomy satellite aimed mostly at studies
of Jupiter's radio emissions.
 
Eumetsat's Meteosat 3 is moved west to a location over Brazil to help
fill in for the US's dying Clarke-orbit weather satellites.  M3 had
been moved west in 1989 for the same reason, but had to be moved back
when M4 began ailing.  M4's problems are now understood to be transient
and manageable, and M5 has since been launched as an in-orbit spare,
so M3 is available again.  This is costing Eumetsat some money, but
since the US loaned them GOES-4 for three years after M2 failed some
years back, they're not going to be fussy about it.  M3 is expected
to last to about the end of 1993.  M6 is scheduled for launch in
late 1993, and negotiations are underway to build M7 with an option
on M8.  The US is talking to Eumetsat about the possibility of
buying or borrowing M6 when M3 dies.
-- 
Programming graphics in X is like       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
finding sqrt(pi) using Roman numerals.  |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 12 AW&ST
Date: 11 Oct 91 05:33:31 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[This week is AW&ST's 75th-anniversary issue, complete with a letter of
congratulation from Bush and extensive historical coverage.  It's light
on space news as a result.]
 
Launch of the BS-3B broadcast satellite from Tanegashima slips one week
due to a LOX leak in the H-1 first stage.
 
NASA and Argentina sign joint mission agreement to build and launch a
small scientific satellite, directed at solar physics and astrophysics.
Launch will be late in the decade on a US expendable [other reports say
this means Pegasus].
 
Pictures of Buran and Energia hardware on the pad at Baikonur.  The
second orbiter had on-pad tests in late summer.  Baikonur engineers say
the design has now had enough testing to cover the complete lifetime
of an orbiter, and this has required some changes.  The second orbiter
on the pad appeared to be missing tiles in various areas, and the Energia
it was mounted on seemed to have some sort of new insulation on its
core tanks.  The next Buran flight is still set for next year, although
the exact mission profile is not yet set.  Apparently five space-ready
airframes have been built, although only three have been authorized to
fly.  Each airframe is rated for ten years or 100 flights, which helps
to explain why #1 was retired:  it was built in 1983 and was getting
old, apart from being somewhat behind the current design.  One of the
two spare airframes will be modified for use in the Star City training
water tank.  The other is for sale.  It is possible that other hardware,
notably orbiter #1, will be offered for sale.
 
Atlantis launched on time on third attempt Aug 2.
 
Atlantis preparing to land after deploying TDRS-5.  One small complication
is that as TDRS+IUS departed from the payload bay, a strip of material
about 2x5 ft also drifted away.  Apparently this has been seen on other
IUS deployments but nobody is sure what it is [!].
 
SSME fails catastrophically on a Stennis test stand July 24.  The engine
contained components that were well beyond the normal retirement age, and
was deliberately pushing the margins on the fuel pump.  4s into a test
planned for 520s, the fuel-pump turbine failed in some manner [AW&ST's
description is vague], fuel flow largely stopped, the mix became oxidizer-
rich, and the result was ignition of the engine walls, a ferocious fire,
and major structural failure.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 19 AW&ST
Date: 18 Oct 91 05:19:52 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Japan's Space Activities Commission approves development of a new
intermediate-size booster, using an H-2 strap-on to replace the first
stage of the current Mu-series booster.  1000kg to low orbit is expected.
Development starts next year, launch schedule not yet set.
 
Lockheed Space Ops gives NASA several ways to cut shuttle operations
costs, notably including a 5% layoff in shuttle processing staff.  The
affected staff would not be the technicians who actually work on the
orbiters.
 
Japan studies the feasibility of launching a network of 38 small satellites
for global surveillance of natural disasters, like the recent volcanic
eruptions in Japan and the Philippines.
 
Ex-astronaut James Irwin dies of a heart attack, first to die among the
12 men who have walked on the Moon.
 
NASA is getting worried about ESA's ability to fix HST's solar-array
wobble problems.  NASA has asked US manufacturers what they could offer
in the way of replacement solar arrays.
 
Lennard Fisk, NASA assocadmin for space science, promises word by Oct on
the precise work list for the 1993 HST repair mission.  Replacing the
solar arrays and the gyros is necessary, and *something* must be done
about the optical flaw, but the mission schedule may be awfully crowded
if both the new wide-field camera and the corrective-optics assembly are
to be installed.
 
Ariane 44L launches Intelsat 6 F5 on Aug 14, somewhat to the relief of
Intelsat, which has had more than its share of problems lately.
 
NASA is now very likely to rework EOS to cut up the big platforms into
smaller satellites that can go up on the Atlas 2AS (the new high-end
Atlas with solid strapons).  The crucial development is that the USAF
is going to modify Vandenberg's complex 3E to restore Atlas polar-orbit
launch capability.  The USAF wants this for its own classified purposes,
but it also lets NASA break each EOS platform up into three smaller
birds.  EOS is also facing budget pressure, and the smaller satellites
will ease adjustments to funding crunches.  "You don't have to be a
rocket scientist to say `Gee, it sure would be nice to have a program
with more flexibility, especially financial flexibility.'"  One small
complication is the You're Not Trying That Out For The First Time On
My Mission syndrome, since this would require committing to the 2AS
before its first flight.
 
There has been talk of still more drastic subdivision of the EOS birds,
for example replacing each Titan platform with nine Delta-sized payloads.
Trouble is, some of the instruments are too big for this.  There is also
some desire to keep the pieces of each platform close together to view
the same areas at roughly the same time, and formation flying is felt to
be much more practical with small numbers of satellites.  The 2AS-class
birds would each be about the size of the UARS scheduled for shuttle
launch in September.
 
Atlantis lands smoothly at KSC after deploying TDRS-5.  An investigating
team is sorting out the effects of one goof in post-landing processing:
two of the three fuel cells were left running and some damage occurred
when water generated in them backed up.  Spare cells are available and
no effect on launch schedules is expected.  Atlantis's carbon brakes
worked well and tile damage was minimal.
 
Columbia has gone to Palmdale for updating and installation of the long-
duration-mission modifications.  It will be there about six months, and
will fly next on a Spacelab mission in June.
 
Another setback in Japan's H-2 program, as engine plumbing ruptures under
pressure in a component test Aug 9, killing engineer Arihiro Kanaya.  The
pressure involved was well below what the tubing assembly was rated for;
a weld appears to have failed.  It is starting to look like the H-2 launch
schedule is going to have to slip.  This could be a problem, because the
first production launch (after two tests) is slated to launch Japan's
next Clarke-orbit weather satellite, and there is no slack in the schedule
if the new one is to be up before the current one dies.
 
First US space team to visit Plesetsk Cosmodrome reports no problems as
the Meteor-3 satellite carrying NASA's ozone-mapper instrument is launched
Aug 15.  A Cyclone booster was used, the same type that launches the Soviet
antisatellite system, and Plesetsk's Cyclone launch facilities duplicate
the fast-response-time antisatellite launch facilities at Baikonur.  At
T-3hr, the launcher is readied.  At T-2h20m, the assembly bay's doors
are opened and the launcher, horizontal on a railcar, is towed to the
pad.  The railcar is backed into position over the pad, with connections
on the railcar mating with receptacles on the pad.  The launcher is then
erected, and the area is cleared.  Fueling begins at T-1h15m and is done
by remote control, with fuel and oxidizer flowing through the mated
connectors.  At T-14m, the tanks are full, final checks are done, and
they push the button.
 
Galileo engineers analyze results of the second cold-soak of the antenna,
which included 50 hrs in the shade and reduced electricity usage in the
antenna area.  [No luck.]  Three ribs are now thought to be stuck,
probably due to loss of lubricant between the rib pins and the sockets
in the central tower.  Similar antennas are used on the TDRS birds and
have had no problems, but they haven't been launched after prolonged
shuffling around on the ground, which is thought to have rubbed the
lubricant off in Galileo's case.  If the cold-soak procedures don't work,
next on the agenda is thermal cycling when Galileo is closer to the Sun.
There was an attempt to warm the antenna in May, but Galileo was already
further out from the Sun than ideal for that procedure, which may be
why it didn't work.  If nothing works, and Galileo must transmit at 10bps
through low-gain antennas rather than 134000bps through the high-gain
antenna, the atmospheric probe data is okay but much of the imaging
mission of the orbiter is down the drain.
 
Early images from ERS-1 look fine.  Instrument calibration is underway,
meant to be complete by mid-November with formal ERS-1 commissioning set
for mid-December.

From: [email protected]
Subject: News from Flight International
Date: 3 Nov 91 19:59:20 GMT
Organization: British Telecom Labs
 
Space Titbits from Flight International
From: [email protected] (swaraj jeyasingh)
Path: phoebe!sjeyasin
 
Article entitled "Riding Old Reliable" describes the eight day trip to
Mir by Britain's first Astronaut (Cosmonaut)  in May. Some of the more
interesting facts about  Helen  Sharman's  (former  researcher at Mars
Confectionary near London) trip....
 
 
Soyuz TM12 launched from  Baikonur  Cosmodrome,  Pad  1 which is where
Sputnik 1 was also launched.
 
The Soyuz spacecraft and its  boosters  (4)  is  integrated in the MIK
building about 3km  from  Pad  1.  Two  days  before  launch the whole
assembly is rolled out horizontally on  a railway truck. After arrival
it take about 1 hour to to  mate  it  to the tower  and get it hanging
over the pad. It is   suspended  by  its  own weight against four hand
like cradles at the end of  booms.  At  lift off the rocket forces the
cradles away in a spring like action.
 
The prime and back-up crews arrive  at  Baikonur just two weeks before
launch and stay at the Cosmonauts  hotel  close to the town of Leninsk
just  outside  the  Cosmodrome.  The  prime  crew  members  are  named
officially only one day before launch. Then they faced press questions
while seated behind a glass pane. Sharman  faced a lot of silly sexist
and other questions all of which she answered in fluent Russian.
 
Once suited up. the crew  (Artsebarski, Krikalyov and Sharman) emerged
from the MIK building and  planted  their at assigned positions marked
by  a  painted  white  square,  before  the  President  of  the  State
Commission. to request permission to  start  the flight in traditional
style.
 
Although the whole launch sequence is  automatic and crew is powerless
to control it even in the  event  of  a  failure, there was still a 2h
checklist to perform  to  ensure  that  their  pressure  suits and the
spacecraft systems were in  order.  Sharman  was responsible for cabin
pressure, navigation, and TV camera systems [Not just make tea as some
unkind person reported!].   The  checklist  is  more  of  a pushbutton
affair rather than reading off instruments.
 
There is no NASA  style  countdown.  Just  "five  minutes, one minute,
engine sequence start". The crew listens  to Soviet pop music piped in
from launch control. The booster  takes  seconds  to reach full thrust
and and the actual release is so  slow  that  the crew do not feel any
acceleration. G forces start to  build  up  after 10-12 seconds and it
gets up to 3g.
 
Booster separation is at T+118s and acceleration falls to below 1g. At
T+158s g forces are back at 3g.  Core  burn  out is at T+285s and burn
out of the 2nd stage is T+530s.
 
Ground control had been preparing to to order an emergency descent due
to a abnormal rise in cabin pressure  but this stopped on the onset of
weightlessness so they decided to continue.
 
There is a basic toilet on  board.  Food  is cheese, cold meat, tinned
tuna, bread, fruit. [courtesy of Aeroflot ?!?!].
 
The rendezvous is automatic. There  are  six  burns of the engines, on
orbits 4/5, 17/18 and 32/33 lasting  from  30s to 1s. Some firings are
done manually if required.
 
About 40km  from  Mir,  it  was  noticed  that  one  of  the  two Kurs
rendezvous  system  was  not  working.   the  computer  readings  were
incorrect and and differed totally from  from visual references of the
crew. So at about 150m  from  Mir,  Artsebarski  did a manual docking.
This was quite jerky and required  a  team  effort from both the Soyuz
and Mir crews. At rendezvous the Kurs was showing separation as 124m!
 
Sharman's custom made couch was  transferred  to  TM11 for the return,
six days later. After separation the  Soyuz  TM11 did a circuit of Mir
to check for any damage to  the  aft  docking  port. After 3h the main
retro fire was initiated.
 
The reentry was very gentle but  soon  got noisy. The windows were all
blackened by the heat.  At about 200m/s the drogue chute deployed. The
capsule swayed and spun round several  times before settling down. The
final speed slowed down to 2m/s by solid propellent rockets. The craft
ended up on its side and Sharman ended  up at the top of the craft, on
her side and hanging in her straps.
 
The ground crew rightened the  capsule  and  the three exited, sliding
down a chute placed on the  outside  of  the capsule. She then flew by
helicopter to Dzhezkazgan  before  returning  to  Star  City where she
began her training in 1989
 
Now she is looking for  new  job  in  January.  Such  is the fate of a
British Astronaut.
 
 
Well this is all I have time  for  now. There was a report recently in
Flight about the delays encountered  in readying Endeavour. Seems that
there was a lot of rubbish to cleared  out of her and amongst this was
found a biscuit!. I had not  seen this "titbit" reported elsewhere. At
least it wasn't a 9ft beam this time!
 
 
Swaraj Jeyasingh        [email protected]
BT Labs
Ipswich
UK

Subject: space news from Aug 26 AW&ST
Date: 29 Nov 91 01:37:19 GMT
 
[Okay, the moving is over and I've found the AW&ST pile.  Moreover, in the
process I found the missing issue from August -- the regular summaries left
off in late Sept.]
 
SDIO awards $58.9M two-year contract to McDonnell Douglas to build a
1/3-scale prototype, the DC-X, of a manned single-stage-to-orbit launcher.
The DC-X, about 12m high and 4m in diameter [looks like an artillery shell
wearing a maxiskirt] will be demonstrated in suborbital flight early
in 1993.  At that point, DoD will decide whether to fund a full prototype,
intended to carry 20klbs into orbit at $500/lb on a week's notice.
 
H-1 launch carrying the BS-3B broadcastsat slips (again) due to Typhoon
Gladys.
 
Nuclear rocket enthusiasm is breaking out everywhere, it seems...  DoD
strategic nuclear people propose an ICBM with a nuclear upper stage,
to replace Minuteman 3 with an ICBM weighing about half as much.
 
New NASA launch manifest.  There are open shuttle slots in Aug 1993 and
1994.  HST servicing slips from late 1993 to Feb 1994.  Astro 2 is
reborn, with a launch slot in Sept 1994.  And the secrecy on military
shuttle missions is relaxed a bit, with timing and orbit for STS-53 (set
for Dec 1992) revealed; the numbers suggest a spysat launch.
 
Everyone holds breath due to Soviet coup.  US orders Goddard team,
engaged in activating the NASA ozone mapper aboard a Soviet Meteor-3
weather satellite, home -- partly out of fear over their safety,
partly as a snub to the hardliners.  Soviet cosmonaut leaders appear
shaken, but say they will proceed with current plans until situation
is clarified.  White House orders NASA to put cooperative space
projects on hold for the moment, although in the wake of the coup's
failure the restrictions are expected to be lifted.  Soviet space
program continues on momentum for the moment, with a Progress freighter
launched to Mir Aug 20 while the uproar in Moscow was at its worst.
As soon as the junta confirmed that international contracts would be
honored, German officials confirmed plans to fly a German cosmonaut
to Mir next March.
 
Progress M8, the previous Progress freighter, separated from Mir Aug 16.
The Soviets have not said whether it had a recoverable capsule like the
one lost in March, and some analysts read this as indicating another
loss.
 
The Goddard crew had to cut a few corners, but report that the ozone
mapper seems to be working.  They will probably return to Moscow in
October to compare data with Soviet scientists.
 
Soviets say that Glonass will not employ "selective availability", the
Navstar technique of messing up navsat signals to deny civilian users
the full accuracy of the system.  This may put additional pressure on
the Pentagon to renounce use of s.a. in the US system.
 
Martin Marietta proposes two designs for the No Launches Scheduled, er
excuse me the National Launch System.  Unsurprisingly, they are based
on the shuttle external tank, which MM builds.  MM says it could start
bending metal today, with delivery in 55 months and operational status
in under 72.  Plan A puts six of the proposed NLS 580klb hydrogen engines
under an ET, with four of them jettisoned halfway up.  Plan B puts four
of those engines under an ET plus two SRBs, to put 80klbs into the 220nmi
Fred orbit.  Various improvements being studied for the ET, notably cutting
4-7klbs off the weight by replacing aluminum alloys with aluminum-lithium,
would also be applicable to NLS.
 
Mars Observer project heads are worried that they are going to be the very
first customer for OSC's Transfer Orbit Stage upper stage.  Originally the
Advanced Communications Technology Satellite was going to be first, but it
has had schedule slips.  Ideally the first flight of a new upper stage
would carry some series-production satellite with backup hardware coming
down the line, but TOS's customers are both expensive one-of-a-kind birds
with no backup at all.  JPL has asked Marshall to do a special reliability
review of TOS.
 
Mars Observer itself is running late, with various small problems causing
several weeks slippage in bus testing.  There is some margin left, but
not a lot.  Some of the instruments are also behind schedule.  MO, which
was supposed to be more or less an off-the-shelf Tiros metsat, has grown
to a $470M program as more and more of the standard hardware got redesigned.
It launches in late September next year... assuming there is a pad to launch
it from, a matter of some concern because Titan 3 pad work at the Cape was
included in the USAF Titan 4 budget, which has not fared well in the House.
It is expected that this will be fixed up; the alternative is a $100M slip
to Oct 1994.
 
OSC Aries sounding rocket destroyed 23s after launch at the Cape as its
guidance malfunctions.  First indications point to a software problem.
 
Latest attempt to unstick Galileo's antenna fails, with further efforts
postponed to December to avoid interfering with the Gaspra encounter.
The antenna did not get as cold as expected during the August cooling
turn.  The same thing will be tried again in December, with some more
drastic equipment shutdowns; that and the greater distance from the Sun
should cool things down better.
 
Galileo's fuel margin for its full scheduled activities at Jupiter is
estimated at between 0 and -10kg, under fairly conservative rules and
assuming the Ida encounter is flown.  Each cooling turn eats up about
4kg of fuel.  Deleting the Ida encounter would save 35kg.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 2 AW&ST
Date: 3 Dec 91 05:14:39 GMT
 
[A slightly light news week, just as well considering how far behind I am.]
 
Final chemical release from CRRES lights the sky over the Caribbean Aug 12.
 
Navstar launches postponed due to problems with reaction wheels:  one failed
in a ground test in June, and in late July one failed on Navstar 2-7 (which
was launched about a year ago).  The satellite is still alive thanks to
redundancy.  It is not clear whether the two failures are related; the USAF
is pondering what to do.
 
Michael D. Griffin, currently head of technology at SDIO, to move over to
head Moon/Mars exploration at NASA.
 
Pictures of the Cyclone launch that carried a NASA ozone mapper up on a
Soviet metsat.
 
Soviet aerospace R&D looks increasingly like it is going to stall for a
while, maybe quite a while, thanks to political chaos.  The big question
for would-be international customers is not so much the failed coup, but
the issue of who's in charge of negotiating space deals.  Within the
Soviet program, work on a Soyuz replacement (basically a scaled-up Soyuz
meant for launch on a Zenit) has been shelved after mockup construction,
Buran may be scrapped outright, little work is being done on Buran/Energia
payloads, and of course Mir 2 is already defunct.  (Work has just started
on building a modernized copy of the existing Mir core, with hopes that it
will go up to replace the existing one in 1994-5.  Leonov says the current
Mir core is holding up very well but showing its age.)
 
Deal between Almaz Corp and Eosat collapses due to the coup; Eosat withdrew
citing too much uncertainty.  Spot Image quickly moved in to fill the gap,
although the Soviets clearly considered this second choice because the
Spot Image deal covers just the US and Canada whereas Eosat would have
marketed Almaz radarsat data worldwide.
 
NASP looks like it's in line for a stretchout and a less optimistic basic
design.  In particular, it looks like NASP will use an existing rocket
engine for final boost rather than designing its own, and will fly its early
test flights with liquid (rather than slush) hydrogen and a conventional
(heavy, temperature-limited) hydraulic system.  NASP design is to be frozen
this fall, slush-hydrogen development is going well at Lewis, materials are
starting to be tested in large-scale realistic structures, and low-speed
flight tests of scramjet-related hardware have started on an F-18 at
Patuxent.
 
USAF plans to scale back Titan IV production and launches, reflecting the
diminished military threat.  The current order of 41, meant to last until
1995, will now do until 1997 or so, and the launch rate will peak at 8/yr
(6 at the Cape, 2 at Vandenberg).  The next launch or two will slip some
because of various complications, including a lot of first-time use of
new hardware and considerable customization of the launcher needed for
existing payloads.  The first 15 launches will all be somewhat custom;
at #16 the mechanical attachments will become standard, and at #24 the
electronics will settle down.  Operational status for the uprated SRB
will slip about 15 months due to the failure last spring.
 
USAF is warning that any substantial budget cuts in Titan facilities
will endanger having Complex 40 at the Cape ready for the Commercial
Titan launch of Mars Observer a year from now.  With full funding
there is maybe a month of slack, and the USAF is fighting a 33% cut
in its Titan budget.
 
BS-3B launched successfully on H-1 from Tanegashima Aug 25, to the relief
of Japan's satellite broadcasters, who have been chewing their nails
ever since they lost two satellites in a row to launch failures (Ariane
and Atlas-Centaur) with a replacement bird increasingly badly needed.

re .28:

Perhaps this should go in the Galileo note, but why on earth (or in space) should
a Galileo cooling turn eat up 4kg of fuel?!  I should think they could just turn
more slowly!  Of course, I suppose they have to change spin modes, but that
happens fairly often...

Burns

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 9 AW&ST
Date: 9 Dec 91 01:03:11 GMT
 
Soviet space officials consider sending Mriya and Buran to the
International Aerospace Convention in Huntsville next July.
 
Solar-A, aka Yokoh (Japanese for sunshine) launched from Uchinoura Aug 30.
Solar-flare observations may begin by mid-Sept.
 
Soviets face serious setback as Zenit booster explodes at low altitude.
Payload was reportedly an eavesdropping satellite.  This is the second
Zenit failure in a row at Baikonur; this one was preceded by persistent
technical problems that led to swapping the original booster for a backup
Zenit.  It's bad news for budget pressures on the Soviet space program,
for the Energia/Buran program (since the Energia strap-ons are Zenits),
and for international marketing of Zenit.  Cause is not definitely known
yet; the previous Baikonur Zenit failure has been attributed to an oil
leak in the engine system causing engine shutdown a few seconds after
liftoff.
 
NRC panel critical of NASA planning for ASRM testing, saying that the
various innovations in design and manufacturing impose substantial risk
of delays, and that NASA needs to review certain areas where there seems
to be some overconfidence.  In particular, the panel notes that there is
little reserve in the program plans to cover unexpected problems, and
there will be great temptation to explain away unfavorable test results.
Indeed, they say it has already happened:  a joint test failed Aug 6, and
NASA has decided not to repeat the test since the materials used were
not those that will be used in the final design anyway.  The panel does
not dispute this decision in itself, but says that the rules should have
been set before the test, not afterward, to keep the test program honest.
The panel also urged a serious attempt at a numerical assessment of the
desired and expected reliabilities of ASRM.
 
Centaur stage damaged during fueling test at the Cape, possibly delaying
the first launch of a DSCS 3 military comsat.  Details not clear; the
stage is being replaced by the one originally meant for the second DSCS 3.
This is also a bit of a black eye for General Dynamics, since this is the
first Atlas 2 launcher.
 
US and USSR both guarantee free access for civil aviation to their navsats.
 
Discovery being readied for launch of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite,
retroactively dubbed the first Mission to Planet Earth hardware.  UARS is
noteworthy because it is on schedule and under budget; this is credited
mostly to experienced management (at Goddard) and clear definition of
interfaces between the instruments and the bus.
 
Details of the new Hotol design from the joint British/Soviet study.
Payload to orbit would be circa 5000 kg.  Hotol itself would be powered
by the Soviet RD-120 engine developed for the Energia core; it would be
air-launched from an AN-225 Mriya modified to have eight rather than
six engines.  The British participants in the study say that Soviet
facilities and capabilities could be very valuable to Europe, and
urge that perhaps 5% of Europe's planned near-term spending on hypersonic
research go to the USSR:  "the immediate and long-term rewards would
be disproportionately high".
 
Magellan scientists split over whether a possible landslide on Venus is
real or an artifact of different viewing angles between Magellan's first
and second passes over the area.  The large discrepancy between the
two sets of images was discovered during initial experiments with stereo
viewing, when one part of the images simply wouldn't line up.  If it is
a landslide, some 3 cu km of material was involved and it would have
been the equivalent of a magnitude 5 earthquake.  Interpretation of radar
images of steep terrain is difficult, and it might be a false alarm.
The next pass over the area will occur in late November.
 
Telesat Canada puts Anik E2 into full operation; it appears to have
suffered no damage from the drastic maneuvers used to get its stuck
C-band antenna deployed after it stuck shortly after launch.  Expected
orbital lifetime is down to 12 years from the original 13, due to the
fuel expended during the deployment attempts.  There will be no insurance
claim, as the policy on Anik E2 only covers 12 years.

>Discovery being readied for launch of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite,
>retroactively dubbed the first Mission to Planet Earth hardware.  UARS is
>noteworthy because it is on schedule and under budget; this is credited
>mostly to experienced management (at Goddard) and clear definition of
>interfaces between the instruments and the bus.

Another factor in the experienced management's ability to keep UARS under
budget was that the budget was apparently somewhat inflated so it could
easily absorb problems within the project.    It is a credit to the
Goddard managers that they were able to present the UARS program in such
a way that the "padding" in the budget was not trimmed away at the beginning
(as is the case with so many other programs).

So: if you can manage to get approval of a program with a budget with *lots*
of room for error - and not badly blow it - you get the status of "noteworthy"
in the trade magazines.   If you try to maintain a minimum budget, and are
forced to exceed it because of unforseen events - you get the status of ???


- dave

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 16 AW&ST
Date: 20 Dec 91 07:11:58 GMT
 
Cover is the Tsiklon launcher carrying the Meteor weather satellite with
the NASA ozone mapper, being elevated to launch position.
 
Discovery astronauts about to deploy the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite.
 
NASA HQ is talking to Martin Marietta about using Titan 3 for the EOS birds.
The top-end Atlas derivative has been discussed for the job, but NASA is
nervous about using a launcher that has never flown before.
 
NASA EOS Engineering Review Panel says (to nobody's surprise) that the
satellites need reconfiguring from the giant platforms, and (somewhat
less well-known in advance) that the EOS ground facility design also
needs a major reworking.
 
Pictures of the launch of India's second remote-sensing satellite from
Baikonur.
 
The Soviet Military Satellite Control Center (SOOP in Russian) is...
available for lease!  Not the whole thing, mind you, but its facilities
are available for lease to any non-Soviet group doing commercial or
scientific missions.  The SOOP staff reportedly did not like the idea,
not so much because of military security but because they did not want
to be embarrassed by the center's primitive (by Western standards)
technology.
 
Long report of the AW&ST visit to Plesetsk Cosmodrome (the world's busiest
spaceport, and until recently highly secret).  Plesetsk has launched more
spacecraft than the entire non-Soviet world put together.  It averages
50% more launches than Baikonur despite having only nine operational pads
and one-third of Baikonur's personnel, mostly because of highly automated
operations and the absence of the more complex manned missions.  Plesetsk
is preparing for Zenit launches, doubling payload into polar orbit.
 
Lockheed offers its "F-SAT" concept of a semi-standard mid-size spacecraft
bus.  The USAF is very interested in the notion, and most major satellite
builders are believed to have similar projects in the works.  F-SAT is not
meant to be particularly cheap; in particular, it includes a lot of on-
board computing capability, a high-precision attitude-control system, and
quite a bit of power.  F-SAT is being done along lines recommended by
Lockheed's famous Skunk Works, with a small group of experienced people
all located in one building with the best support tools and a relatively
free hand to make their own decisions.  [They've only made one serious
mistake:  they plan to use Ada for the software. :-)]

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 23 AW&ST
Date: 29 Jan 92 05:12:44 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[Okay, I'm back from vacation, and Lordy, are these summaries ever behind...
I may start feeding in more current ones while I catch up with the backlog.
This one's a light one.]
 
Shuttle management investigates after anonymous letter, signed "Thiokol
engineer", alleges company coverup of problems with the SRB nozzle bearing.
The allegations tentatively appear unfounded.
 
More on the Aug 30 Zenit failure:  apparently the second stage blew up
during or following second-stage ignition.  This is significant because
it means this failure does not affect the Energia strap-ons, which use
only the first stage.
 
Full-page ad, facing one of the late-breaking-news columns, from OSC and
Hercules:  they got the National Medal of Technology from the White
House for Pegasus.
 
New Ariane manifest calls for a total of 8 launches in 1991 and 9 in 1992.
 
As per Augustine, Lenoir's job is being split into two, development and
operations (he will stay with the latter).
 
MM and the USAF looking at alternate Titan boosters in the wake of the
failure of the new Hercules Titan SRB.  MM is talking to UTC and Thiokol
about solids and Aerojet about liquids, plus "other options" in house.
 
Soviet aerospace industry is hitting problems, as its most qualified
people leave in search of better pay and working conditions.  Baikonur
in particular is a lousy place to live.
 
Discovery lands at Edwards after unsettled weather blocks the first
planned night landing at KSC.  Deployment of the Upper Atmosphere
Research Satellite went reasonably well, after problems getting it to
talk to the TDRS system before release were found to be procedural
errors and not hardware failures.  The separation maneuver after
release was scaled down, giving a lower separation rate, to give
Goddard controllers more time before losing the ability to relay
through Discovery.  Otherwise the mission went smoothly, except for
a small maneuver during Day 4 to maintain adequate distance from an
old Soviet rocket stage that passed nearby.
-- 
"Breakthrough ideas are not             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
from teams."  -- Hans von Ohain         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 30 AW&ST
Date: 31 Jan 92 05:17:57 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[It's definite, I am going to start feeding in some new ones while I catch
up on the old ones.  However, there will be a brief delay while I read some
new ones. :-)  The obvious breakpoint is year-end, and what with being away
at the San Francisco Usenix and other things, I haven't read any of the
January issues yet.  Soon.]
 
Japan's MS-T5, launched in Jan 1985 to observe Halley's Comet, is healthy
and plans are afoot to bring it back into Earth orbit at the next close
approach; its instruments could give useful data on the magnetosphere.
 
Tests of the trouble-plagued LE-7 engine for the H-2 will resume in
October.  The investigation of the August accident that killed a
technician is nearly complete.
 
Atlantis military mission will probably slip from Nov to Dec after the
discovery of cracks in the leading-edge seals on both wings.  Cracks
were found on seven of eight seals inspected, so NASA will pull all
44 seals for inspection.
 
SDIO interceptor test fails when Kite-2 test vehicle explodes shortly
after launch at White Sands Sept 23.
 
House and Senate fully fund Fred after all.
 
NASA is in no hurry to buy Soviet space hardware now that it is available,
and expects that any purchase would be after years of study and negotiation.
The automatic docking system is of interest, but Soyuz and Mir vehicles
are not.
 
Soviet book publishes photograph of the Soviet N1 lunar booster!  The
photo is not terribly good and has been retouched, but it's the first
actual photograph ever published.  The thing looks pretty much like
the artists' conceptions.  The photo shows it being erected from its
transporter.
 
Oct 2 Soyuz launch will carry a Kazakh cosmonaut, the first, selected
well before the coup to placate Kazakhstan a bit (the Kazakhs have
long complained that Baikonur should be paying rent for its land and
fees for cleanup of the booster stages that crash in Kazakhstan).
 
Soviet space program in confusion as a result of aerospace shakeups.
The Ministry for General Machine Building, which built most ballistic
missiles and space hardware, is being dissolved.  Lt. Gen. Vladimir
Shatalov, head of the cosmonaut corps for nearly twenty years, has
been fired and replaced by Maj. Gen. Peter I. Klimuk, a three-time
cosmonaut.
 
Compton observatory is producing a stream of results to puzzle the
high-energy astronomers.  Head of the list is that gamma-ray bursts
are not concentrated in the plane of the Milky Way, as almost everyone
had expected.  (This means they must be very close -- in which case
they come from a totally new and hitherto unsuspected kind of object --
or very far away -- which means the responsible objects are monstrously,
almost impossibly, powerful.)  Matter-antimatter annihilation gamma
rays, believed to be primarily from supernovae, are not uniformly
spread over the Milky Way plane but are concentrated toward the
galactic center, which fits none of the theoretical models.  Quasar
3C-279 is a tremendous gamma-ray emitter, its gamma emissions alone
equalling 1000 times the total power output of the Milky Way.  And
imaging of the Crab Nebula region produced a major puzzle:  apart
from the Crab itself, a strong source now dubbed "Geminga" was seen...
but only by the high-energy telescope, not by the other telescope,
and nobody has any clear idea what sort of object would emit *only*
high-energy gammas.
 
Hubble, somewhat in the shadow of all this (this is the sort of output
of new puzzles that it was expected to produce, and it has, but on a
disappointingly small scale), has another hardware failure:  the
high-resolution spectrograph's power supply is ailing.
 
GAO criticizes NASA's hardware testing policies as "fragmented and not
well defined", noting that the four different NASA centers developing
major space-station hardware each planned to use its own different
testing standards.  GAO also comments that the NASA center with the
most comprehensive testing standards, Goddard, is the one with the
biggest recent successes (Compton and UARS).
 
Arianespace wins contract for launch of two Mexican comsats, partly
by offering to throw in launch of a 50kg microsatellite and training
of Mexican technicians.
 
Arianespace posts 1992 launch manifest.  Noteworthy are V51 (March) which
will be the first use of a stretched Ariane third stage, and V52 (June)
which will carry the NASA/CNEWS Topex/Poseidon oceanography mission
plus a cluster of microsatellites.
 
US decides how to move on Clarke-orbit metsats:  it will borrow Europe's
Meteosat 3 to cover the gap while GOES-I's problems are straightened out.
GOES-I's launch has slipped a year to late 1993, and its defective
instruments will probably be replaced with those now under construction
for GOES-J.  NASA will add equipment at Wallops Island to talk to
Meteosat 3 in case it becomes necessary to move it further west than
its current 50W position (which is the farthest west that ESA's ground
stations can see it).  This will cost about $10M, and NASA is starting
to talk about standardizing metsats, something that has actually been
discussed for years but with little progress.
 
AXAF's two biggest mirrors are tested at Marshall, successfully.  The
mirrors met the spec on the raw test data, and beat it by nearly a
factor of two once corrections for distortion by their own weight
were added.
 
Olympus is back in action, its communications payload apparently
unaffected by being frozen for two months while the satellite was
out of control.  Procedures for controlling the ailing satellite are
still being sorted out and availability to users is currently on a
"best effort" basis.
 
Large story on Abraham Hertzberg's ram accelerator at U of Washington,
which has successfully accelerated small projectiles to 2600 m/s in
a 12m barrel.  The basic concept is simple:  the barrel is filled
with a fuel/oxidizer gas mix, and the space between the projectile
and the barrel wall forms a ramjet.  It is an order of magnitude more
efficient than a light-gas gun and appears to scale up much better.
The ultimate limit will be set by friction heating of the projectile
in the relatively dense gas mix:  when the nose gets hot enough to
ignite the gas *ahead* of it, acceleration will stop.  The limits
are not well known; the first test was only about six years ago, and
total funding to date is under $2M.  A design sketch for a ram-
accelerator launch system shows a 5km tube 1m in diameter, firing
1000kg projectiles that would be about half payload, at a cost to
orbit of perhaps $150/lb.
 
Picture (and not much else) on JPL's 55lb "mini-rover", recently
tested in rough terrain as part of an exploration of cheaper ways
of exploring the Martian surface.
-- 
"Breakthrough ideas are not             | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
from teams."  -- Hans von Ohain         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Oct 7 AW&ST
Date: 3 Feb 92 00:04:04 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Orbital Transport Services, of Phoenix, is reviving the HARP concept of
using a large gun to fire tough 50kg instrument packages into suborbital
trajectories up to 180km high.
 
First cosmonaut crew launched since the USSR started unravelling go up
Oct 2.  Commander Alexander Volkov will replace Anatoly Artsebarksy on
Mir, but the other Mir cosmonaut -- Sergei Krikalev -- will stay up and
is expected to be up a full year.
 
NASA and LTV investigating the cracks in the leading-edge seals on the
orbiters, now found in Columbia as well as Atlantis.  (LTV makes the
seals.)  A quick inspection of a few of Discovery's seals found no cracks.
 
Consortium consisting of Spot Image, Eurimage, and Radarsat International
to handle commercial distribution of ERS-1 radar images.
 
PanAmSat continues its war against Comsat and Intelsat:  its $1.5G
antitrust suit against Comsat (which is Intelsat's US part) was thrown
out of court, but an appeal resulted in a ruling that Comsat is immune
to antitrust in its Intelsat role, but not in its role as a common
carrier.  Both PanAmSat and Comsat are reportedly happy (!) about
the ruling.
 
ESA is evaluating proposals for a Hermes Training Aircraft, to fill a
role much like NASA's Shuttle Training Aircraft:  flying a landing
approach with the same characteristics as Hermes, to train crews and
evaluate techniques.
 
Large article on the legal battles over the "PSN restriction", which
forbids US companies from competing with Intelsat for international
traffic which involves the "public switched network", i.e. the phone
system.  PanAmSat, aka Alpha Lyracom, has petitioned the FCC to lift
the restriction.  TV networks, equipment manufacturers, and large
communications customers have all supported the petition; opposition
comes basically from Comsat and from Loral (which is building the
next generation of Intelsat birds).  The NSA has reportedly voiced
confidential objections to the petition, on the grounds that having
a proliferation of satellite systems would make it harder to eavesdrop
on the traffic.  PanAmSat and its friends actually aren't all that
interested in telephone traffic, but they dislike the inflexibility
of being forbidden to carry it.  (Another consideration is that Rene
Anselmo, chairman of PanAmSat, has a private vendetta against Intelsat's
monopoly, which he describes as "an agreement among thieves".  He was
instrumental in getting the FCC to allow non-PSN international traffic
to flow outside Intelsat.)
 
The 1992 World Administrative Radio Conference, which sets things like
frequency allocations, is shaping up to include real battles over
spectrum space for mobile satellite communications and digital audio
broadcasting.  One complication is that US agencies cannot agree among
themselves over the latter, with the FCC favoring reallocation of some
of the aircraft/missile flight-test spectrum, and DoD, the aerospace
industry, and various other federal agencies strongly opposed.  The
point might be moot, as the FCC's favorite band is also heavily used
in Europe and Japan for existing (non-flight-test) communications.
 
Goddard's ozone-mapper ground crew is back in Moscow, working to
calibrate their instrument aboard Meteor 3.  There is talk of adding
another ozone mapper to a later Meteor.  The Soviets have suggested
moving towards eventually merging the US and Soviet civilian weather-
satellite systems.  More possible flight opportunities for US instruments
on Soviet spacecraft are being discussed for the short term; this
bypasses the protracted development processes of US satellites and
gives both better continuity of data and more opportunities to fly
new instruments.
 
House approves $14.3G NASA appropriations, fully funding Fred but
cutting NASP and NLS deeply, making modest cuts in EOS, CRAF/Cassini,
and AXAF, and killing Lifesat, Orbital Solar Laboratory, SIRTF, and
the Flight Telerobotic Servicer outright.  [Of the dear departed,
SIRTF is the only one I'd class as a mistake.  Lifesat seems to be
shaping up as another costly project with few flight opportunities,
OSL is probably doomed anyway, and FTS was always Congressional pork
barrel rather than anything the space station really needed.]
-- 
SVR4:  proving that quantity is         | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
not a substitute for quality.           |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 6 AW&ST
Date: 2 Feb 92 23:44:36 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[First of the more-or-less-current issues, which will run in parallel
with my catching up on last autumn.]
 
JPL is testing Topsar, a topographic synthetic-aperture radar that has
better altitude resolution than the stereo-photograpy technique currently
used for terrestrial mapping, with an eye on building a mapping satellite
that could produce a consistent topographic map of the whole world.  The
prototype is flying on the NASA DC-8, using antennas supplied by the
Italian Consortium for Research and Development of Advanced Remote Sensing
Systems.  [Can't they make these names short enough to at least fit on
one line? :-)]
 
NASA's contribution to NASP will be $20M, not $5M, with Truly reprogramming
funds from other projects (mostly in the aeronautical R&D area).  This is
in lieu of the original request for $72M.  [Prediction:  NASP, as a project
to produce a specific vehicle, will die within two years.  It may join the
ranks of the undead by being downgraded to a technology R&D project, but
the X-30 will not be built.  It costs too much.]
 
ISAS will flight-test a model spaceplane at Kagoshima Feb 10, launching
a rocket-powered model from a high-altitude balloon.  The objective is
data for attitude-control systems for future space hardware.  ISAS tried
this once before, in 1988, but lost it when the balloon failed.
 
SDIO finds allies in the most unexpected places, as leaders of ex-Soviet
Asian republics express interest in joint missile defense.  They see
unpredictable or even hostile neighbors to the south, well within range
of tactical missiles.
 
Pratt&Whitney is working on new RL10 derivatives for near-future needs.
The existing operational one is the RL10A-3A, in use on Centaur now,
with the RL10A-4 to fly this year on a Centaur and the RL10A-5 being
developed for DC-X.  The -4 has 25% more thrust and a very slightly
higher exhaust velocity than the -3A, thanks to a longer nozzle, higher
chamber pressure, higher flow rates, and various small improvements.
[No details on the -5.]  Two more advanced derivatives are being looked
at, the RL10B-X (thrust similar to -4 but with specific impulse of 470
rather than 449) and the RL10C-X (thrust 50% higher).  The B-X could
be built within three years and the C-X within four.  The appeal of
the C-X is the possibility of a single-engine Centaur.
 
P&W is also building the Advanced Expander TestBed for NASA Lewis; this
is a test rig for exploring concepts for more advanced RL10-like engines.
Major design reviews are starting and hardware delivery will be in 1996
(the original date was 1993:  "The program is stretched out more than we
or NASA would like...  The problem is funds.  This program does not grab
the headlines like the space station, and there is not enough money for
a very fast schedule").
 
LLNL prepares to test the technique of using a high-power laser to create
a "guide star" in Earth's upper atmosphere to control adaptive telescope
optics.  This could enable ground-based telescopes to duplicate the
clarity of view (although not some of the other advantages) of HST.
 
TsAGI to run wind-tunnel tests on the separation characteristics of
the Mriya/Hotol combination, using test hardware developed for Buran.
TsAGI is also doing hypersonic tests to decide placement of Hotol's fins.
Studies so far say that Mriya will need only minor modifications to carry
Hotol, primarily larger fuel tanks and two more engines to give adequate
takeoff performance under tropical conditions.  (Kourou has been suggested
as an operational base.)  Contrary to erroneous earlier reports, Mriya's
existing engines are adequate for the Hotol launch, but they are marginal
for a heavily-loaded takeoff at high air temperatures.  Re-engining with
Western engines has been examined, but just adding two more of the Russian
engines is cheaper.  BAe, TsAGI, and Antonov appear very serious about
this project despite the chaos in the ex-USSR.
 
Alan Bond's engine patent for the original ground-launched Hotol has been
declassified by the British government (although the detailed design work
done by Rolls-Royce is still considered proprietary).  Apparently it
compresses incoming air and cools it to liquefy it, burning liquid
hydrogen and liquid air up to Mach 5.5 and 30km (onboard LOX would be
used after that).
-- 
SVR4:  proving that quantity is         | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
not a substitute for quality.           |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Oct 14 AW&ST
Date: 10 Feb 92 00:07:55 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Lockheed Skunk Works gets small contract to investigate the feasibility
of the HL-20, basically to estimate time and cost for development and the
procedures needed to flight-qualify it.  Lockheed says a prototype could
make an unmanned flight on a Titan by 1995.  [Lockheed is optimistic;
not that it couldn't be done, but NASA wouldn't even finish deciding to
do it by 1995... :-)]
 
Nimbus-7 data on Antarctic ozone depletion in the last few weeks show
the worst situation yet, the lowest numbers ever seen by the ozone mapper.
 
Senior Soviet and Russian military officials say they are willing, in
principle, to scrap the ABM Treaty and move towards joint development
with the US of a missile-defence system.  They think the first priority
should be better early-warning systems; a possible reason for this
emphasis is that the loss of the Warsaw Pact nations and peripheral
SSRs has punched some big holes in their defence network.
 
ICAO meeting endorses the notion of moving civil aviation towards
satellite-based communication, navigation, and traffic control over
the next 20 years.
 
Gulf War experience strengthens applications for GPS.  One trick that
was used with some frequency was having GPS-equipped users note the
exact positions of landmarks or pre-planted radar reflectors, and then
passing the coordinates to non-GPS aircraft for their use.  There was
also considerable use of GPS-equipped planes as pathfinders for non-GPS
aircraft.  The Army, having had its first taste of real combat for some
time, is very interested in coupling GPS receivers to digital-radio
systems to automatically report the position of mobile units back to
headquarters; they estimate that 40% of radio traffic in mobile operations
is "where are you?" and related messages.
 
On the civil front, there have been early tests of using GPS to report
aircraft position *on the ground* to make airport operations safer in
bad weather.  Differential GPS has demonstrated accuracy of 1m in this
application.
 
ESA proposes to delay Hermes, with the first unmanned mission slipping
to 2002 and the first manned mission to 2003.  The reason is money.
This is on top of delays proposed earlier this year [1991, remember].
The peak funding is pushed back two years to 1998, and the peak is
flattened out somewhat.  ESA's director for space transport says this
is about as far as things can go, with any further stretchout likely
to kill the project.
 
A further complication is that Hermes is overweight, *again*.  Worse,
Ariane 5 is too far down the planning curve to be enlarged yet again.
The standard Ariane 5 will be good enough to fly test missions, and
perhaps some operational missions with limited payloads.  Full Hermes
operational status would require enlarging Ariane 5's LOX tank and
souping up the LOX pump.
 
Soviets slash Mars plans due to political and economic upheaval.
The 1994 launch window now gets only one spacecraft, with small landers
and penetrators.  The rover/balloon mission slips to 1996.  They still
hope to use Mars Observer's radio-relay hardware for both, although
there is a backup plan to use a Soviet orbiter in 1996.
 
NASA workshop urges establishing a network of six dedicated telescopes
to find and track near-Earth asteroids that could threaten Earth.  They
estimate that only 5-10% of the near-Earth asteroids large enough to
pose a global threat have yet been seen.  The six-telescope network
should permit a complete survey in 10-15 years.  The telescopes would
have 2-3m mirrors and would not be a major technical challenge.  Doing
something about a threatening asteroid would be harder, but good tracking
could give several centuries' warning, enough for even a tiny change in
an asteroid's orbit to suffice.  Chances of a large asteroid hit are
believed to be about one in a million per year; this makes it more
likely for a random individual to die of an asteroid impact than of
lightning or an earthquake.
 
International space programs threatened by the recession, with planners
urging low-cost collaborative efforts.  One interesting proposal is a
US-Japanese planetary mission to launch three small missions to
survey three comets and two asteroids by 2006; this gains extra interest
since CRAF is in serious budget trouble.  The first mission would launch
in 1997 for rendezvous with the asteroid Anteros in 1998.  The second
would launch in 2000 for a slow flyby of comet Finley in 2002, returning
dust samples to Earth.  The third would launch two spacecraft in 2003
for flybys of comet Encke late that year, followed by Earth swingbys
to redirect one to rendezvous with asteroid Eros in 2005 and the other
to a comet flyby in 2006.
 
NASDA is proposing a Japanese unmanned lunar mission in 1997 on an H-2,
either a large orbiter or a smaller orbiter plus a small lander, with a
rover mission as a followon late in the decade.
 
Soviet engineers propose using a modified SS-24 ICBM air-dropped from
an Antonov Ruslan heavy transport aircraft as a satellite launcher.
They plan to propose this as an Iridium launcher.  Later upgrades would
include putting wings on the ICBM and adding air-breathing engines.
The initial scheme would resemble the 1970s air-based ICBM concept,
with the ICBM rolled out rear cargo doors and stabilizing under a large
parachute before engine ignition, rather than the Pegasus approach.
 
More changes...  The Mir program will put heavier emphasis on guest
cosmonauts and foreign research payloads, in an attempt to broaden its
base of support beyond the USSR.  Buran operations plans have not been
terminated but have been delayed yet again, although the Energia
booster for the next Buran will do an engine test firing late this year.
 
At the IAF meeting, V.P. Mishin gives the first public briefing on the
old Soviet lunar program, the N1 booster it used, and Korolev's role
in it.  Mishin blames overambitious politicians for pushing the program
too hard, with the result that the N1 was a poor design that ended in
four disastrous launch failures.  All Mishin would say about the failures
was that the oxygen pump design was considered the cause of all four.
 
CNES to launch an experimental microsatellite next year (one of the ones
piggybacking on the Topex/Poseidon Ariane) to evaluate use of very small
satellites in a global network for data relay and positioning.  This
would be on a smaller scale than Iridium, and in particular would not
carry voice.
 
US/European companies get together to propose Globalstar, yet another
Iridium competitor.
-- 
SVR4:  proving that quantity is         | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
not a substitute for quality.           |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 13 AW&ST
Date: 8 Feb 92 05:07:14 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[This one is the "aerospace perspectives" issue, meaning that it is long
on semi-editorial overviews and light on news.]
 
Editorial supporting the Commercial Space Competitiveness Act, which would
require NASA to try out launch vouchers for experimenters, with which they
could buy launch and payload-integration services anywhere instead of
having them assigned by a bureaucracy.  "NASA gives away so much launch
capacity -- mostly in the form of shuttle Get Away Special, Hitchhiker,
and middeck locker space -- that it may well be impeding the development
of private space transportation.  Small payloads are launched by private
enterprise so rarely that the niche for them remains small and high priced."
 
The Titan 4 launch from Vandenberg apparently carried a secondary payload
in addition to the imaging spysat that was its main load.  Three smaller
satellites have been sighted, using an orbital pattern like that of
previous ocean-surveillance missions.
 
Aerospace Ambassadors announce a new deal with the Russians:  a small US
educational satellite will be launched in 1993 by having it tossed out
Mir's airlock.  AA is already sponsoring a rather higher-profile project,
flying a US educator to Mir, with selection due in July.  The two will
be coordinated, with the educator involved in the satellite deployment.
The (small) science payload will be selected from student entries.  [Now
the question is:  will NASA hastily dust off the Citizens In Space program
it shelved after Challenger, or will the first US teacher in space go up
in a Soyuz?]
 
Magellan has temporarily stopped mapping because its primary transmitter
has died.  Engineers are experimenting with the backup transmitter, which
is flakey but should be usable.
 
Long March 3 launch last month from Xichang failed to get its domestic-
comsat payload into Clarke orbit.  The third stage gradually lost helium
pressure, and hence thrust, during its second burn.  The satellite's
apogee motor has been fired to improve the orbit somewhat, and it may
be useful in small ways, but the launch is basically a failure.
 
USAF to unveil Timberwind, a little bit.  They will say that it is
a four-year project that has spent $130M so far and would spend perhaps
$800M total to finish ground tests of an initial engine.  The engine
would have 75klbs of thrust, a 30:1 thrust-weight ratio, and specific
impulse of 1000 seconds, with the reactor running at 5000F+.
 
CIS space pact begins organizing a joint space effort along the lines
of ESA's, under the control of an Interstate Space Council.  Military
space operations will remain under the same "Joint Strategic Armed
Forces" that holds ex-Soviet nuclear weapons, although exactly how this
is going to work is very unclear.  Analysts observe that the commonwealth
appears to give a relatively high priority to spaceflight, since they
spent time on it ahead of a lot of other issues.  All CIS states other
than Moldova are believed to have signed, although the Ukraine was
slow about it.
 
The Dec 30 space pact calls for "proportionate contributions" to the
ISC's activities, although just how large these contributions are going
to be in countries with tottering economies is uncertain.  It prohibits
individual state from impeding use by others of space facilities on
their territories, which is noteworthy since it means that Baikonur
in particular is open to all.  The pact does not spell out details of
organization, and an important first step will be settling who is in
charge of specific elements of the program (for example, the Energia
Design Bureau claims ownership of Mir, while the Russian air force
is running the cosmonaut program, and it's not clear who's boss).
Among the areas where the pact calls for financial cooperation is in
paying for damages caused by space operations, which undoubtedly makes
Kazakhstan happy, since Baikonur drops a lot of junk on them.
 
The pact authorizes independent space programs by individual states
who desire them.
 
Picture of the second Buran orbiter sitting in workstands at Baikonur.
 
Russian space officials say Mir will continue manned for the near term,
but no decisions have been made yet beyond that.  The next Mir crew,
Alexander Viktorenko and Alexander Kaleri, will go up in March to relieve
Volkov and Krikalev.  A German guest cosmonaut will go along.  They will
in turn be relieved in July by Anatoly Soloviev and Sergei Avdeiev, who
will be up for 5-6 months; their flight will carry a French guest
cosmonaut.  Plans for 1993 are unsettled.  The Russians say that the
basic philosophy of a permanent manned base is unchanged, but they are
worried about the practical problems.
 
The two remaining building blocks of Mir have been postponed, primarily
due to technical difficulties although finances are a factor.  Officially
both have slipped into 1993, but one might end up in 1994.
 
Apparently the small reentry capsule designed for use with Progress has
not been as much of a failure as some in the West thought.  One of the
two attempts to date succeeded, and Energia plans to continue using it.
(Energia is managing Mir at the moment.)
 
Changes recommended/ordered in a letter from appropriations chairmen
to NASA would cause significant problems for NASA.  This is a new
chapter in the battle between authorization and appropriation groups
for NASA; the appropriators took it on the chin this year over Fred
and seem to want a fight.  It is not yet clear how Truly will react.
The letter tells NASA not to transfer another $15M to NASP -- which
will probably kill the program -- and not to transfer anything to
NLS either.  They also told NASA to spend no more than $25M in 1992
and $35M in 1993 on Spacehab, which has a high probability of wrecking
the project since Spacehab can't even keep up the payments on its
loans with these limits.  The cause cited for all this is expected
inability to adequately fund these projects in later years.  Various
other minor shufflings are ordered, including spending half of the
$6M allocated for station-lifeboat studies on looking at using a
Soyuz.  [All this surely ranks as a new high in micromanagement.]
 
Administration support for the shuttle seems to be shrinking further;
there are hints that the 1993 budget will not fund structural spares
production for the orbiter fleet.  [Now this is just stupid, with no
replacement yet in sight.]
 
Truly orders a major reorganization of NASA centers to clarify roles
and eliminate duplication.  Lenoir is the big winner in terms of turf:
he lost the station when development and operations were split, but he
is now the representative of the station customers (and the Spacelab
customers).  Station management will shift toward the field centers,
but less drastically than previous attempts at this:  once the next
round of reviews is done next year, Washington people move to Reston
and Reston people move to the centers.  JSC will run station operations
while it is man-tended, but Marshall will be in charge once permanent
manning starts [now this is a bit bizarre].  Marshall gets the lead
role on NLS [boy, lucky for them, lead role on the project that can't
get any funding past Congress], Goddard on Earth sciences, JPL on
planetary science, Langley on NASP [another lucky bunch].
 
Crippen to order contractors to trim shuttle manpower by 20% to reduce
budget requirements.  It will be done gradually over the next five years,
but attrition probably will not suffice.  He says safety will not be
compromised:  some of the post-Challenger complications are now simply
considered excessive.  Shuttle flights will remain at 8-10 per year;
eight are set for 1992, although there is hope for a ninth.
 
Article on Oliver Harwood's proposed alternative space-station design,
built of a few standard parts so it can be expanded as needed.  He is
strongly critical of the contractor "innovation" in Phase B:  all their
designs were carbon copies of NASA's "reference configuration".  He
calls this "toadying to NASA", commenting that it's a vicious circle
because NASA gets harder and harder to argue with when everyone always
tells them they're right.
 
Article criticizing the military, NASA, and especially Congress for
stifling innovation... by refusing to reward it while heavily penalizing
anything that they define to be a "problem".  The article notes that
the number of crashes experienced in the development of either the
Blackbird or the F-117 would be cause for cancellation of almost any
unclassified program today.
-- 
SVR4:  proving that quantity is         | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
not a substitute for quality.           |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Swaraj Jeyasingh)
Subject: Space clips from Flight Int.(Jan)
Date: 6 Feb 92 14:52:11 GMT
Organization: British Telecom Labs
 
My new year resolution: to put out more timely summaries from Flight
International. The following is extracts from the January issues
 
 
Dornier (Germany) has been selected by ESA to build Biobox - this is a
module  containing  [not  surprisingly] biological  experiments to  be
flown on the "Soviet" Bion space mission scheduled for Nov 1992  [Dont
hold your breath].  Its  like a  fully automated  incubator which  can
maintain a fixed temperature profile.  The  Bion mission  (on board  a
recoverable  Photon  capsule]  lasts  10  days.   Scientists from  the
Netherlands, Belgium and France will be  investigating bone  formation
and  degradation.  Biobox  may also  be flown  on the  Shuttle in  the
future.
 
Arainespace  to  launch  Thailandsat  1  in  1994  on  an  Ariane   4.
Satellites are from Hughes (HS376).  This will be the  first time  the
Spelda payload fairing is to be used to  carry both  this and  another
larger payload (which sits ontop of Thailandsat).  This is to maximise
space utilisation.
 
Argentina is planning  to  develop  a  $300m  domestic comms satellite
system. Called Nahuel, it will  comprise  two s/c and ground segments.
It will also provide services to Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The launch is set for 1994 but no launcher mentioned.
 
"Soviets" due to test a 25m solar sail to propell a Progress M  tanker
s/c after leaving Mir.  Planned for October 1992 it is a demonstration
test fpr the Regatta programme (a 200m diameter solar sail,  scheduled
to be launched in 1993/94).
 
Orionsat construction by a British Aerospace (BAe)  led consortium  is
about  to  start.   Two  sats, due  to be  launched in  1994 by  Atlas
boosters,  aim  to  provide low-cost,  high-capability business  comms
services to the US and Europe (via 7 spot beams).   This will  include
the use of VSAT networks. video, data etc.  Apparently this represents
the first commercial sale by a European company of a comms sat to  the
US.
 
ESA awards BAe contract  to design  PRISMA s/c  (Probing Rotation  and
Interior of Stars; Microvariability and Activity).  This  is to  study
internal process of stars through X-rays and UV  observations.  It  is
one of four studies  which form  the Horizon  2000 science  programme.
One will be chosen next year, for launch in 2000.
 
NASA and NASDA  team  up  to  develop  a  Tropical  Rainfall measuring
mission spacecraft to be launched on  a  HII (no dates). TRMM will be
built by GSFC (also  the  visible,  IR  and microwave radiometers, and
earth radiation energy observation eqpt). NASDA  will buid the rainfall
radar.
 
Nine (out of 11) republics of  the CIS have established a Inter-State-
Space Council to manage the  space  programme.  Ukraine (where  Zenits
are built)  and Moldova have not signed. Key issues are:
 
-recognition of importance of space  technology  and  the need to pool
resources
-obligations to previous international agreements (but joint US manned
space mission have been put on ice)
-each partner gets "benefits" in proportion to what it puts in
-use of space centres (Baikonur in Russia, Plesetsk in Kazakstan) will
be subject to a separate  agreement.  The  states  have pledged not to
interrupt normal functioning of these centres.
- short term future of  Mir is assured  as it can generate foreign
earnings. (but visits by guest astronauts not certain).
- space science projects and the Mars 1994 mission not certain either
 
Alenia  Spazio  (Italy)  has   delivered  first  Spacehab  presurrised
extension module for the Space  Shuttle  (STS57, July 1993). Alenia is
main subcontractor to McDonell Douglas, and is building three modules.
Scheme  is  under  risk  as  NASA  is  under  presuure  to reduce  its
committement to lease 200 storage lockers from Spacehab.
 
Finally, Aerospatiale (France) has  completed  the 100th Ariane rocket
stage since the first launch in 1979....
 
Other  articles  of  interest:  Italian  Space  programme,   Satellite
Insurance Risk, Status of Vulcain engine for Ariane, preview of IML.
Please email me if you'd like info on these.
 
Thats all for now folks.
 
Usual  disclaimer: None  of the  above is  in any  way connected  with
British Telecom.  I don't work for Flight International.
 
Swaraj Jeyasingh                [email protected]
BT Labs
Ipswich
UK


From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Oct 14 AW&ST
 
Lockheed Skunk Works gets small contract to investigate the feasibility
of the HL-20, basically to estimate time and cost for development and the
procedures needed to flight-qualify it.  Lockheed says a prototype could
make an unmanned flight on a Titan by 1995.  [Lockheed is optimistic;
not that it couldn't be done, but NASA wouldn't even finish deciding to
do it by 1995... :-)]
 
Nimbus-7 data on Antarctic ozone depletion in the last few weeks show
the worst situation yet, the lowest numbers ever seen by the ozone mapper.
 
Senior Soviet and Russian military officials say they are willing, in
principle, to scrap the ABM Treaty and move towards joint development
with the US of a missile-defence system.  They think the first priority
should be better early-warning systems; a possible reason for this
emphasis is that the loss of the Warsaw Pact nations and peripheral
SSRs has punched some big holes in their defence network.
 
ICAO meeting endorses the notion of moving civil aviation towards
satellite-based communication, navigation, and traffic control over
the next 20 years.
 
Gulf War experience strengthens applications for GPS.  One trick that
was used with some frequency was having GPS-equipped users note the
exact positions of landmarks or pre-planted radar reflectors, and then
passing the coordinates to non-GPS aircraft for their use.  There was
also considerable use of GPS-equipped planes as pathfinders for non-GPS
aircraft.  The Army, having had its first taste of real combat for some
time, is very interested in coupling GPS receivers to digital-radio
systems to automatically report the position of mobile units back to
headquarters; they estimate that 40% of radio traffic in mobile operations
is "where are you?" and related messages.
 
On the civil front, there have been early tests of using GPS to report
aircraft position *on the ground* to make airport operations safer in
bad weather.  Differential GPS has demonstrated accuracy of 1m in this
application.
 
ESA proposes to delay Hermes, with the first unmanned mission slipping
to 2002 and the first manned mission to 2003.  The reason is money.
This is on top of delays proposed earlier this year [1991, remember].
The peak funding is pushed back two years to 1998, and the peak is
flattened out somewhat.  ESA's director for space transport says this
is about as far as things can go, with any further stretchout likely
to kill the project.
 
A further complication is that Hermes is overweight, *again*.  Worse,
Ariane 5 is too far down the planning curve to be enlarged yet again.
The standard Ariane 5 will be good enough to fly test missions, and
perhaps some operational missions with limited payloads.  Full Hermes
operational status would require enlarging Ariane 5's LOX tank and
souping up the LOX pump.
 
Soviets slash Mars plans due to political and economic upheaval.
The 1994 launch window now gets only one spacecraft, with small landers
and penetrators.  The rover/balloon mission slips to 1996.  They still
hope to use Mars Observer's radio-relay hardware for both, although
there is a backup plan to use a Soviet orbiter in 1996.
 
NASA workshop urges establishing a network of six dedicated telescopes
to find and track near-Earth asteroids that could threaten Earth.  They
estimate that only 5-10% of the near-Earth asteroids large enough to
pose a global threat have yet been seen.  The six-telescope network
should permit a complete survey in 10-15 years.  The telescopes would
have 2-3m mirrors and would not be a major technical challenge.  Doing
something about a threatening asteroid would be harder, but good tracking
could give several centuries' warning, enough for even a tiny change in
an asteroid's orbit to suffice.  Chances of a large asteroid hit are
believed to be about one in a million per year; this makes it more
likely for a random individual to die of an asteroid impact than of
lightning or an earthquake.
 
International space programs threatened by the recession, with planners
urging low-cost collaborative efforts.  One interesting proposal is a
US-Japanese planetary mission to launch three small missions to
survey three comets and two asteroids by 2006; this gains extra interest
since CRAF is in serious budget trouble.  The first mission would launch
in 1997 for rendezvous with the asteroid Anteros in 1998.  The second
would launch in 2000 for a slow flyby of comet Finley in 2002, returning
dust samples to Earth.  The third would launch two spacecraft in 2003
for flybys of comet Encke late that year, followed by Earth swingbys
to redirect one to rendezvous with asteroid Eros in 2005 and the other
to a comet flyby in 2006.
 
NASDA is proposing a Japanese unmanned lunar mission in 1997 on an H-2,
either a large orbiter or a smaller orbiter plus a small lander, with a
rover mission as a followon late in the decade.
 
Soviet engineers propose using a modified SS-24 ICBM air-dropped from
an Antonov Ruslan heavy transport aircraft as a satellite launcher.
They plan to propose this as an Iridium launcher.  Later upgrades would
include putting wings on the ICBM and adding air-breathing engines.
The initial scheme would resemble the 1970s air-based ICBM concept,
with the ICBM rolled out rear cargo doors and stabilizing under a large
parachute before engine ignition, rather than the Pegasus approach.
 
More changes...  The Mir program will put heavier emphasis on guest
cosmonauts and foreign research payloads, in an attempt to broaden its
base of support beyond the USSR.  Buran operations plans have not been
terminated but have been delayed yet again, although the Energia
booster for the next Buran will do an engine test firing late this year.
 
At the IAF meeting, V.P. Mishin gives the first public briefing on the
old Soviet lunar program, the N1 booster it used, and Korolev's role
in it.  Mishin blames overambitious politicians for pushing the program
too hard, with the result that the N1 was a poor design that ended in
four disastrous launch failures.  All Mishin would say about the failures
was that the oxygen pump design was considered the cause of all four.
 
CNES to launch an experimental microsatellite next year (one of the ones
piggybacking on the Topex/Poseidon Ariane) to evaluate use of very small
satellites in a global network for data relay and positioning.  This
would be on a smaller scale than Iridium, and in particular would not
carry voice.
 
US/European companies get together to propose Globalstar, yet another
Iridium competitor.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 4 AW&ST
 
Intelsat 6F1, fifth and last of the Intelsat 6 monsters, launched Oct 29
on Ariane.
 
Crippin replaces McCartney as KSC director effective 1 Jan.
 
B-2 gives its life for SDI, as House-Senate authorization compromise halts
production of the B-2 (as the House wanted) in return for a reasonably
large SDI budget (which the Senate wanted).
 
Dept Of Large-Scale Oops:  NASA's TDRS-3, being relocated in Clarke orbit,
disrupts commercial transmissions on Galaxy 1 Oct 22 and Satcom 1R Oct 23,
with hours of noise, snow, and ghost images on a wide range of high-profile
TV:  CNN, ESPN, TNT, several movie channels.  Industry is seriously pissed
that NASA didn't tell them TDRS-3 was on the move; they had to consult
NORAD to find out what was going on.  NASA is not sure what happened.
A hardware failure is suspected of causing the retransmissions.  NASA
says that troubleshooting must wait "until we're out of everybody's way".
 
Large article on Magellan Venus results, with several large images.  The
geologists now have enough data to start looking at global patterns,
including the first high-resolution map of the whole planet.  There is
now speculation that Venus may parallel the young Earth rather than the
current one.  There are hints that Maat Mons may have been volcanically
active within the last decade -- its upper levels are radar-dark, rather
than radar-bright like the chemically-weathered surfaces normally seen
at that altitude.  It might still be active, in fact -- the data from
the second pass over it, in October, has not been processed yet, but
will be studied carefully for hints of change.  There is still debate
about whether Venus's crust is composed of a plate system like Earth's;
certainly plate boundaries are not very visible.  There are various
odd patterns among surface features, not yet understood.  The youth
of the surface has been confirmed by large-scale crater counts, so it
is -- or has been -- resurfaced somehow.  Long channels, up to 6800km
long, simply are not understood at all -- they look like erosion
features, but what fluid liquid at those temperatures could run that
far?  (Lava couldn't.)  Areas like Maxwell Montes show slopes exceeding
30 degrees, again indicating recent activity because this is greater
than the expected stable angle under Venus surface conditions.
 
Magellan's second mapping cycle, to end Jan 15, has imaged most of
what got missed on the first cycle already, including 75% of the
south-pole gap and 80% of the superior-conjunction gap.  Digital maps
of about half the planet are already available on CDROM, with the
rest coming by the end of the year.
 
Galileo Gaspra encounter appears successful, based on telemetry.
There were some telemetry oddities during encounter but they are
now understood and can be avoided in future.  JPL is considering
whether to try to get one image back.  [They did.]

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 11 AW&ST
 
One research group at Goddard has actually benefitted from Hubble's
misground mirror:  images of the binary star system R Aquarii are so
bright that they saturate the Faint Object Camera's detectors, but
analysis of the smearing caused by the aberration is yielding better
data than could be had with a properly-ground mirror.
 
Dornier to provide High Resolution Stereo Camera for a Soviet 1994
Mars orbiter.
 
First demonstrations of full "automatic dependant surveillance", with
airliner positions automatically transmitted by satellite to ground
stations while the airliner is beyond radar range, carried out Oct 21
by a Northwest Airlines transPacific 747 flight using Inmarsat links.
 
Marginally space related...  Seismographs [!] in southern California
were used to determine that two unusually loud sonic booms heard
early in the morning of Oct 31 were from two different aircraft flying
at circa Mach 3 [!] at circa 30,000ft [!!].  (The instruments have
heard SR-71s and shuttle orbiters in the past.)  Naturally, the USAF,
the USN, and NASA/Dryden deny having anything fast in the air at the
time; the obvious conclusion is that they were something secret from
one of the "black" bases in Nevada.
 
Launch of Eutelsat 2 from the Cape slips yet again due to electronics
problems in the Centaur inertial platform.  This is the fourth delay
of this launch; another Atlas 2 in the queue behind it, carrying a
DSCS military comsat, is also being delayed now.
 
Various DSN users agree to give Galileo a lot of DSN time for several
days starting Nov 7 so that one Gaspra image can be transmitted.
 
House-Senate budget compromise strongly supports SDI in the wake of
the Gulf War's demonstration of allied vulnerability to ballistic
missiles.  The compromise calls for deployment of limited missile
defences at a single site, probably the old Grand Forks ABM base,
by 1996, and immediate negotiations with the Soviets aimed at easing
the treaty provisions that permit only one ABM site.
 
Rocket Systems Corp of Japan bids the H-2 to launch the Inmarsat 3s.
Potential customers are interested, but question Japan's ability to
compete on price and the political feasibility of altering the agreement
with Japan's fishermen that restricts Tanegashima launches to two
short seasons each year.  RSC says it has bid on other commercial
launch requirements, but declines to give details.  It is lobbying to
get the agreement with the fishermen changed, saying that the
combination of six-month delays from any serious launch problems
and the high costs of building only two H-2s per year will make it
very difficult to compete.  They are pushing Japanese reliability as
a partial counter to expected high costs, but admit that they do not
expect many foreign customers.
 
The two NASA spacecraft for the International Solar Terrestrial Physics
Program -- "Wind" and "Polar" -- are facing a 100% cost overrun and
launch delays of 5-6 months.  This may affect overall science output
by messing up coordinated observations that had been planned with other
spacecraft; in particular, one major objective of Wind was to get solar
plasma measurements upstream of the Earth at the same time as Japan's
Geotail spacecraft is doing them downstream.  Factors blamed for the
problems are the need to contract out construction (to GE) because
many of Goddard's experienced in-house satellite builders have retired
or been promoted, the delay in nailing down detailed requirements until
after the program was already under contract, an inability to use as
many off-the-shelf components as originally expected, and problems
shielding sensors from spacecraft internal magnetic fields.  NASA is
also expecting a 30% overrun on US instruments for ESA's Soho mission,
another ISTP component.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 18 AW&ST
 
CNES engineers visit JSC to compare predictions of Ariane 5 third-stage
reentry with NASA data on external-tank reentry.  CNES is concerned that
debris from the A5 third stage might reach the west coast of South America.
 
NASP supporters pressure Quayle to get the administration behind it and
end the bickering between DoD, the USAF, NASA, and the Space Council.
 
Space Transportation Systems Ltd gets contract to develop Cape York
spaceport, in the wake of the bankruptcy of its main competitor.  STS
has until the end of the year to prove that it can find the necessary
money.  First launch of a Zenit 3 could take place in 1996 if nothing
goes wrong.
 
First picture of an asteroid, as one image of Gaspra trickles in at
40bps via Galileo's low-gain antenna.  Gaspra is slightly larger than
expected, irregular in shape, and smooth enough to suggest a substantial
layer of regolith despite its feeble gravitational field.
 
Ariane V46 launch carrying Telecom 2A and Inmarsat 2F3 is postponed
indefinitely because of electrical problems in both satellites.
 
US Army Space Command to brief interested parties on the possibilities
of a low-cost logistics tracking system.  A recent test used small
solar-powered systems comprising Navstar receivers and Inmarsat
communications transmitters to track shiploads of material returning
from the Gulf.  Every four hours, the system automatically transmitted
the position of the ships to Army logistics people, precisely enough
that they could determine which pier a ship had docked at.  This may
sound trivial, but a significant amount of equipment was *lost* during
the Gulf War buildup because it simply got mislaid.
 
SDIO reveals an unexpected phenomenon discovered by the SDI shuttle
mission last May:  when even small rocket engines fire in space, they
ignite with a brilliant flash covering a large area, highly visible
in ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths.  The flash is
much bigger and brighter than the plume produced during sustained
firing; the shuttle's modest OMS engines produce, for about the first
second of a firing, a fireball hundreds of feet across that partly
engulfs the orbiter.  It is so prominent that it was originally thought
to be sensor error, but it was confirmed by multiple sensors and was
seen in RCS firings too.  The tentative guess is that it's an artifact
of inefficient burning during the ignition sequence.
 
Second Titan IV launch from Vandenberg Nov 7, carrying classified
payload thought to be either an advanced KH-11 or a Lacrosse.
 
Atlantis launch imminent, the main payload being a missile-warning
satellite, with a major secondary mission to test astronaut observations
of the Earth for military purposes.  (Soviet cosmonauts in orbit during
the Gulf War reported seeing quite a bit, including individual bomb
explosions in Iraq.)  Pictures of the warning satellite [noteworthy
because these birds used to be pretty secret].

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Nov 25 AW&ST
 
FY92 compromise DoD appropriation funds SDI at the same $4.15G level as
the earlier compromise authorization, and allocates $55M for USAF work
on NLS, while expressing concern that DoD, SDI, and the intelligence
community appear to have no requirement for NLS and possibly should
not be funding it.  [Of course, neither does NASA...]  Both approp.
and auth. provide $200M for NASP, but a report accompanying the auth.
warns that Congress will not commit to NASP construction unless there
is clear evidence that NASA and DoD will budget properly for it, and
also that pending DoD cuts make it necessary that NASA carry a larger
share of NASP in future, since there is no clear military requirement
and DoD is not in the business of funding civilian spaceflight.
 
More Magellan images, this time full-surface maps using the first-cycle
data (with gaps filled in from Pioneer Venus data).
 
ESA member nations give mixed signals, endorsing a proposed long-term
plan but failing to give a full-scale go-ahead for Hermes, Columbus,
and the Data Relay Satellite.  H, C, and DRS have been funded for one
year of initial development, with another ministerial meeting set for
late 1992 to review the situation.  Many people are quite unhappy about
this; ESA formerly was noteworthy for giving multi-year go-aheads that
avoided having approved projects subject to change or cancellation every
year.  The ministers also mumbled about "studying cooperation with
nonmember countries" on the projects, which program participants see
as likely to complicate projects and increase expenses, given that these
projects are already pretty well parcelled out and ready to roll.
 
Outgoing NASA DepAdmin Thompson delivers a major reassessment of agency
roles and responsibilities.  Prominent are recommendations for:
 
- an organized mechanism to "assure termination quickly" of any project
that overruns financial limits
 
- moving shuttle management from Johnson to Kennedy
 
- moving most station management from Reston to Johnson and Marshall
 
- more emphasis on making specific centers leaders on specific projects
and developing specific areas of expertise at specific centers rather
than having everybody do everything
 
- consolidate "fragmented" Moon/Mars efforts at Johnson
 
- consolidate NLS at Marshall
 
- revive NASA's space power and communications technology, currently "not
aggressive or cutting edge", by getting more ambitious work going at Lewis
 
- "a major emphasis before we start a program on the technology readiness
and *real* requirements"
 
Truly has officially praised the report, the first look at such things
in a decade, but is likely to implement it selectively.  For example,
the shuttle shift to KSC is likely to happen, but the reduction in role
for Reston is not.  Thompson is leaving NASA to join Orbital Sciences.
 
SDI will try to get detailed UV images of orbiter rocket plumes from
the LACE satellite during the Atlantis mission.  This has been tried
before, but LACE has to be pretty precisely pointed, and so far the
attempts have missed seeing the orbiters.
-- 
The X Window system is not layered, and | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
it was not designed. -Shane P. McCarron |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 13 AW&ST
 
[This one is the "aerospace perspectives" issue, meaning that it is long
on semi-editorial overviews and light on news.]
 
Editorial supporting the Commercial Space Competitiveness Act, which would
require NASA to try out launch vouchers for experimenters, with which they
could buy launch and payload-integration services anywhere instead of
having them assigned by a bureaucracy.  "NASA gives away so much launch
capacity -- mostly in the form of shuttle Get Away Special, Hitchhiker,
and middeck locker space -- that it may well be impeding the development
of private space transportation.  Small payloads are launched by private
enterprise so rarely that the niche for them remains small and high priced."
 
The Titan 4 launch from Vandenberg apparently carried a secondary payload
in addition to the imaging spysat that was its main load.  Three smaller
satellites have been sighted, using an orbital pattern like that of
previous ocean-surveillance missions.
 
Aerospace Ambassadors announce a new deal with the Russians:  a small US
educational satellite will be launched in 1993 by having it tossed out
Mir's airlock.  AA is already sponsoring a rather higher-profile project,
flying a US educator to Mir, with selection due in July.  The two will
be coordinated, with the educator involved in the satellite deployment.
The (small) science payload will be selected from student entries.  [Now
the question is:  will NASA hastily dust off the Citizens In Space program
it shelved after Challenger, or will the first US teacher in space go up
in a Soyuz?]
 
Magellan has temporarily stopped mapping because its primary transmitter
has died.  Engineers are experimenting with the backup transmitter, which
is flakey but should be usable.
 
Long March 3 launch last month from Xichang failed to get its domestic-
comsat payload into Clarke orbit.  The third stage gradually lost helium
pressure, and hence thrust, during its second burn.  The satellite's
apogee motor has been fired to improve the orbit somewhat, and it may
be useful in small ways, but the launch is basically a failure.
 
USAF to unveil Timberwind, a little bit.  They will say that it is
a four-year project that has spent $130M so far and would spend perhaps
$800M total to finish ground tests of an initial engine.  The engine
would have 75klbs of thrust, a 30:1 thrust-weight ratio, and specific
impulse of 1000 seconds, with the reactor running at 5000F+.
 
CIS space pact begins organizing a joint space effort along the lines
of ESA's, under the control of an Interstate Space Council.  Military
space operations will remain under the same "Joint Strategic Armed
Forces" that holds ex-Soviet nuclear weapons, although exactly how this
is going to work is very unclear.  Analysts observe that the commonwealth
appears to give a relatively high priority to spaceflight, since they
spent time on it ahead of a lot of other issues.  All CIS states other
than Moldova are believed to have signed, although the Ukraine was
slow about it.
 
The Dec 30 space pact calls for "proportionate contributions" to the
ISC's activities, although just how large these contributions are going
to be in countries with tottering economies is uncertain.  It prohibits
individual state from impeding use by others of space facilities on
their territories, which is noteworthy since it means that Baikonur
in particular is open to all.  The pact does not spell out details of
organization, and an important first step will be settling who is in
charge of specific elements of the program (for example, the Energia
Design Bureau claims ownership of Mir, while the Russian air force
is running the cosmonaut program, and it's not clear who's boss).
Among the areas where the pact calls for financial cooperation is in
paying for damages caused by space operations, which undoubtedly makes
Kazakhstan happy, since Baikonur drops a lot of junk on them.
 
The pact authorizes independent space programs by individual states
who desire them.
 
Picture of the second Buran orbiter sitting in workstands at Baikonur.
 
Russian space officials say Mir will continue manned for the near term,
but no decisions have been made yet beyond that.  The next Mir crew,
Alexander Viktorenko and Alexander Kaleri, will go up in March to relieve
Volkov and Krikalev.  A German guest cosmonaut will go along.  They will
in turn be relieved in July by Anatoly Soloviev and Sergei Avdeiev, who
will be up for 5-6 months; their flight will carry a French guest
cosmonaut.  Plans for 1993 are unsettled.  The Russians say that the
basic philosophy of a permanent manned base is unchanged, but they are
worried about the practical problems.
 
The two remaining building blocks of Mir have been postponed, primarily
due to technical difficulties although finances are a factor.  Officially
both have slipped into 1993, but one might end up in 1994.
 
Apparently the small reentry capsule designed for use with Progress has
not been as much of a failure as some in the West thought.  One of the
two attempts to date succeeded, and Energia plans to continue using it.
(Energia is managing Mir at the moment.)
 
Changes recommended/ordered in a letter from appropriations chairmen
to NASA would cause significant problems for NASA.  This is a new
chapter in the battle between authorization and appropriation groups
for NASA; the appropriators took it on the chin this year over Fred
and seem to want a fight.  It is not yet clear how Truly will react.
The letter tells NASA not to transfer another $15M to NASP -- which
will probably kill the program -- and not to transfer anything to
NLS either.  They also told NASA to spend no more than $25M in 1992
and $35M in 1993 on Spacehab, which has a high probability of wrecking
the project since Spacehab can't even keep up the payments on its
loans with these limits.  The cause cited for all this is expected
inability to adequately fund these projects in later years.  Various
other minor shufflings are ordered, including spending half of the
$6M allocated for station-lifeboat studies on looking at using a
Soyuz.  [All this surely ranks as a new high in micromanagement.]
 
Administration support for the shuttle seems to be shrinking further;
there are hints that the 1993 budget will not fund structural spares
production for the orbiter fleet.  [Now this is just stupid, with no
replacement yet in sight.]
 
Truly orders a major reorganization of NASA centers to clarify roles
and eliminate duplication.  Lenoir is the big winner in terms of turf:
he lost the station when development and operations were split, but he
is now the representative of the station customers (and the Spacelab
customers).  Station management will shift toward the field centers,
but less drastically than previous attempts at this:  once the next
round of reviews is done next year, Washington people move to Reston
and Reston people move to the centers.  JSC will run station operations
while it is man-tended, but Marshall will be in charge once permanent
manning starts [now this is a bit bizarre].  Marshall gets the lead
role on NLS [boy, lucky for them, lead role on the project that can't
get any funding past Congress], Goddard on Earth sciences, JPL on
planetary science, Langley on NASP [another lucky bunch].
 
Crippen to order contractors to trim shuttle manpower by 20% to reduce
budget requirements.  It will be done gradually over the next five years,
but attrition probably will not suffice.  He says safety will not be
compromised:  some of the post-Challenger complications are now simply
considered excessive.  Shuttle flights will remain at 8-10 per year;
eight are set for 1992, although there is hope for a ninth.
 
Article on Oliver Harwood's proposed alternative space-station design,
built of a few standard parts so it can be expanded as needed.  He is
strongly critical of the contractor "innovation" in Phase B:  all their
designs were carbon copies of NASA's "reference configuration".  He
calls this "toadying to NASA", commenting that it's a vicious circle
because NASA gets harder and harder to argue with when everyone always
tells them they're right.
 
Article criticizing the military, NASA, and especially Congress for
stifling innovation... by refusing to reward it while heavily penalizing
anything that they define to be a "problem".  The article notes that
the number of crashes experienced in the development of either the
Blackbird or the F-117 would be cause for cancellation of almost any
unclassified program today.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 20 AW&ST
 
Lockheed instrument meant to measure high-altitude winds before shuttle
launches detects what appears to be a substantial layer of volcanic dust
at 16-20km altitude, presumably from the Pinatubo eruption.  This could
partially counteract global warming effects from CO2, temporarily.
 
Georgia Tech investigation of optical components that spent six years
in space on LDEF says some do suffer in the space environment; coatings
of various kinds changed noticeably.
 
Political compromise permits NASA to spend $40M on Spacehab in FY1992,
saving the project from disaster.  (The original $25M would not have
sufficed to keep Spacehab's loans paid.)  There is still room for
concern about the $50M needed next year.  A similar compromise has
eluded NASP, however, with NASA still forbidden to spend more than $5M.
 
The list of chores for the 1994 Hubble servicing mission is still growing.
The low-voltage power supply on one side of the high-resolution spectrograph
is misbehaving badly enough that a replacement has been requested.  Alas,
this looks like a 4-6hr job, which is too long, and there is a significant
risk of contaminating optics.  An alternative being investigated is just
adding a cross-connection to let the bad side use the good side's electronics.
 
USAF reveals many details of Timberwind (without actually using that
codename or admitting the connection).  The objective is a particle-bed
fission engine that would give about 75klbs of thrust at Isp of 1000s
and thrust:weight ratio of 30:1.  The particles, using a new coating
to permit heat transfer without fission-product leakage, would be
retained between porous frits to prevent them escaping.  About $130M
has been spent since 1987 with the objective of ground-testing a
prototype in about eight years at a total cost of circa $800M.
Congress is actually appropriating more than the USAF asked for
in FY1992.
 
The USAF has ruled out using Timberwind at ground level, saying it
is being considered only as an upper stage.  The USAF missions for
it have not been revealed.  NASA is cautiously interested.
 
Russians say they have most of the technology needed to build a
small nuclear-thermal rocket, thrust 5klbs, Isp 950s, T:W not
much above 1:1.
 
The US State Dept is still obstructing the sale of a Topaz 2 space
reactor to the US, but it is now thought that the problems have been
sorted out and delivery will occur soon.
 
US nuclear types are concerned that the Topaz 2 may derail SP-100.
There are already proposals to use T2 reactors for US space projects,
although it is claimed to be technically inferior to (and it certainly
is rather smaller than) SP-100.  GE says that a mere $1G and five years
would suffice to build a flight-test SP-100.
 
USAF pulls a classified experiment off Milstar, making room for a
tactical communications package from the fourth satellite onward.
(The first three will have ballast instead, since the new package
will not be available soon enough.)
 
Scientific results from Hubble and Compton at the American Astronomical
Society meeting.  The gamma-ray people are still tearing their hair out
trying to explain the distribution of gamma-ray burst sources, with new
theories surfacing daily.  Hubble has found blue globular clusters,
derailing the standard theory which requires globulars to be very old
(as most of them are).  (This particular discovery is notable because
it's a significant development, the view from space was crucial, it
was made with the wide-field camera despite it being hard hit by the
mirror botch, and it was made by accident during a study of a peculiar
galaxy considered interesting for other reasons.  The people who made
it are waiting impatiently for the mirror fix, however, because that
will make it much easier to measure the color and brightness of the
blue clusters precisely.  That would reveal whether they were all
formed at about the same time, which is necessary for the current idea
about their origin:  that they were formed when two galaxies collided.)
Hubble has made the most precise measurement yet of deuterium in space,
expected to be a sensitive test of theories about the Big Bang.  Galaxy
M87 is now fairly definitely identified as having a black hole in its
center, because there is something very small and very bright there
(although measurements of star velocities there, crucial to confirmation,
will probably have to wait for the mirror fix).  Compton finds three
immensely-powerful gamma-ray quasars.  And the latest word on the
gamma-ray bursts compounds the mystery about them:  not only is their
distribution in the sky wrong, so is their intensity distribution,
with fewer low-intensity bursts than expected.
 
Painting of Galileo during Gaspra encounter, showing the fouled antenna.
 
Italy and Germany sort out a scuffle on Columbus project management:
with the (German-led) free-flying module stalled by ESA budget wrangling
but the (Italy-led) space-station lab still moving ahead, the German
companies wanted to get a piece of the space-station lab.  The result
is a complex compromise.
 
FAA says flight tests reveal GPS lacks sufficient accuracy for precision
instrument approaches, with vertical inaccuracy particularly unacceptable
but horizontal results not good enough either.  And differential GPS,
although it helps, isn't enough to cure the problems:  for Category III,
the most severe blind-landing cases, its vertical accuracy is an order
of magnitude short (plain GPS is two orders of magnitude short) and its
horizontal accuracy also needs about a 60% improvement.  Apart from
accuracy, GPS also flunks on availability (mostly because of not enough
satellites) and integrity (because there is no warning to pilots of
accuracy deterioration).  The integrity problem has three parts:
detecting ailing satellites (which would require several more monitoring
sites, or else having the satellites monitor each other), silencing them
(a capability that the newer satellites already have), and alerting the
pilots (best done by having enough satellites in the sky that a receiver
can cross-check them against each other, although there are other ways).
 
Comsat and Morsviasputnik, in partnership, have established direct-dial
telephone service (via Inmarsat) at major hotels in Moscow and Latvia,
providing service far superior to that of the decrepit Russian phone
network.
 
International Microgravity Lab mission aboard Discovery set to go,
carrying European and Canadian payload specialists.  Various experiments
are planned in both life sciences and materials processing.  Noteworthy
among the life-sciences experiments is an investigation of free-fall
back pain, fairly common in space for unknown reasons:  a stereo camera
will be used to photograph crew members' backs in hopes of determining
exactly how the spine changes shape in free fall.
 
Rockwell layoffs imminent, as NASA moves shuttle maintenance to KSC
and Columbia modifications are completed.
 
Magellan mapping to resume at a lower data rate after the high-rate
modulator in the main data transmitter fails.  The backup transmitter
has a noise problem that makes it unusable at full rate, but careful
juggling has made it usable at the lower fallback rate.  The noise
occurs at one frequency in the transmitter's output band, and
that frequency drifts as transmitter temperature changes.  By keeping
the transmitter on constantly and taking other precautions, its
temperature has been stabilized, and the fallback-rate transmission
needs only part of the output band and has been adjusted to avoid the
noisy part.  The lower rate means mapping only about half as much
surface area per orbit, but this is still sufficient for many purposes,
and the problem doesn't affect the forthcoming gravity studies at all.
 
As yet uncertain is Magellan's funding in FY93.  It actually has no
money in the FY92 budget -- Congress did not insist on putting it
back in after NASA didn't ask for it -- and is running on money
reprogrammed from other projects.  Although there is much yet to
be done with gravity measurements, further radar studies including
looking for volcanic activity, and the possibility of aerobraking
into a lower orbit for much more detailed mapping, Magellan's case
is weakened because it *has* pretty much completed its primary
mission, the mapping of Venus's surface.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Dec 2 AW&ST
Date: 2 Mar 92 00:35:19 GMT
 
The cover story is "Nuclear Propulsion for Space Travel".  Large story
on NASA Lewis's nuclear-thermal propulsion work, which is pushing for
use of such engines in lunar missions in 2000-2005.  Among the advantages
being cited are finding out early whether the political problems can be
overcome sufficiently to make nuclear propulsion viable for a Mars mission.
Other points in favor are PR advantages of being less obviously a repeat
of Apollo and early involvement of DoD and DoE in both work and funding.
Details of proposed missions, some of which require a heavylift launcher.
 
Atlantis deploys early-warning satellite, crew proceeds to their secondary
mission of evaluating manned military reconnaissance from orbit.  The
satellite will be the only warning satellite launched by shuttle; it is
a leftover from the days when the shuttle was going to be the only
launcher [although it's not clear whether it is a leftover for technical
reasons -- incompatibility with expendable launch -- or bureaucratic ones
that insist that the shuttle-compatibility effort have some tangible result].
Another secondary mission is assessment of free-fall effects on the pilot's
ability to land the orbiter, a matter of considerable concern for the
extended-duration missions now being planned.  (Next year there will also
be a test of the shuttle's theoretical capability to fly a fully automatic
landing.)  Also of note was a phenomenon not seen before, pulses of light
dancing on the orbiter's nose between Mach 11 and cutoff.
 
The Atlantis launch Nov 24 was delayed five days by payload problems,
and various problems were overcome during launch preparations.  The
left SRB was recovered damaged, and work is underway to establish
whether (as hoped) this was the result of the water landing rather than
earlier problems.  KSC crews are bracing for an attempt to fly twelve
shuttle missions in the next 14 months.  Endeavour is about to join
the operation fleet and Columbia is rejoining it.  Atlantis and Discovery
will be off flight status for a few months for refurbishing.
 
A group within NASA proposed offering the Soviets a penetrator for their
Mars 94 mission, but it was rejected within NASA as "too risky"; when
asked whether this meant technical or political risk, Griffin said "all
of the above".  Griffin is now hoping to use one or more of the Atlas 1
launchers that NASA has in inventory for the (delayed) GOES-Next program
for lunar missions instead.  He says it will be several months before
firm decisions are made, but the current idea is four missions -- three
orbiters and one lander -- within the next four years, each in the $100M
class due to limited objectives and fast schedule.  The orbiter missions
would be for remote sensing.  The lander would carry a small payload for
either science or technology demonstration.  One lander concept is a
standardized design called Artemis (Apollo's sister) that could carry
a wide range of 100-200kg payloads using simple off-the-shelf hardware.
Griffin comments:  "You can buy these by the yard and do that well into
the next century...  It will be a long time before we can afford to send
men everywhere on the Moon."  There are also potential uses in conjunction
with manned operations, e.g. emergency resupply.
 
JPL readies Topex/Poseidon hardware for July launch.  It is noteworthy
in being the first NASA payload to use a non-US launcher (Ariane).  It
carries a variety of experiments, mostly ocean-related.  One of note is
a GPS receiver for early experiments on using GPS to track satellites.
The bad news is that Topex/Poseidon is badly over budget, although it
has now been agreed between NASA and Fairchild (the contractor) that a
lot of it is NASA's fault:  NASA raised the specs for both electronics
and solar arrays midway through.  Fairchild also is not used to the way
JPL overbuilds spacecraft, e.g. with wider temperature margins than
commercial spacecraft, and decided to deliver on time despite the problems,
which meant paying a premium for fast results from suppliers.
 
Competition for the next generation of missile-warning satellites will
have one unusual omission:  the TRW/Aerojet team that builds the current
ones will split.  TRW has teamed with Grumman to get Grumman's advanced
sensor technology developed for SDI, having decided that the USAF is
likely to demand a major jump in capabilities that could not be met
by upgrading the existing design.  TRW and Aerojet are still under
contract for the last batch of the existing birds, and there may be
one more batch as a transition move.
 
JSC tests GPS as a replacement for the shuttle's current automatic
landing system.  Early results, using the shuttle training aircraft
for tests, say that it's good enough horizontally but not vertically.
Adding differential GPS and a radar altimeter helps.
 
Various groups have been comparing GPS to Glonass.  At the moment they
complement each other somewhat:  GPS coverage is better at the equator,
Glonass at the poles.  Glonass accuracy is comparable to GPS if GPS's
accuracy-degrading "selective availability" is switched off, and a good
deal better when selective availability is on.  Soviet authorities have
stated that Glonass accuracy will not be deliberately degraded by any
equivalent of selective availability.  Canadian Marconi has development
underway on a commercial receiver that will pick up both GPS and Glonass,
with delivery possible in summer 1993 if enough interest appears.
 
Ohio U tries something different:  doing accurate attitude sensing by
comparing GPS signal phase at multiple antennas on the same aircraft.
Some problems have been found, but already it looks very promising,
with accuracies within 1 milliradian possible with a 1m baseline.
 
White House pledges funding for Landsat 7 in FY1993 budget request.
Truly and Andrews (asst sec DoD for CCCI) outline Landsat plans; so
far the only improvement over Landsat 6 planned for Landsat 7 is a
TDRS antenna to permit continuous data transmission.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Dec 9 AW&ST
Date: 3 Mar 92 06:05:25 GMT
 
Arianespace beats out GD for the Dec 1992 launch of Superbird-A for
Japan's Space Communications Corp.
 
The final Intelsat lawsuit against Martin Marietta over the Intelsat
launch screwup last year is dismissed, the judge decreeing that the
only thing MM owes Intelsat is a relaunch for the fee set in the contract.
 
Representatives of the Saenger program will visit Dryden to talk about
use of an SR-71 as a launch aircraft for a small unmanned hypersonic
vehicle to study Saenger engine design.
 
Another win for Arianespace:  Thailandsat 1.
 
Truly backed into a corner over NASP funding, with supporters telling
him to use his authority to reprogram funds within NASA, since he has
claimed strong support for the program.
 
State and Commerce liberalize the rules for private US competitors of
Intelsat, with an eye on completely eliminating restrictions by 1997.
 
Atlantis lands three days early after one of its three inertial platforms
fails.  Mission rules say that, barring unfulfilled critical mission
objectives, such a failure means an immediate landing at Edwards, and
so it was.  The primary satellite-deployment mission having been carried
out, the secondary missions were aborted, although some useful data was
obtained before the failure.  The astronauts say that the results from
the reconnaissance tests were better than expected and could be quite
useful with slightly better optics.  Fred Gregory and Story Musgrave,
who flew two years ago, observed that the atmosphere looks significantly
dirtier now than then.
 
China studies a HTOL two-stage launcher, with a manned upper stage
carried on a large Mach 6 aircraft.
 
ESA concerned over possible launch delays for Cassini/Huygens.  NASA
rumored to be looking at a slip from 1995 to 1997, which is okay in
itself but leaves no room for a further slip without compromising
science objectives.  ESA is also annoyed about the cost of the slip,
estimated at $31M or so for them.  Most worrisome is that they see a
disturbing parallel between Cassini's troubles and the early stages
of the ISPM/Ulysses mess (in which the US unilaterally cancelled its
half of a dual mission).
 
ESA orders early studies on candidates for its next medium science
mission:  Step (relativity physics in Earth orbit), Marsnet (small
surface stations on Mars), Prisma (stellar astrophysics in high
orbit), and Integral (high-resolution spectroscopy and accurate
location of gamma-ray sources, possibly in cooperation with the CIS).
 
The Western European Union agrees to establish a joint satellite center,
with signs on the horizon that they will fund their own spysat system
in the long run.  Early efforts will get data first from commercial
satellites and then from Helios.
 
Major design review of Fred is cautiously optimistic.  Design and
management are stable, for a change.  Technical problems remain.  One
biggie is that initial assembly, planned for six flights, will probably
need seven:  ASRM is not going to be ready in time for number six, and
number five is overweight (although there is some margin in hand).
"This is the first October, November, and December in this program we
haven't been going through a redesign."  Very little hardware is yet
built but progress is good and the EVA problem is considered to be
under control (although still troublesome).  One cloud on the horizon
is that everyone now insists that the lifeboat is necessary, but
Congress has yet to fund development.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Dec 16/23 AW&ST
Date: 11 Mar 92 02:44:47 GMT
 
[Okay, this is the last of the catch-up issues.  The Dec 30 issue was
an all-photographs issue with zero news content (and no good space
photos either).  The last non-catch-up summary was for Jan 20, but the
next summary will be the Feb 3 issue, because the Post Orifice seems
to have eaten my copy of the Jan 27 issue.]
 
NASP officials looking at using a NASA SR-71 to run more-or-less full-scale
tests of external burning -- burning hydrogen outside the X-30's engine
nozzle at low speed to reduce drag and increase thrust -- by mounting a
full-sized NASP nozzle on the SR-71.  Nothing else is big enough and
fast enough to run a realistic test.
 
The latest missile-warning satellite, launched recently by the shuttle,
carries about 100kg of ballast mounted where future birds will have a
laser communications system to link the satellites with each other.
The laser system is expected to be ready for the next one.
 
Intelsat approves acquiring another new satellite series, 3-7 birds
with bids due Feb 14.  The board also approved a new director-general,
Irving Goldstein, formerly head of Comsat Corp.
 
SP-100 seems to be in trouble.  SDIO has abandoned it, claiming that its
thermoelectric technology is inferior to the thermionic technology used
in Topaz and would cost much more to develop to operational usefulness.
(Allegedly they also think SP-100's ready-by-2002 schedule is
grossly optimistic.)
 
Turmoil in the Soviet space program due to political confusion and
funding shortages.  Notably, the Ukraine has terminated production of
the Zenit, citing a cutoff of Russian funding and the lack of benefits
to the Ukraine.  Most other space activities are continuing, since they
were largely based in Russia, but the pace has slowed, with launch
operations at their lowest level in 25 years.
 
Russia prepares for mid-1992 launch of GOMS, its first Clarke-orbit
weather satellite, delayed over a decade by funding and technical
problems.  That's mid-1992 assuming no further problems.  The bird is
ready but funding is confused.
 
Soviet space officials in US to establish ongoing communications links
for telemedicine work, like those set up temporarily after the earthquake
in Armenia.
 
GE tentatively wins contract to build two comsats for South Korea.
 
NASP delayed six months by budget cuts.  Layoffs expected.  Officials
say this is the big year, with crucial decisions on program organization
about to be made in preparation for the fly-or-not decision in Sept 1993.
The official approach remains building one ground-test vehicle and two
full-blown flight vehicles at the start.  Alternatives are being thought
about, such as being less ambitious with the first craft (i.e., not
trying for orbital capability), flying only one, or turning the program
into a lower-key longer-term effort that would fly several gradually
more ambitious craft.  [To my mind, that would make a whole lot more
sense than betting the farm on a single extremely-expensive attempt to
get it right the very first time.]
 
FAA to seek industry reactions soon to its proposal for an advanced
system to automate surface traffic flow at airports (and reduce the
chances of things like runway collisions).  GPS is a strong contender
for aircraft and vehicle tracking as the result of recent trials that
showed differential GPS to be very effective for this.  The main issue
is, what sort of data link will be used to send in position reports?
The obvious candidate, the mode-S transponder link already found in
most transport aircraft, can do two-way data, but the 15RPM rotating
antennas at the airports mean that individual vehicles get to talk only
once every four seconds, which is too slow for good ground tracking.
Alternatives exist but mean expensive new equipment in aircraft.
 
European space industry is unhappy about ESA' indecisiveness.  "How can
we expect to attract talented young people when we can't give them a
clear idea about whether the program on which they work will be approved
again next year?"  The Munich ESA meeting is being described as "a
catastrophe... a disaster for European space".  Some firms are already
talking about layoffs.  There is considerable speculation that the
bigger programs, Hermes and Columbus, are in danger of being canned
altogether, with the stretchout and its resulting cost increases used
as excuses.
 
Large article on Japanese hypersonic-technology work.  Of particular
note is that work on the LACE liquid-air engine is going well, with
NASDA planning ground tests next year of an LE-5 modified into part
of a LACE engine.  The missing part, the input compressor system, is
in the works and might be available within two years.  The next step
would be an unmanned flight-test vehicle, possibly around the end of
the decade.  One reason for a brisk pace is that a [more or less]
near-term application for LACE has surfaced:  apparently it is now
thought to be the preferred powerplant for the H-2 variant to carry
the HOPE unmanned spaceplane.  The priority of LACE work will depend
on whether HOPE gets official support.
 
France studies Ariane 5 derivatives, notably a heavier version for
lunar missions.  This version would have four rather than two SRBs,
the first stage would be much bigger and would have five Vulcain
engines instead of one, and the second stage would have a restartable,
somewhat derated, Vulcain.  [This isn't so much a derivative as a
whole new booster using some of the same components.]  This could put
35 tons into a lunar trajectory.  [Not bad, that's almost Saturn V
performance.]  Other launchers studied include smaller ones based on
Ariane 5 SRBs.  [Shades of SRB-X, once described as "the single worst
shuttle-derived launcher ever proposed".]
 
Japan's Yohkoh (nee Solar-A) solar-astronomy satellite begins to return
data, notable in particular because of continuous real-time coverage
rather than the snapshots from other satellites.  [Well, other satellites
except the Skylab solar telescope, that is.]
 
First Ariane 5 launch may slip due to a casting problem with the first
live-fuel SRB segment.  The combination of a valve leak and a procedural
error caused one of its ten batches of fuel to be made with an inadequate
amount of curing agent, and the fuel has not hardened properly.  The
segment is useless, and engineers are studying the slightly tricky
question of how to get the bad fuel out so the casing can be reused.
Meanwhile, the next casting test has been postponed until procedures
are revised, and casings will be shuffled to get a full SRB assembled
for the first test firing, which will slip about six months from the
original target of March.  The first flight, scheduled for April 1995,
will probably slip a bit but it's not clear how much.
 
France about to sign small development contract for design and ground
testing of a small Mach 8 scramjet engine.
 
Space Systems / Loral will build two complex comsats for Nippon T&T.
Award of the contract to a US firm is seen as the result of US political
pressure.
 
Eutelsat 2 launched Dec 7 on the first commercial Atlas 2, after a delay
of about four months for investigation of April's Centaur failure; GD
is breathing a sigh of relief that this one worked.  The review board
cited contamination of turbomachinery by "solid particulate" or ice
plus marginal startup torque as probable causes of the failure.  GD
has responded with borescope inspections of plumbing for contamination,
a revised startup cycle to provide more turbine torque, tests to ensure
that propellant moisture content is within specs, and air delivery of all
components (with launch-site borescope inspections if any ground transport
ends up being used).  A lengthy series of firing tests was done before
the Eutelsat launch to confirm proper functioning after the changes.
 
Atlas 2 incorporates a number of mods, first successfully flown on this
flight.  Notable are a 10% improvement in first-stage booster-engine
thrust, deletion of the vernier engines, a new inertial guidance system,
and a longer Centaur using a new tank insulation.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 3 AW&ST
Date: 19 Mar 92 05:16:06 GMT
 
[As I mentioned earlier, I never got the Jan 27 issue, so no summary of it.]
 
Brookhaven study says that the extremely high power density in a
Timberwind-type reactor could make it suitable for transmuting high-level
nuclear waste to less-dangerous isotopes.
 
Canadian Space Agency awards the major contracts [finally] for the space
station's Mobile Servicing System, to Spar Aerospace.
 
NASP contractors expect 15% layoffs due to the FY1992 budget crunch, with
near-term development work now to focus almost completely on the engines.
NASP managers say there are no technological reasons for further delay on
a full-scale go-ahead.
 
L. Eugene Root, instrumental in getting Lockheed into the missiles-and-
space business, dies at 81.
 
Russia has been flying experimental hydrogen-fueled scramjets atop missile
tests from Baikonur.  Four flights to date, the first two being preliminary
tests with no engine ignition, the third firing for 20 seconds at Mach 3.5
(with subsonic combustion) and then accelerating to achieve supersonic
combustion at Mach 5.6, the fourth not detailed but possibly involving
flight at Mach 7-8.  A fifth is expected in February, possibly to Mach 10,
but the program -- one of the last advanced flight-test efforts mounted
by the USSR -- is running out of money.
 
NASA FY93 budget request calls for about 5% growth, slightly ahead of
inflation.  Losers are ASRM (requested by NASA but cut by the White House
on grounds of "significant cost growth, schedule delays and diminution
of benefits"), CRAF (requested by NASA but killed by the White House to
protect Cassini), and Magellan operations after mid-1993.  Winners are
NASP ($80M), development start on a pair of $100M-class lunar orbiters
for 1995 launch on Deltas with a primary mission of lunar mapping ($31M),
ALS ($125M each from NASA and DoD, tripling current funding and starting
major development work), EOS ($308M, not counting $82.6M for the data
handling end on Earth), small "Earth Probe" missions to supplement
EOS (starting with a Tropical Rainfall Mapper and an ozone-spectrometer
mission, both collaborations with Japan) ($90M), and Landsat 7 ($25M to
start development).
 
SDIO FY93 budget rises sharply, and this is thought to be the first SDI
budget request that won't be "dead on arrival" at Congress, since there
is growing support for limited missile defences.  There will still be
friction over priorities.  Doubts are being raised about whether SDIO
can meet the Senate's 1996 target for limited US defences even at this
funding level, and there might be pressure to cut some of its longer-
term efforts, some of which would probably be strangled by any further
budget reductions.  SDIO is due to report in June about the technical
feasibility of 1996.  Also up for debate is where 1996 sites would be;
SDIO says it would need six, which would require amendments to the ABM
Treaty.
 
Yeltsin suggests the US scrap SDI in favor of a cooperative ABM program,
suggesting it would be a good way to put Russia's nuclear engineers to
work [subtle, that :-)].
 
Mir flight controllers threaten strike but instead just drape protest
banners in the mission-control center.  The banners included comments
like (in Russian) "Our work is cosmic, but our pay is comic.".  These
folks are currently being paid $5-10/month, not very good since prices
have risen sharply.  The controllers say that they will take no action
that would endanger the Mir cosmonauts (who reportedly support them).
Docking of Progress M-11 to Mir was unaffected.
 
Dryden begins SR-71B operations in preparation for research work (the
B is the trainer with the second raised cockpit) with it and the two
SR-71As.  NASA says operations costs should be considerably lower than
the USAF ones, citing prepositioning of aircraft and support equipment
for overseas operations as a major USAF expense that NASA will not
incur.  Various projects are being considered, including carrying a
Pegasus-like space launcher that could potentially be rather smaller
than the current one with a similar payload.
 
Temperature/load tests begin on a subscale NASP fuselage section built
by McDonnell-Douglas.  There is also some relevance to Delta Clipper.
 
Caltech shock tube begins hypersonic tests on NASP components, in
place of Rocketdyne's much-larger RHYFL facility, which was quietly
cancelled in late 1990 due to rising costs and disagreements among
NASP companies about its location.
 
Substantial story on SSTO, aka Delta Clipper.  The DC-X suborbital
demonstrator is committed to fly April 1993, 20 months after the award
of the $58M contract.  Pencilled-in date for the first DC-Y orbital
flight is late summer 1996.  A bare-bones launch site for DC-X is being
prepared at White Sands.
 
DC-X engines are being built.  P&W is producing four RL10A-5s by modifying
existing engines for throttling and low-altitude operations.  By a happy
coincidence, P&W had surpluses of most components because of Atlas-Centaur
delays; they say "This is not a normal delivery schedule that we could build
and deliver an RL10 by any stretch of the imagination."  They are actually
loaning the engines to McDD rather than selling them:  "By not having them
deliverable engines we avoid a lot of signoffs and operate more like a
`Skunk Works'.  We will get the hardware back.  It may be in pieces in
a box."  Their subcontract is for $12M for four engines and enough spares
to build a fifth if necessary.  They are also working on a DC-Y engine
design.  DC-Y engines have not yet been selected, but it has been fairly
definitely decided that they will use a conventional bell nozzle with a
rectractable outer nozzle, rather than a plug nozzle; performance is
thought to be similar but the bell nozzle involves fewer unknowns.
Liftoff thrust will be 85% of nominal full power, with landing at 15%.
DC-Y will use eight engines, four with the extendable nozzles.
 
DC-X flights are expected to check out launch and landing, basically,
and will also give some initial feedback on whether quick turnaround
is feasible -- DC-X turnaround goal is three days.  Three flight "programs"
are planned.  It is not yet clear whether a program will be one flight
or several.  Test 1 will be a "bunny hop", a vertical 500ft ascent to
take off, check controls, and land.  Test 2 will go to 30000ft and
involve a realistic turnover during descent.  Test 3 will stop engines
during ascent to 30000ft and restart them for landing.
 
DC-Y gross weight will be just over 1Mlbs, empty weight 79810lbs, and
payload capacity 10klbs.  The cargo space will be 15x15x20ft amidships.
 
SSTO prime contractor is McDonnell Douglas Space Systems, with DC-X
engines by P&W, reaction control system and some DC-Y engine work by
Aerojet, airliner-derived support aspects by Douglas, cryogenics and
NASP materials by Martin Marietta, military aircraft technology by
McDonnell, landing gear by Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm [!], and the
composite airframe [for DC-X I assume] by Scaled Composites [!].
 
The Almaz radarsat system's future is in doubt due to the breakup of
the USSR and financial chaos in its wake.  Almaz 1A will reenter about
March 1993, but it's not at all clear that there will be cash to build
and launch Almaz 1B before then.  The major funding will have to come
from Russia.  One possible minor source of income for the project:  it
has been approached by both US business and government officials over
the possibility of buying one of the radar systems for aircraft use.
 
Russian consortium plans to test small solar sail on a Progress-M
freighter this October.  After it flies a routine resupply mission to
Mir, the Mir cosmonauts will install the sail package into Progress's
docking port.  After separation from Mir, a 25m dia 5um thick sail will
deploy and be tested near Mir.
 
Magellan mapping resumes at a lower transmission rate after workarounds
for transmitter problems were successfully tested.  The resumption was
in time for stereo mapping of Maxwell Montes, of special interest due
to steep slopes that may be of recent origin.
 
The bad news for Magellan is that its funding has been zeroed in the
FY93 budget.  The remaining FY92 funds would be used to finish the fourth
mapping cycle, ending in May 1993, which would concentrate primarily on
gravity measurements.  It is likely that there will be lobbying to shift
funds from other programs to keep Magellan going, which is what has been
done in the last couple of fiscal years.
 
Samples from the International Microgravity Lab Spacelab mission to go
out to researchers.  The mission landed at Edwards Jan 30 after spending
an extra day in orbit -- primarily for materials work -- thanks to lower
power consumption than expected.

From: [email protected] (Swaraj Jeyasingh)
Subject: Space news from Flight Int.for Feb
Date: 23 Mar 92 13:54:15 GMT
 
Here is a summary of space stories from the Feb issues. I realise that I
slipping a little in my timing. Anyway here goes..
 
{Hopefully you won`t have to wait so long for the March news.}
 
 
First full length firing static firing  of  Japan's LE7 carried out by
NASDA at Tanegashima on 16 Jan.  Test  lasted  350s, This was the 11th
since firings resumed in Nov 1991. (there  was a fatal accident in Aug
91 after which firing was suspended). First launch on H2 still set for
next year.
 
Photo of  Aussat B1  on the  way to  China from  Hughes in  California.
Scheduled to go up to LEO on March  8th [dont  think this  has gone  up
yet.  Anybody ?] aboard a Long March 2E (from Xichang site) and then to
GEO  with  its own  motor.  Aussat  B2 will  also be  launched by  same
booster later this year.  Sweden's Freja research  satellite will  also
ride piggy back on a LongMarch 2c in Oct this year.
 
Glavkosmos offers  redundant  SS19  as  commercial  boosters  after  a
suborbital test flight from Baikonur.  (this  was  the flight that CIA
claimed was violating arms  treaty  because  data was encrypted). Both
SS19s and SS25s are being offered  by  Glavkosmos (now owned by Russia
and  Kazakhstan)  for  suborbital   microgravity  flights  or  orbital
missions for small sats. SS18s and  SS24s also offered. These would be
airdropped from a Ruslan (An  124)  and capable of placing 1500-2200kg
into LEO. The big attraction is that the SS18 could give up to 2hrs of
microgravity rather than the  several  minutes  currently available in
the West. Interestingly,  the SS18 and  SS24  had also been offered by
the *rival* grouping, NPO Yushnoe design bureau of Ukraine.
 
South Africa plans to get a  piggy  back  ride on Ariane for its first
satellite, called Sunsat, in 1994.  The sun-synchronous sat  will have
data comms facility and carry a 20m resolution colour camera for earth
observation.
 
Claim by Russian  publication,  Znanye,  that  Salyut  3  (1974) and 5
(71975-76) space stations had anti-sat  weapons  which would have been
used against any US inspection or interceptor missions.
 
 
Articles also on: ESA's Polar Orbit Earth Observation Mission (POEM)
 

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 17 AW&ST
Date: 16 Apr 92 03:12:39 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
ERS-1 radar image commercial marketing is sorted out:  Eurimage (a
consortium of European companies) will be prime contractor, with
Radarsat International handling sales in the US and Canada, Eurimage
itself doing them for Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, and
Spot Image covering the rest of the world.
 
Turf battle underway between Quayle and James Baker (Secy of State):
State is obstructing NASA's attempts at cooperation with the Russian
space program, ostensibly on grounds of technology transfer but mostly
actually because Baker wants the 1996 presidential nomination and
doesn't want Quayle to look good.
 
Quayle's office unveils the new plan for Landsat:  joint management
by NASA and DoD and construction of Landsat 7.
 
NPO Energia is about to open a US office, and it's pretty obvious who
they think their most promising customer is:  they're locating in
Herndon VA, practically next door to Space Station HQ in Reston.
 
Truly is fired effective April 1.  The White House wants to make major
changes in NASA management and start getting some action on Moon/Mars,
plus shifting more management authority to the Space Council.  The
last straw was that NASA is still without a deputy Administrator, and
the feeling is that Truly is the main reason -- potential candidates
won't take the job because Truly won't delegate authority.  (The normal
practice is that the deputy runs NASA and the Administrator himself
handles politics, but Truly has been doing both.)  The timing is bad,
with a budget battle over the space station on the horizon.
 
The White House's NASA-shakeup plan basically comes from Lowell Wood
at LLNL.  Apart from much greater Space Council involvement, it also
calls for many fewer management layers, firm incentives to keep programs
on schedule and budget (with likelihood of cancellation if either slips
very much), much more delegation of design decisions to contractors,
and ceilings on administrative overheads.
 
USAF uses Spot Image pictures as a primary navigation aid for relief
flights into Russia, both as raw data and as input to simulators that
show the approach-eye view.  Many of the airfields being used have
poor navigation aids and rather more nearby obstructions than US
authorities would allow.  Landsat images are not detailed enough and
spysat pictures have too narrow a field of view.
 
Japanese controllers have a problem:  JERS-1's radar antenna has not
opened properly.
 
Pentagon is lukewarm about SDIO's interest in Russian antimissile
technology:  they see it as encouraging the survival of military technical
expertise that they'd rather see dispersed, and also taking work away
from US contractors during already-lean times.
 
Data from UARS and NASA aircraft show substantial ozone losses over
the Northern Hemisphere.
 
Set of survey articles on NASA aircraft operations, including one on
Dryden.  The NB-52B celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, but
has only 2500 flight hours and will be in business for years to come;
it's slated to fly the third Pegasus launch soon, and is likely to
be used for drop tests of the space-station lifeboat.  Two almost
equally old F-104s are still around, with one active project looking
at using them to simulate landings by vehicles with poor cockpit
visibility, i.e. NASP.  The Convair 990 is being rebuilt with a
shuttle main landing gear between its own main gear, to permit the
first (!) full-scale test program on the shuttle tires and brakes.
And, as mentioned earlier, the SR-71s are being eyed for external-burning
tests for NASP.
 
USAF Tactical Air Command and SDIO are examining speeding up detection
and impact-point prediction for tactical ballistic missiles.  Also the
subject of joint studies is the possibility of using AMRAAM as a boost-
phase interceptor against TBMs.
 
USAF schedules a November Pegasus launch for the Photovoltaic Array Space
Power Plus Diagnostics satellite, a small satellite investigating effects
of radiation and near-Earth plasma conduction on solar arrays.
 
First military Atlas 2 launch Feb 10, carrying a DSCS 3 military comsat.
This launch slipped repeatedly due to various accidents, technical problems,
and weather delays.  The USAF was starting to feel some urgency, because
a lot of its communications are still being handled by aging DSCS 2s.  The
launch called for two burns by Centaur, the second being the 300th space
firing of the RL10 engine.  Among the complications of the launch was a
seven-minute "window closed" period when the ascent path would have passed
too close to Mir.
 
Ulysses completes its Jupiter flyby and is now in its final orbit.  Quite
a bit of data on Jupiter's magnetosphere was obtained and is still being
analyzed.  Major results so far include the discovery of "hot spots" in
the Io plasma torus, lower electron density in the torus (which hints
that Io's volcanic activity is rather lower than ten years ago), a very
disordered magnetosphere in the dusk sector (previously unexplored), and
a generally larger magnetosphere than that seen by Pioneer or Voyager.
Ulysses is in good shape and fuel consumption so far is lower than expected,
which might permit an extended mission.

From: [email protected] (Swaraj Jeyasingh)
Subject: Space News from Flight Int.(Mar92)
Date: 18 Apr 92 14:01:33 GMT
Organization: British Telecom Labs
 
Summary of space news from the March issues of Flight International.
 
 
Ariane due to make its 50th launch in  April. (It will be the first of
the improved third stage - the  H10 Plus). Payload is France's Telecom
2B and Inmarsat 2F-4. This  version  of  Ariane,  the  44L is the most
powerful of the series and enables  4460kg to GTO. The previous record
was in June 1989  when   two  sats,  weighing  a  total  of 4386, were
launched. But there has been  some  concern  about  the safety of such
combinations as structural integrity is pushed to the limit.
 
The H10 gives a a  further  120kg  payload  capability to the basic 44
model. This is done by  enabling  the  third stage cryogenic engine to
fire for a longer period than in the normal stage. Although it carries
340kg more propellent it actually  weighs  20kg less than the original
thanks to the use of  lighter  construction  material. The ELA2 launch
pad in Kourou has also been modified to handle the slightly longer H10
Plus stage.
 
Further weight advantages (18kg) have also  been  gained by the use of
Titanium/Kevlar tanks for helium storage in the second stage.
 
Ariane's next flight V51 will take up the original V50 payload - Insat
2 (India's first of 4 comms/weather sats) and Eutelsat 2F4.
 
 
Four companies have bid for new  Intelsat  contract  for up to 7 sats.
The four  are   Matra  Marconi  Space,  GE  Astro,  Hughes  and  Space
Systems/Loral. SS/L had already got  contracts  for  5 Intelsat 7s and
two 7As and thus  would  have  expected  to  get  the  follow on order
automatically without further rebidding. SS/L  are late on delivery of
first 7 due to technical problems.
 
Calls for a more balanced  long  term  ESA  space  plan, from R Gibson
(former director general  of  both  ESA  and  BNSC).  Says  that ESA's
efforts  on  the  manned  programme  (i.e  Hermes)  is  crippling  the
applications programme.  He  was  addressing  UK  parliamentary  Space
Committee and also urged the UK not  get  left out in  the cold by the
rest of ESA members. [Not much chance of anything changing]
 
Basically, the ESA has to  cut  spending  and  among the possible ways
being considered are to stretch  out  man  programmes even further and
cancelling the Columbus free flier. This  would have a knock-on effect
on Hermes as it would no longer  have  a need as a payload carrier but
just manned ferry. (Possible  contender  for  Freedom emergency rescue
vehicle ?). The ESA council of ministers next meets at the end of this
year  and  are  expected  to  announce  cuts  in  keeping  with  world
recession.
 
ESA are also looking for  more  cash  abroad  - hence recent agreement
with Japan over space cooperation. One  consideration is that ESA will
let Japs use Columbus (see above)  if  they  let  the ESA use the JEM.
Also, ESA and  the  Russian  Ministry  of  Industry  (Space Dept) have
authorised Dornier (Germany) and  Zvezda  (Russian)  to study a common
space suit called "EVA 2000"
 
Japans H2 launch  now  delayed  till  second  half  of  93. Originally
planned for a launch early this year, the H2 first stage engine (LE-7)
is Japans first indigenous cryogenic engine. Although the January test
firing was OK, the next one shut down 10s early.
 
NASDA's budget has been increased by 6.7% this year, It includes money
for a follow on to the H2, called  J1.  This uses the SRBs from H2 and
the upper stage from ISAS  (Japans  other space agency) M3SII booster,
and is planned to  lift  1000kg  to  LEO.  ISAS  also developing M5, a
1800kg  capable launcher.
 
 
Major articles: Ariane 5 programme.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 10 AW&ST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Wed, 6 May 1992 03:16:55 GMT
 
[Yes, this is very late.  The combination of illness and heavy workload
has caused a lot of delays.  To cap it off, those with long memories
will object that I already did Feb 17...  Yes, I did, and I did this one
too, but it never showed up in s.s.n.  Mailer failure?  Whatever, it
needs another visit, but this one's going to be brief.]
 
Cover is "Russians reveal space secrets", and a picture of Mir.
 
NASA "planners" predict shuttle operations at about 8/yr until 2020 with
a four-orbiter fleet [forget it, they'll lose at least one and probably
several by then], and forecast its replacement by an NLS-launched vehicle
[I like Griffin's comment on NLS:  "a license plate without a car"].
 
Navstar launch postponed due to minor fuel leak from faulty valve.
 
FCC approves use of Inmarsat from aircraft until a US mobile-satellite
system is operational; yet unclear is whether it will be necessary for
airliners to switch systems at the border eventually.
 
SDIO is big on acquiring Russian ABM technology, people, and hardware
(including Soviet-built ballistic missiles for testing, since most
Third World missile threats would be from Soviet-built missiles or
derivatives of same).  Estimated initial cost is under $50M.  Apart
from the missiles, SDIO's big interests are large liquid rocket engines
(since the Soviets have a number of designs available and the US has
only the troublesome SSME), electric thrusters, space reactors, high-
speed electrical switches, and neutral-particle-beam technology.
 
Major article on recent Russian revelations:  development problems with
Buran, Mir's troubles, the fact that Energia is several tons overweight,
and detailed drawings and mission profiles for the old Soviet lunar-
landing program.
 
New NASA "strategic plan"; no surprises.  The message to Congress is
clear:  "stable funding and management flexibility, please".
 
Russians seeking international funding to keep their Mars 1994 mission
alive.  The problem is the rapid deterioration of the value of the ruble.
The whole 1992 requirement for the mission is under $20M, but the Russian
government has only managed to put up about a fifth of that.  They note
that German is spending $60M on the camera system for the mission!  "A
small amount of Western input can save the project."
 
Russian Mars-exploration officials plan to test a rover prototype in
Death Valley in May:  the terrain is right, the weather is good (unlike
their former test site in Kamchatka), and electronics are easy to get.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Feb 24 AW&ST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Thu, 7 May 1992 04:08:18 GMT
 
NASDA and Rocket Systems Corp plan negotiations with Japan's fishermen's
unions to try to widen the allowable launch windows at Tanegashima.
 
USAF and GD investigate the possibility of a minor hot-gas leak in the
Feb 10 Atlas launch; some temperatures recorded in the engine section
were higher than normal.
 
NASA seeking bids to modify VAB facilities for the ASRM, including
alterations to High Bays 1 and 3 and the north door, and strengthening
the 325-ton crane.
 
Consortium of Canadian phone companies, plus Spar, bids to buy the
Canadian government's 53% share of Telesat Canada [which runs Canada's
domestic satellites].
 
Muses-A is now in lunar orbit.
 
Japan's balloon-launched subscale spaceplane test is successful Feb 15.
 
Scramble to sort out NASA management after Truly's firing irritates ESA;
"they've done it to us again".  ESA sees, in particular, erosion of the
space station's role in NASA plans, and are annoyed at not even being
warned that changes were imminent.
 
SDIO looks at possibilities for missile-defence bases elsewhere than
Grand Forks, the only base currently allowed under the ABM Treaty.
Problem is, Grand Forks is simply the wrong location.  SDIO thinks
full limited-attack coverage of the US will require five bases (plus one
each in Alaska and Hawaii), and Grand Forks is not in the right place
for any of them.  Congress is not ready for this... but SDIO has pulled
a shrewd move in suggesting bases currently slated for closure, such as
Loring AFB in Maine, as possible sites.  SDIO needs decisions fast if
it is to even come close to Congress's 1996 target date.
 
Truly appears before House subcommittee on space.  He specifically asks
that there be no questions about his departure, and this wish is (mostly)
respected.  He says NASA cannot continue all its current programs, let
alone start new ones, without substantial further budget growth.  Most
existing programs, he says, are already at their minimum practical funding
levels.  Congress, on the other hand, would like to see some specific
decisions from the administration on what programs are to be cut if
budget growth does not continue... preferably not pet pork-barrel ones
like ASRM, which are likely to get put back anyway.
 
Industry calls NASA's aeronautics-technology budget "woefully inadequate",
and complains that projects like NASP are getting priority over things of
much greater commercial relevance like new wind tunnels and transport-
engine noise reduction.
 
Arianespace books first customer for its new modest-sized launch category,
using the Spelda adaptor to carry one modest-sized bird underneath a
larger one.  It's Thaicom 1, formerly Thailandsat 1.  There are some
other reservations, but this is the first firm deal.
 
Arianespace prepares for first 1992 Ariane launch, postponed somewhat
by problems with one of its payloads (Superbird B1 and Arabsat 1C, the
latter having switched to Ariane from Long March).
 
Details of the Costar optics system that will be installed in Hubble,
circa the end of 1993, to insert corrective mirrors into the paths of
the three remaining axial instruments (Costar will replace the High-
Speed Photometer).  It's a tricky job, because there are tight size
constraints at the business end, demanding requirements for stability
and UV throughput (adding two extra mirrors to each light path will
inevitably absorb some light), and the elaborate set of adjustable
arms needed to provide for precise focusing for each separate light
path.  Costar will restore Hubble's imaging quality to about 80% of
that originally intended, as opposed to perhaps 15% now.  [A thought
that occurred to me on this is that Costar looks to be custom-built
for the current set of axial instruments to some extent.  That's going
to make life interesting when it comes time to exchange some of them
for others, as is theoretically planned for late in the decade.]

From: [email protected] (Swaraj Jeyasingh)
Subject: Space news from Flight Int.
Date: 26 Jun 92 19:02:16 GMT
Organization: British Telecom Labs
 
 
Sorry for the long gap. I ve gone through my April, May and (early) June
issues to get the most newsworthy (IMHO) items. Some of it may not be
"news" by now. As usual I've not included any exclusively US items as
they get covered by others. I've organised them by region or country. 
 
CHINA
-----
First attempt to  launch  Australia's  Optus  B  series satellite from
Xichang (PRC) failed  (22/3/92,  Long  March  2E)  The  8  first stage
engines had already  ignited  when  a  computer  detected insufficient
thrust in 2 of the 4  YF-20  strap  on boosters. The Optus B (formerly
Aussat B1) was undamaged and launch  will be attempted in August. Poor
quality control lead to aluminium debris causing short circuit.
 
S/c details:
The  Optus  is  a  Hughes   601   3axis  stabilised,  owned  by  Optus
Communication. Hughes  responsible  for  construction  and  launch and
delivery of two  sats  into  GEO.  Hughes  reportedly  saved  $100m by
choosing Chinese and not US.  Second  Optus  also to be launched later
this year.
 
The YF-20s  are also used for the  core  stage and burn N2O4 and UDMH.
Long March 2E is being  considered  as  launcher by Intelsat, Malaysia
and others. It is a 2 stage booster.  Payload is 8800K to LEO and then
sat's own PKM will take it  to  GEO where another AKM will circularise
orbit. Later 2Es are planned to have a 3rd stage (cryogenic) currently
being developed as third stage of Long March 3A.
 
 
CIS
---
Another  failure  (4/2/92).  This  time  a  Zenit   SL-16,  the  third
consecutive time. Poor morale and  careless quality control (either in
the Ukraine factory which builds  the  stage  or at he Russian factory
which builds the engines -  RD-171  1st  stage,  RD120, 2nd stage) are
said to be the cause of the second stage to fail.
 
Still in Russia; the head of  the  Russian  Space Agency has said that
Energia and Buran will be  axed  if not commercialised internationally
within 4 years. (Energia being pushed as international booster; to get
Freedom afloat. SoyuzTM proposed as emergency rescue vehicle)
A smaller Energia M may replace Proton  as  a 35t LEO launcher in late
90's.  Existing Energias and Buran may  be used to support assembly of
new Mir modules in 93/94 but no  further  models to be built. Only Mir
is seen as worth  funding  as  it  does  earn  foreign cash. (The July
French mission will bring in $12m.  Next  could be Israel (nov), South
Korea, Chile, Germany (2nd trip))
 
The 1992 Russian space budget  is  ~$3.3billion.  It was about a third
more in 1989. But even this figure could be further cut. This does not
include military flights.  At  present  Russia  does  about 85% of all
space work by the former USSR.  65%  of all launches are from Plesetsk
(in Russia). Baikonur (in Kazakhstan)  was threatened with closure but
as it will cost $100m to make  Plesetsk  fill this role closure is now
not on.
 
Head of Russian Academy of Science  slams  Buran as having no military
or commercial use. He went on to  say that Russian manned programme is
waste of time since even  the  unmanned  programme is suffering due to
poor ground segment. e.g. good Nav  sats but no ordinary GPS receivers
available in the country.
 
 
EUROPE
-----
SEP delivers 500th Viking to Arianespace which had its 50th launch and
100th contract recently. 33 launches already signed up at roughly 8-10
a year.
 
Not surprisingly,  ESA  director  general  will  propose  (to  the ESA
ministers meeting in Nov in Spain)  that Hermes be delayed (after 2005
- maybe) and  Columbus  be  cut  back  because  of budget constraints.
Hermes costs has "taken off"  to  $50billion (up 40% since inception).
Instead, a interim, unmanned, demo craft, X-2000, is proposed. This to
cost 3.5billion and to fly in 97-98. Manned version in 2005. Obviously
the French are the most unhappy  about  all this. The Columbus element
to be "postponed" is the MTFF. APM remains scheduled for 1998.
 
Claims that the Ariane 5 programme was 140% over budget denied by ESA.
Also reports of technical problems with Vulcain (100t, Cryo engine).
Aerospatiale and CNES have carried  out  new  versions of the Ariane 5
launcher including one with a 35t lunar payload capability.
 
Two Marco Polo  sats  become  redundant  when  UK's TV provider BSKYB
switches to using Astra. Offers ?
 
The UN's FAO is  to  use  a  satellite  telecomm  system developed and
funded by ESA to improve  early  warning  of famines and other natural
disasters. High  volume  data  and  images  from  environmental  sats.
processed by the FAO's Artemis system will be transmitted transmit via
Intelsat to FAO hq in  Rome.  Data  will be typically transmitted from
three African hubs (Accra, Nairobi  and  Harare, at 64Kbits/s by ESA's
DIANA a direct information  access  network.  A  map  of  the whole of
Africa can be sent in under 4 mins.
 
 
INDIA
-----
After India's successful A(ugmented) Sat Launch Vehicle launch in May,
hopes have been raised for  the  P(olar)SLV  planned  for Mar 1993 and
eventually a G(EO)SLV. It is already late and the US embargo is likely
to delay things even more since 80% of Indian space eqpt is US based.
One more ASLV launch is planned, The first two failed.
 
S/c details:
ASLV: 4 stage; all solid prop. with 2 strap-ons.
PSLV: 4 stage; solid prop. 1st stage  with 6 ASLV class strap-ons, 2nd
and 4th run on N2O4 and UDMH. 1000Kg to 900km polar orbit
GSLV: 3  stage;  solid  prop  1st  stage,  with  4  Vikas  liquid prop
boosters, Vikas 2nd stage,  single  cryo(LOX/LH2)  for 3rd stage. Cryo
engine to be based in Russian design. 2500Kg to GEO
 
 
ELSEWHERE
---------
Taiwan (ROC) has awarded TRW a  contract  for technical support to the
Taiwan National Space Programme Office. Taiwan plans ($500m) to launch
3 LEO sats in the next 15 years starting in 1998.
 
The cost of the Amos comms  satellite is threatening Israel's military
space plans. At $500m it is already  eating half the space budget. The
plan is for 2 such sats to be  launched into GEO by Ariane in 94. Also
in the plan is 6 Offeq class LEO imaging and ELINT sats.
 
Indonesia's Palapa B comm sat  was  placed  into  orbit on May 13th by
Delta 2 booster. The HS 376 (spin  stab)  is last in the Palapa series
and will provide Telephone, TV and Data  relay. MDD also due to launch
Koreasat 1 and 2 this year.
 
 
Articles on: Impact of deregulation in the European space market,
Shuttle EDO mods, Environmental monitoring programmes
 
 
Swaraj Jeyasingh                [email protected]
BT Labs                         Tel: 0473 646082
Ipswich
UK

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 20 AW&ST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 03:35:46 GMT
 
[You may have noticed :-) that it's been a while since one of these
appeared.  My life was chaotic for a while in spring, and lots of things
have taken a while to settle down again.  This issue seemed like an
auspicious place to start again.  (If you don't know the significance
of the date, you clearly don't qualify for Space Cadet First Class,
or Second Class for that matter.)  I do hope to catch up with the
missed ones for the sake of completeness, but it may be a while.]
 
The cover story this time is the Tethered Satellite flight.
 
Baikonur Cosmodrome is no more -- it's Tyuratam Cosmodrome now.  It was
always located at Tyuratam; naming it after a village a couple of hundred
kilometers away was a piece of disinformation.  Kazakhstan has now done
away with this.  Kazakhstan is also in the midst of negotiations with
Russia about how much Russia is going to pay for use of Tyuratam.
 
Atlantis is the orbiter tentatively picked to get a Russian docking system
for missions to Mir.  The system would be installed while Atlantis is at
Palmdale for its mid-life overhaul, scheduled to start after the Tethered
Satellite mission.  (The overhaul will include the usual set of upgrades
including better computers and the drag chute, plus extended-duration
mods, as well.)
 
ISAS is now talking about postponing the M-5 launcher's debut for about
a year.  Reportedly, early chamber tests by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
have not gone well.
 
NASA exercises the third of four three-year options to extend Lockheed's
contract for shuttle processing at KSC, giving Lockheed the job at least
until 1995.
 
Two Russian SPT-100 electric thrusters are delivered to Space Systems/Loral
for tests.  Several US government agencies are interested, and there are
plans to offer the thrusters commercially for comsat stationkeeping.
 
Harrison Storms, president of Rockwell's space group when it was building
the Apollo command module and Saturn V second stage, dies July 11.
 
Martin Faga, USAF asst-sec for space, joins the US interagency group
visiting Russia (which also includes Goldin and the head of the NSC staff).
 
P&W starts ignition tests of the RL10 variant for DC-X.  The tests will
run about four weeks and will include calibration runs for throttling.
 
Big article on the Tethered Satellite project.  This actually isn't the
first test of tethers in space -- that was done on Gemini -- but it's
the first test of long ones.  [I'll skip most of the technical details
since they're either old news or rendered irrelevant by the partial
failure.]  The main concern is instabilities and vibrations of various
kinds, although the system is large enough that such problems should be
very slow and easy to deal with.  The mechanical properties are thought
to be fairly well understood [famous last words]; the electrical
phenomena are not.  The TSS satellite itself was repainted only last
month with a new electrically-conductive paint because aging tests on
the original paint formulation were not entirely satisfactory.  Future
plans include [well, included...] a possible reflight within two years
for longer duration and more electrodynamic investigations, an upper-
atmosphere mission with a 100km tether and fins on the satellite, and
a late-1990s mission that could do the equivalent of hypersonic wind-
tunnel testing by lowering a satellite to 90-100km altitude; NASA has
not yet committed to any of these.
 
The other big news on mission 46 is Eureca, the European Retrievable
Carrier, which will be left in orbit for pickup by (tentatively)
mission 57 in April.  It carries a load of microgravity experiments
plus some minor technology projects, notably an RF-ionization electric
thruster and equipment to experiment with relaying data through the
Olympus comsat.  There is a great deal of interest in further Eureca
missions, since 6-9 months of very quiet microgravity is hard to come
by otherwise.  ESA is committed to flying it at least once more, and
would like to see more missions, preferably joint projects with NASA
so that ESA wouldn't have to pay for the launches and retrievals.
 
Deutsche Aerospace and Alenia set up the industrial consortium for
Columbus, slightly shrunken and rearranged by the decision to postpone
Europe's independent free-flyer lab indefinitely and concentrate on
the space-station module exclusively.  The companies have not given
up on free-flyers, and have suggested that ESA contribute a module
to a Mir replacement.
 
Engineers consider small design changes to Hercules's new Titan SRB.
Preliminary date from the successful test June 12 shows slightly lower
performance than expected.  The design changes to prevent a repetition
of the 1991 explosion were successful.  (They were small enough that
Thiokol and NASA took a hard look at the shuttle SRB design to see
whether it could experience a similar failure.  The answer appears to
be "no".)
 
France issues production contract for Cerise, a microsatellite based
on the UoSAT bus plus deployable solar arrays, to investigate the
"man-made radioelectric environment" as a precursor to France's Xenon
eavesdropping satellite.
 
Geotail, a Japanese/US magnetospheric-science satellite, prepares for
launch on a Delta from the Cape.  Geotail will do two lunar flybys to
put it into its initial science orbit, with a perigee of 51000km and
an apogee of 1403000km, the apogee being "downstream" of Earth in
Earth's magnetic tail.  The apogee will eventually be lowered to get
a look at less-distant parts of the tail.  This is mostly a Japanese
mission, with the US supplying the launch and two of the seven experiments.
Mission control will be at ISAS.  The second stage of the Delta will
also carry a diffuse-ultraviolet spectroscopy experiment.
 
SDIO and LLNL are talking to the Russians about buying some of their
high-energy laser technology [!!], with an eye on aircraft-based lasers
for boost-phase interception of tactical missiles.  The Russians are
considered well ahead of the US in atmospheric propagation and beam
quality, although their lasers themselves are relatively inefficient.
 
First neutron image of an astronomical object, as Compton's Comptel
instrument images the June 15 solar flare.
 
Giotto successfully encounters comet Grigg-Skjellerup, with miss distance
estimated at 200km.  There were various surprises in the science data; G-S
was generally much more active than expected.  Giotto, flying almost
sideways to keep its high-gain antenna pointed at Earth, recorded three
major dust impacts but appears to have taken no significant damage.
Afterward, most of its remaining fuel was expended to set it up for
another Earth flyby in 1999, with the possibility of a third comet
encounter if the aging spacecraft is still working well.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from July 27 AW&ST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 05:56:47 GMT
 
DSN hopes to have the 70m antenna at Goldstone operating again this week.
Its subreflector was knocked off its mountings by the June quake.
 
Japan is considering flying an experimental satellite that would communicate
by laser with ESA's Artemis comsat.  It would fly in 1997.
 
TRW and Lockheed teams win second-stage contracts for the Follow-on Early
Warning Satellite program, with the Rockwell team losing out.
 
International space programs are not doing well...  ESA's recent problems
are well-known, but they're getting worse:  French officials have just
called for further ESA budget reductions.  [Sour grapes over losing Hermes?]
Everyone is approaching cooperation with Russia rather gingerly.  France,
however, is miffed that it's happening at all:  they'd seen themselves in
the position of a monopoly supplier for Russian space cooperation, but now
see themselves shut out by US-Russian cooperation.  To make it worse, the
US consent for launch of one US-built comsat on a Proton is seen as the
foot in the door for a major threat to Arianespace.
 
The one bright spot for ESA is that the idea of ESA building the space-
station lifeboat is being examined seriously again.  One possibility being
mentioned is use of Soyuz as an interim solution for early operations,
with an ESA craft replacing it later (avoiding the need for extensive
re-engineering of Soyuz for longer stay time etc.).
 
Progress M-13 had to abort its first docking attempt (July 2) with
Mir when the automatic docking system acted up.  A software problem was
found, and a second attempt July 4 was successful.  Goldin is unhappy
that when he visited associated Russian facilities a few days later,
the matter wasn't mentioned.
 
Russian space activity is down 40-50% against last year.
 
Clinton/Gore space platform differs from the Administration's only in
small ways; the lack of major change is seen as an attempt to avoid
mortally offending the battered aerospace industry.
 
Goldin says that US-Russian space cooperation will proceed carefully,
and the objective will be to combine capabilities rather than buy
goods and services (although he comes out against paying US contractors
to duplicate Russian capabilities just to keep US workers busy).  He
says his trip to Russia did allay some concerns, and that the Russians
appear committed to an ongoing space program, although a more limited
one than previously.  He notes one difference between the two nations'
philosophy:  "The Russians test and the Americans analyze...  They
built twelve different modules of Mir for tests..."  [A cynical man
would undoubtedly suggest that they learned things from those tests
that the US missed in its analyses and will learn the hard way on the
"operational" hardware.  Who, me, cynical?]
 
F-18 flight tests successfully demonstrate the "external burning" process
probably planned for the X-30, paving the way for higher-speed tests on
one of the NASA SR-71s.
 
Story on X-30 spinoffs, mostly new alloys and processing techniques.
 
India aims at becoming a commercial satellite supplier, pointing to the
(hoped for!) success of Insat 2A as proof of its capabilities.  It will
start by selling subsystems, hoping to eventually sell complete satellites.
This will be complicated by sanctions imposed by the US after India bought
upper-stage technology from Russia; the US claims violation of rules meant
to stop missile technology from proliferating.
 
Meanwhile, India's ASLV launcher finally had a successful flight in May.
Even this flight was marred by problems, with the final stage not spinning
up to its full intended RPM before ignition, and the resulting orbit having
a lower perigee than intended.
 
Magellan radar mapping has been stopped temporarily.  Magellan's transmitter
A is no longer capable of sending radar data due to a modulator failure,
but it is still in use for gravimetry work.  Transmitter B is still usable,
despite a spurious whistle that requires using only part of the original
bandwidth (limiting transmission rate), but it seems to be deteriorating,
and it has been turned off to extend its life and allow time for closer
study of the problem.  The highest priority right now is to have things
in the best possible condition for a period of mapping in September, to
cover an area which was missed in both previous mapping cycles.  The
last time B was turned on, in January, no whistle was seen for the first
20 minutes of operation, and JPL is exploring the possibility of running
it intermittently, in hopes that the ability to use the full data rate
would make up for the need to turn it off regularly.  Previously this
approach had been ruled out for fear of damage from too much thermal
cycling, but the progressive deterioration is now considered to be a
greater threat.
 
Magellan is funded through May 1993.  After the September gap is filled,
further priorities are picking up remaining missing spots, revisiting
areas where signs of change have been seen, and experimenting with
aerobraking to lower the orbit for more precise gravimetry and radar work.
The aerobraking effort would start in summer 1993, if money is available.
 
Two Magellan images, eight months apart, of an area in the Imdr region.
Patchy bright areas and other features have appeared for the second one.
This has happened in a few other areas as well.  One complication is
that the radar images were taken from opposite directions, and it is
just possible that this is causing the apparent differences, although
explaining just how that could happen is difficult.  [One of those areas
has since been re-examined from the original angle, and it looks like
the changes are indeed artifacts of the viewing angle.  There is still
no good theory of how that would occur.]

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 3 AW&ST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 21:13:06 GMT
 
[Okay, I'm back from assorted vacations and things...]
 
Recent Magellan radar images dash hopes that apparent surface changes seen
near Stowe might be real; images taken in June from the same angle as the
earliest images show no changes.  The apparent changes must have been due
to the difference in viewing angles from the first pass to the second,
although there is some puzzlement about what sort of terrain could do this.
 
UARS is operational again.  It is impossible to switch between the A and B
drive systems for its solar array, but there appears to be no problem in
running the A system in opposite directions for successive yaw maneuvers;
the only impact is that the maneuvers will now take a full orbit each
rather than a few minutes each.  All instruments are operating again.
 
Rome Laboratory at Griffiss AFB, with SDIO funding, is examining ways of
cleaning optics in orbit.  Two promising methods have been identified:
a liquid spray, which turns into gas plus snowflakes en route, and a
low-energy ion beam that destroys organic films.  Both have been tested
in vacuum chambers, and the jet spray is slated for a space test in 1994.
 
Successful test of a new multi-mode seeker intended to improve Patriot's
antimissile capability.  [I tend to think of antimissile stuff as being
marginally space-related, hence the mention here.]
 
France signs agreement with Russia for four future flights of French
cosmonauts, roughly two years apart, details to be worked out.
 
Congress hits X-30 hard...  House zeros NASA's X-30 budget for FY1993,
Senate Appropriations subcommittee does same, full Senate Apps. committee
expected to follow suit.  This puts the funding onus on DoD, an idea
that the House favors and the Senate opposes.
 
Senate Armed Services Committee quashes 1996 target for initial ground-
based missile-interceptor deployment, replacing it with a "goal" of 2002
while clearly stating that field testing of interceptor prototypes is
not yet authorized.
 
NASA [finally] starts to put some effort into ongoing quality control,
starting a database on past performance of contractors.  Goldin says,
"NASA had a culture where if you launched it and everything worked,
all was forgiven.  Let me assure you the new NASA is not going to
accept it."  Also planned are precautions against "buy-in" tactics
where contractors underbid to win a contract and then crank up the
price, a shift of emphasis from telling contractors what to do to
telling them what the results should be, and streamlining of the
"mid-range" ($25k-500k) contracts so that a $100k contract will no
longer need almost as much red tape as a $100M contract.
 
The Cour des Comptes, a French analog of the GAO, says the French TDF
broadcastsat project is a commercial and technical failure that has cost
the taxpayers Fr3.3G (circa $660M).  The two satellites have both had
serious technical problems, and the number of receivers is far below
that of the commercial Astra project based in Luxembourg.  The court's
major criticism is of inept management of the TDF project.
 
Space station survives a House floor battle, again, with opponents
basically fighting a rearguard action against apparent defeat.  Critics
still say it is too much money for not enough return, but it has built
up a lot of momentum at a time when things are tough for the aerospace
business otherwise.  Congressman David Obey, a station opponent, notes
that an absolute majority of congressmen have station contracts in their
districts now.
 
Senate committee markup of FY93 DoD budget trims SDI to $4.3G, the same
number proposed by the House, and kills NASP.  Vote expected in August.
 
Inmarsat talks about introducing a global paging service that could
reach airline passengers in flight.  Various airlines are exploring uses
of satellite communications for other purposes, e.g. a United effort to
revise transoceanic flight routes in real time as weather information
is updated, with transmission of proposed changes to traffic controllers
by satellite data link.  The biggest obstacle to such concepts is getting
the traffic-control agencies connected to satellite communications.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 10 AW&ST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 02:06:46 GMT
 
First GOES-Next bird is in the space simulation chambers for tests,
leading up to a launch late next year.
 
NASA self-assessment results will be published, including measurements
of Goldin's own performance against complaints that he is late for
meetings, slow to return phone calls, and slow to forward documents.
 
ESA is doubtful that Giotto will be able to make a third comet encounter.
The probe is currently back in hibernation, awaiting an Earth flyby on
1 July 1999 that could be used to redirect it.  However, it only has 4kg
of fuel left, which is probably not enough to fly another encounter, and
there is some concern that updates to ESA's ground equipment may make it
difficult to talk to Giotto by 1999.
 
FCC approves requests from Motorola, Ellipsat, and Constellation to launch
several experimental satellites each as advance tests for their planned
LEO comsat systems.
 
France and Italy showing increasing interest in some sort of joint European
ballistic-missile defence system.  The Mitterand government in France is
opposed to such systems, partly because widespread deployment of such
systems could neutralize France's small strategic-missile force that now
gives the country near-superpower status, but Mitterand's Socialists are
expected to lose the next election.  Europe as a whole is looking at
growing threats from the Third World, instability in Russia and the Ukraine
that could allow tactical missiles to end up in the wrong places, and cuts
in more conventional aerospace programs.
 
Pakistan is building prototype hardware for its second satellite, meant
for a small experimental remote-sensing mission.  They are hoping for a
piggyback launch to minimize costs (their first went up on a Long March
test launch two years ago).  They are also continuing development of
their home-grown sounding rockets with a long-term objective of being
able to orbit small satellites, but this program is being hampered by
Western unwillingness to sell them technologies that could be used in
tactical missiles.
 
NASDA approaches design freeze on the J-1 booster, intended to place
1-ton payloads into low orbit, as a replacement for the H-1 in launching
payloads too small to be economical on the H-2.  The current J-1 design
puts the second and third stages of ISAS's M3S2 scientific launcher atop
one of the H-2's SRBs.  About two launches a year are planned; there is
some interest in commercial sale, but prices would be high and the matter
will not be pursued until development is further along.  The current
authorization from the Space Activities Commission is for design and
development, but no actual launches have yet been ordered.  The major
remaining design issues are the first interstage assembly and the
guidance system (ISAS traditionally uses radio guidance, while NASDA
prefers inertial).  Prime contractor has not yet been chosen.  The old
Tanegashima H-1 launch facilities will be used, with minor modifications.
NASDA has sketched growth configurations, starting with a "hammerhead"
design with a fatter payload fairing and progressing through solid
strap-ons to a concept adding two more H-2 SRBs as a zeroth stage, but
no serious work on such has been authorized.
 
Meanwhile, ISAS has hit a snag on its M-5, meant as a major upgrade to
the M3S2 series:  both first and second stage motor casings burst well
below their specified pressure in early tests.  This has delayed the
launch schedule a year.  Particularly inconvenient is that the Noshiro
Test Center facilities mostly cannot be used during winter, which is
expected to increase the delay.  The first M-5 launch is now set for
1995, carrying the Muses-B radio-astronomy mission.  A Mars mission is
still set for 1996, while the lunar penetrator mission will slip to 1997.
The M-5 is the first all-new M-series booster in twenty years, and was
undertaken because the M3S2 is simply getting too small (indeed, the
remaining M3S2 facilities will be mothballed in 1994 because all later
missions require the M-5).  With a launch mass of 130T and a 1.8T
capacity into LEO, it will be one of the largest all-solid launchers.
 
World's largest light-gas gun nears completion at LLNL.  It is expected
to be able to accelerate 5kg to 4km/s, and is a major development step
toward a gas gun capable of orbital launches.  After initial tests,
the gun will be moved from Livermore to Vandenberg to permit firing it
upward at an angle.  The current design probably cannot be scaled up
to an orbital gun, as new barrel materials would be needed to cope with
the necessary pressures, but new approaches are being developed and the
problems are believed manageable.
 
Tethered-satellite mission hits snags, literally...  After repeated
problems, tethered-satellite deployment was aborted at 256m and the
satellite was successfully reeled back in and stowed.  Further attempts
at deployment would have been possible, but there were fears that more
problems on retrieval might have required abandoning the satellite.
The engineers generally rate the mission a partial success:  "we flew
the two scariest parts of the mission" [deployment and retrieval] and
mission commander Loren Shriver reported that it was relatively easy
to damp out unwanted tether motions.  The scientists, unsurprisingly,
were less happy, since little of their end of the mission got done.
The satellite itself performed flawlessly; the US-built deployment
apparatus, and records relating to its construction, are being impounded
for an investigation.
 
ESA succeeds in boosting its Eureca long-duration experiment carrier
into its desired orbit, after some delay.  It was deployed from Atlantis
a day late due to software problems, and then a first orbit-raising
burn was aborted when data seemed to show that the thrust line was
5-10 degrees offset from where it should have been.  Diagnosis of the
problem was delayed because Eureca is within view of ESA ground stations
for only about 2 hrs/day.  A solution was not considered urgent, as
current atmospheric forecasts indicated that Eureca would not fall too
low for retrieval (planned for April) even if no orbit-raising burn
was done.
 
The Progress freighter design has been modified somewhat to carry a new
thruster package to Mir, with its midsection -- normally full of tanks
for gases and liquids -- reworked to incorporate side cutouts to hold
the box-shaped thruster unit.  Energia says these modifications will also
allow Progress to carry a piggyback payload of perhaps 1000kg to be
released into orbit.
 
Russia develops a revised design for Mir 2, with a core similar to the
existing core unit and four modules similar to Kvant 1.  The current
design has the module cluster located at the middle of a long beam,
which will carry solar arrays at one end and parabolic solar concentrators
on the other.  Putting the solar arrays out on the beam, and giving them
greater ability to pivot, will eliminate problems now experienced with
Mir in which the whole station must sometimes be turned to get better
sun angles.  Energia says there will be a heavy emphasis on placing
contracts within Russia rather than in other ex-USSR republics, because
"prices charged outside Russia are skyrocketing, and there is not a
corresponding increase in quality or capability".  Mir 2 is planned for
flight in 1995 or thereabouts,;the current Mir cluster is expected to
continue operations until then without major problems.
 
The Space Regatta Consortium, a group of companies led by Energia, plans
to test a solar sail on a Progress mission late this year.  After the
usual delivery of supplies to Mir, the Progress will separate and then
deploy the sail.  The 20m-diameter sail will be deployed by centrifugal
force.  [The Russians seem to think this is a unique concept, which
indicates that they're somewhat out of touch with solar-sail work
done elsewhere...]  The sail will be "evaluated" for three days, after
which it will separate from the Progress and both parts will eventually
make destructive reentries.  The SRC is offering advertising space on
the sail, to be visible from Mir when the sail is deployed.  Various
possible future applications are being discussed.  [Frankly, it's not
clear to me how much they're going to learn from this.  Air drag is going
to dominate sail thrust at that altitude; conventional solar sails are
pretty useless below about 1000km.]

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 17 AW&ST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1992 23:13:50 GMT
 
Cover picture is Mars Observer being prepared for launch.
 
China launches a test mission of a new recoverable-capsule design, with
a greater payload than their current production model.
 
Optus B1, the comsat that was aboard the Long March 2E that pad-aborted
in March, launched successfully Aug 14 (by an LM 2E).
 
Senate stalled on FY93 DoD authorization, the point of contention being
a second $1G cut for SDIO; opponents to the cut claim it is not enough
to keep the program healthy and risks a Bush veto.
 
ASRM supporters claim reports of its death are exaggerated, that moves
are afoot to get it put back in the House-Senate conference.
 
Topex/Poseidon launched Aug 10, first NASA satellite launched on an Ariane.
The spacecraft and four out of six instruments are US, the rest French.
The joint effort mostly went smoothly, although there was a considerable
scare during final checkout at NASA Goddard, when a poorly-designed hoist
built by NASA almost dropped the satellite a distance that would surely
have destroyed it.  The US part of the budget is 42% over estimate, but
that is mostly because NASA changed the specs in the middle (to require
a longer spacecraft life).  Two 50kg microsatellites shared the launch,
both built by the UoSat crew:  a small experimental comsat for South
Korea and a CNES low-orbit-comsat test.
 
US/French groups will be looking at more joint efforts.  Most likely
first item on the agenda is a smaller and more quickly developed bird
carrying some of the same instruments as T/P, to provide continuity
of data over the gap between T/P and the European Polar Platform.
Delta and even Pegasus are being mentioned as launchers.
 
NASA tells both prospective EOSDIS contractors to revise their proposals
to include more realistic cost estimates, saying that this is a clear
case of "low-balling" to try to get the contract.  Also of note is a new
contract clause NASA is adding, specifying loss of incentive fees if
costs rise excessively.  (NASA has been criticized for routinely awarding
all or almost all of its incentive fees even for programs that are clearly
badly fouled up.)
 
NASA board of investigation starts to look into the tethered-satellite
failure as Atlantis lands at KSC.  Meanwhile, Eureca is in its operating
orbit and its payloads have been activated; the problems in maneuvering
it were due to misprogrammed Earth sensors.
 
Atlantis now goes to Rockwell for inspections and refit, notably to
include (probably) fittings for docking with Mir.
 
NASA security agents raid Ames, sealing offices and sending some personnel
home pending security investigation.  They refused to tell anyone what
they were looking for or why.  Ames staff are very upset and want to know
what the hell is going on.  It's all very peculiar because very little of
what Ames does is classified.  Circumstances suggest that some specific
leak prompted Goldin to order the raid.
 
FAA accelerates program to introduce GPS as a bad-weather landing aid.
One major issue is whether a technique dubbed kinematic carrier-phase
tracking can improve GPS accuracy enough for Category 3 operations,
which even differential GPS currently isn't adequate for.  GPS currently
*almost* meets the milder Category 1 specs.  The FAA has advanced its
GPS evaluation schedule because it needs to decide, relatively soon,
whether to put a lot of money and effort into MLS, the ground-based
system currently slated to replace the increasingly-inadequate ILS now
in use.  A lot of countries would welcome an ICAO decision to bypass
the expense of installing MLS.  However, since it was the US that sold
ICAO on MLS in the first place, and since many ICAO nations are not
going to be happy about being dependent on US military satellites,
it will still be an uphill political battle.  There are also problems
such as schedule slips in satellite deployment and the occasional
coverage gaps at high latitudes.  Plans to set up a network of 15-20
ground stations to measure differential-GPS corrections and transmit
them via Inmarsat 3 satellites are well underway.  Cat-3 use of GPS
would require monitoring stations near most major airports as well,
and just how their data would be transmitted has not been resolved.
 
Less controversial and technically straightforward is introduction of
GPS for non-precision navigation, which is on track for specs by the
end of the year and initial hardware next year.  The main constraint
on GPS receivers for this purpose will be a requirement that they be
able to detect satellite failure or malfunction so the pilot can abort
an approach; this requires monitoring at least five satellites, six if
you want to know which one is bad so it can be ignored.
 
Big articles on Mars Observer, now being readied for launch.  Its window
runs from Sept 16 to Oct 13, although the last few days are contingency
only and would involve some sacrifices.  [Current target is the 25th,
this Friday, after some slippage due to contamination problems.]  Total
program costs exceed $800M, of which the spacecraft was about $500M
and the Titan 3 launch will be about $280M.  Being ready for this window
became somewhat of a challenge, as several flight items fell well behind
schedule in 1990-91; early availability of ground-test spares made it
possible to get much of the initial testing done before the flight-ready
hardware was available.
 
This will be the first mission to use the solid-fuel TOS upper stage
from Orbital Sciences.  MO management is somewhat unhappy about being
the first customer for a new upper stage [they thought ACTS was going
to use it first, but ACTS has been delayed] and has had some special
reliability assessments done.  It will also be the first launch from
the newly-refurbished Pad 40 at the Cape (which, together with Pad 41,
also launched the last US Mars Mission, Viking 1+2 in 1975).
 
Once launched, booms etc will be unfolded.  The full solar-array
deployment will not occur until insertion into Mars orbit, which will
be done by a large bipropellant rocket system that also handles cruise
maneuvers.  A completely-separate second rocket system, using hydrazine,
will be used for attitude control and minor maneuvering thereafter; it
is more precise and is considered less likely to contaminate instruments.
Initial entry will be into a highly-elliptical polar orbit in August.
Later maneuvers, over the rest of 1993, will eventually result in
a 235x218mi Sun-synchronous polar orbit.  (The official target for
entry into this mapping orbit is mid-Dec, but there is hope that if
cruise-phase fuel consumption is low enough, it might be possible to
do it several weeks earlier.)
 
Rundown on MO's instruments.  The scientists will have unusual freedom
to run their own instruments because none of them require attitude
changes (etc) that would need coordination with others.  Noteworthy
is the camera, built on a "push-broom" design like that of Spot, which
has both a wide-angle mode (imaging the whole planet at 7.5km
resolution every day, for weather work, with some areas seen at 300m
resolution) and a high-resolution mode with 1.4m resolution.  There
is hope of getting hi-res images showing the Viking landers, although
it will be difficult to get just the right area [especially since, as
I recall, the location of one of the landers is not known very well].
 
France plans to take a more active role in its space cooperation with
Russia, including technical assistance of as-yet-undetermined kinds.
The latest joint flight, with Michel Tognini spending two weeks on Mir,
ended last week with good results.  Scientists were particularly happy
with the improved video quality made possible by the equipment left
behind from the Japanese journalist's visit.
 
Picture of a slightly-modified MiG-31 carrying a [presumably experimental]
antisatellite weapon on its centerline pylon.
 
Avcon making progress on small research contracts from Lewis and Marshall
on magnetic bearings for rocket turbopumps.  The Lewis contract is for
tests of small bearings at cryogenic temperatures, the Marshall one for
design of magnetic bearings to replace the current SSME pump bearings.
Marshall will decide in September whether to proceed to phase two,
building and testing the SSME bearing design.
 
Letter from Chuck Biddlecom, observing that undertaking long-term space
efforts with large budgets is fairly futile when it's impossible to keep
a consensus on funding levels and even a hint of trouble is grounds for
cancellation.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 24 AW&ST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 04:08:13 GMT
 
Russia is muttering about the possibility of moving its launch operations
entirely to Plesetsk, but this is thought to be mostly a bargaining position
in hopes of getting a better deal out of Kazakhstan for use of Tyuratam
(nee Baikonur) -- the move would be expensive and the higher latitude would
be awkward.
 
Japan to build a new test site for aircraft and rocket engines at Chitose
military base.
 
Article on sightings of a large aircraft somewhat resembling the old XB-70;
some features suggest it might be suitable as a launch aircraft for space
missions.  AW&ST speculates that this is the first stage of a two-stage
launch system with a small payload to orbit, noting that (a) a fast-track
development of such a system could have been attractive to DoD after the
Challenger disaster and the other launch failures around that time,
(b) it would be particularly attractive if it were a flexible system
capable of launching something on very short notice, (c) this could
explain why SR-71 operations were shut down in favor of satellites despite
the relative inflexibility of known satellite systems [although I think
an adequate explanation for *that* episode can be found in a more mundane
fact:  the USAF was paying for SR-71 operations while the CIA was the
major user of the data], (d) several satellite manufacturers have announced
availability of small-satellite buses even though none of them will admit
to having built any, (e) even the NASP people will admit (quietly) that a
two-stage system is easier and probably cheaper, (f) the USAF is known
to have studied such concepts, and (g) both employment and income at the
Lockheed "Skunk Works" are a lot higher than known programs will account
for, Lockheed classified programs now being worth nearly half a billion
a year to the company.  [It's an interesting theory, although I would
classify most of this evidence as rather thin, indicating that such a
program is possible rather than indicating that it is likely.]
 
United Airlines 747 reports a near-encounter with a wingless aircraft
about the size of an F-16, probably supersonic, which apparently was
not visible to LA center's radar.  DoD and USAF say it's not one of
theirs, but "we're not the only ones with strange projects".  It was
described as resembling the forward fuselage of an SR-71, which does
match up with an object seen being moved on the ground at Lockheed's
Skunk Works some months ago.
 
The security fuss at Ames has taken on a new twist:  it appears that
Americans of Asian descent were disproportionately selected as targets.
Of the five Ames employees sent home on leave pending investigation,
all are US citizens... but three are "Korean-Americans", one a "Chinese-
American", and the fifth is married to a "Japanese-American".  [These
fuzzy terms give no hint whether these people are naturalized citizens
born in those countries, or native-born USAnians with ancestors from
those countries.]  "Asian-Americans" appear to have been prominent
among those whose offices were searched as well.  It's particularly
odd because some of these people are doing completely unclassified
basic research of no commercial relevance.  Goldin has met with
representatives of the "Asian-American" community at Ames and has
promised an investigation into these oddities.  Nothing has yet been
said about the reason for the security raid.
 
Formation of a new "red team" within NASA to investigate ways of reducing
space-transport costs associated with Fred.  (This grew out of the
observation that the access-to-space red team and the human-presence-in-
space [I do wish they would just say "manned spaceflight" -- it seems to
be Cutesy Euphemism Week] red team had a lot of overlap.)  Goldin says
the new team is looking at transport options, notably unmanned heavylift
vehicles, and is *not* going to look at redesigning Fred yet again.  The
panel is chaired by Griffin and is composed mostly of non-station non-
shuttle NASA people, with notable exceptions of John Cox (station deputy
manager) and Max Faget and Caldwell Johnson (prominent manned-spacecraft
designers no longer with NASA).
 
Russia's Raduga Machine-Building Design Bureau announces a reworking of
its Burlak air-launched booster, eliminating the wing and increasing
both cargo volume and cargo mass (e.g. to 1100kg in low equatorial orbit).
Raduga says some prototype hardware has been built and the goal is
commercial launches in 1995.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Aug 31 AW&ST
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 06:19:28 GMT
 
[Aviation Week & Space Technology subscription address is 1221 Ave. of
the Americas, New York NY 10020 USA.  Rates depend on whether you're
"qualified" or not, which basically means whether you look at the ads
for cruise missiles out of curiosity, or out of genuine commercial or
military interest.  Best write for a "qualification card" and try to get
the cheap rate.  US rate circa $80 qualified, higher for unqualified.
It's weekly, it's thicker than Time or Newsweek, and most of it has nothing
to do with space, so consider whether the price is worth it to you.]
 
NASP project office says it needs $150-175M in 1993 just to keep the
program going, and if less than $150M is available, the program should
simply be terminated.
 
Mars Observer launch slips due to contamination of the spacecraft,
possibly from a dry-nitrogen feed system used while the Cape was being
battened down for Hurricane Andrew.  MO to be removed from its Titan
for cleaning; with luck it can still make its launch window.  [It did.]
 
Endeavour rolls out for Spacelab-J mission.
 
Preliminary report on the tethered-satellite fiasco:  last-minute
structural reinforcements were botched, leaving a projecting bolt in
a position to interfere with tether hardware.  Projected results match
the 256m jam exactly, and examination of the actual hardware shows
abrasions in the right places.
 
Aug 22 Atlas-Centaur comsat launch fails, once again a Centaur ignition
failure.  GD is not happy.  Planned launches of a Navy comsat (on A-C)
and a classified something (on Titan-Centaur) are on hold pending
investigation.  GD has asked Lt. Gen. Forrest McCartney, former KSC
director, to chair an independent oversight panel to monitor the
investigation.  Initial indication is that both RL10s ignited but
one failed to reach full thrust, setting the Centaur tumbling.
 
NASA looks at a small fast mission to Pluto, putting a pair of 200kg
spacecraft on a pair of Titan-Centaurs (or, failing that, on a pair of
Protons!) with multiple solid upper stages, launching into a direct
trajectory without a Jupiter assist (giving a shorter flight and more
flexibility on launch date).  JPL's baseline is $400M for both craft,
not including launches.  These are pretty small spacecraft, and doing
good outer-planet missions at this weight is a bit of a challenge.
(The reason for having two of them is that Pluto's slow rotation makes
it impossible for a single fast flyby to image the whole planet... so
two flybys half a rotation period apart are needed.)  A science working
group recommended a lightweight imaging system, a mapping infrared
spectrometer to get some idea of surface composition, and a look at
the atmosphere using either an ultraviolet spectrometer or a radio
occultation experiment (with the twist that the spacecraft would be
the receiver, rather than the transmitter as has been usual in the
past).  The mission baseline specifies about 7kg of instruments using
about 6 watts of power, with instrument choice stressing operational
maturity rather than new technology.  Even this limited mission would
greatly improve knowledge of Pluto (and its moon Charon).  The proposal
is for a new start in FY94 and launches in 1998-9.
 
A Russian film-return remote-sensing satellite is in orbit, carrying
a US DoD experiment!  Both the USAF and USN are involved; the experiment
is a sample collector investigating the formation of beryllium 7 by
cosmic rays striking Earth's atmosphere.  More such experiments are
planned, to exploit the quick-turnaround launch opportunities that the
Russians offer.  The same satellite will also release a pair of
precision-made spheres, to be tracked by ground radar in an investigation
of atmospheric density variations; the Russians have invited the US to
do this as a formal joint project, although political obstacles in the
US may limit it to informal cooperation this time.
 
Russia recovers its experimental scramjet launched last November, and
confirms that it achieved supersonic combustion.  Immediate recovery
was not possible because of bad weather after the test, although the
impact point was known well enough that it was found promptly when
conditions finally permitted a search.
 
Big story on NASA's FLO -- First Lunar Outpost -- proposal for a return
to the Moon before 2000 AD.  Griffin says one should not be surprised if
it looks fairly familiar:  "we already know how to go to the Moon".
It looks like a somewhat scaled-up Apollo in many ways.  The big surprise
is abandonment of lunar-orbit rendezvous; this hurts payload by forcing
the lunar lander to carry the full return vehicle, but improves flexibility
because the surface crew can leave without waiting for a rendezvous
window... a wait that can be lengthy at higher latitudes.  FLO also
rejects Earth-orbit assembly, to avoid requirements for multiple
simultaneous launch preparations, on-orbit cryogenic-fuel storage,
and limited launch windows.  Each FLO mission would use two launches.
The first would send a surface habitat, including consumables, on
a one-way unmanned mission to a site checked out by an unmanned
lander; the habitat would deploy solar panels etc. automatically,
and would be fully checked out by remote control before the manned
launch.  The manned launch would carry a four-man crew in a return
capsule looking like an enlarged Apollo, capable of returning the
crew and 200kg of cargo to a land landing.  Both launches would use
a common oxyhydrogen lander vehicle, powered by four RL10s modified
for throttling.  The return stage would probably use storable fuels.
The first mission would have the crew on the Moon for 45 days, doing
a detailed investigation of the geology of an area about 50km across.
An advanced spacesuit would be needed, as would an unpressurized rover
substantially scaled up from the Apollo one.  The first FLO mission
would carry about 3 tons of instruments, including a small test system
for making bricks and extracting oxygen from lunar soil.
 
The launch vehicle for FLO needs to have about 1.5 times the payload
of a Saturn V.  Marshall is looking at two concepts.  One *is* basically
a modernized Saturn V, with five F-1As in the first stage plus a pair
of two-F-1A strap-on boosters, and J-2Ss in the upper stages.  [The
exact details of the engines are not explained, but they are presumably
souped-up derivatives of the F-1 and J-2 used in the Saturn V.]  The
other is a derivative of the Nonexistent, er excuse me National Launch
System, with hydrogen first and second stages and four two-F-1A strapons.
Lewis is talking about a nuclear translunar stage with two 50klb nuclear
engines; this would cost more than chemical but would develop technology
important for later expansion to Mars missions.
 
NASA does not want to put a price tag on missions that are still rather
sketchy, but Griffin says he can't do a credible lunar program on less
than a few billion a year.
 
FLO's unmanned precursors are having tough sledding, however, because
Congress is being very tight with money.  NASA had hoped to do detailed
design on a lunar geochemical mapper next year, build it in 1994 and launch
it in 1995, preferably with a stereo/gravity mapper following a year later.
The amounts of money involved are really quite small, but Congress is still
balking, to the point where Griffin was not surprised that the mapper
missions didn't get funded.  His office will concentrate on adding some
more detail to FLO and doing a similar design sketch for Mars, to look
at the awkward question of how much common hardware should be used.
(It's awkward because a long-term commitment to a Mars mission is so
uncertain that spending more to develop common hardware is not obviously
a good move.)

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 7 AW&ST
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 04:09:30 GMT
 
[This one is mostly Farnborough Air Show preview, so not much space news.]
 
Letter from Allen Thomson observing that while DoD works hard to deny
accuracy better than 100m to non-DoD users of GPS, the FAA and the Coast
Guard are busy building differential-GPS stations to achieve 10m accuracy,
and suggesting that there is a certain lack of coordination here...
 
NASA awards small initial contracts for design work on the first EOS birds.
 
Mir cosmonauts perform first of several EVAs to install Mir's new thruster
system.
 
US Attorney's office revealed to have quietly dropped its investigation of
Intelsat procurement bribery.
 
Quayle's speech opening the World Space Congress in Washington criticized
as a domestic political pitch to a heavily international audience.  Quayle
did talk about expanding international cooperation, but also laid down the
law on missile-proliferation control.  A European attendee commented:  "it
was a typical heavy-handed US approach.".
 
Germany and Japan sign a major space-cooperation agreement, including work
on a recoverable capsule which will also involve the CIS.  There is talk
about the possibility that the capsule might eventually be manned.  The
agreement is widely seen as a chance for Germany to get involved in major
international space activities without the obstacles presented by the US
and ESA.
 
ESA is examining the possibility of taking a role in Mir 2.  One feature
that has particularly caught their eye is that Mir 2 is now planned for
an orbital inclination of 65 degrees, excellent for Earth-sensing work.
[My personal guess would be that the inclination is chosen to permit
launches from Plesetsk, so that Kazakhstan won't be able to blackmail
Russia over access to Tyuratam, but the Earth coverage is a nice bonus.]
Mir 2 work is reportedly underway in Russia despite funding uncertainty.
 
ESA is looking at a variety of other cooperative ventures with Russia,
including a possibility of three flights to Mir by ESA astronauts.  The
first would be a standard 10-day "guest cosmonaut" flight, but later
ones would be long-stay flights.
 
Russia announces that it will proceed with Glonass, although with some
schedule slips, the Russian military having promised full support.
 
The recent Centaur failure is causing tearing of hair at General Dynamics.
It appears to be identical to the one last year:  the ignition sequence
started properly in both engines, but engine #1's turbomachinery did
not spin up.  This was despite mods made, since the 1991 failure, to
provide extra startup torque in the event of a slow start.  Another
post-1991 change was adjustments to the Centaur software to permit a
second try at start, and this functioned properly:  when the problem
was noticed, the software automatically shut down both engines and
then tried again.  Unfortunately engine #1 still wouldn't cooperate,
and the software gave up.  This is considered very puzzling:  the changes
for greater torque should have permitted a successful start even in the
presence of ice in the engine, the presumed cause of the 1991 failure.
The debris (from both) went down in deep ocean; the evaluation last time
was that recovery for analysis was not practical, but "there will be
another look taken...".  Centaur was previously a remarkably reliable
engine, over 200 flight firings without a failure.
 
GD estimates that if Centaur is grounded for no more than six months,
there will be no serious long-term effect on launch schedules.  The
hiatus after the last failure was eight months, but some of that was
attributed to extra care taken preparing for first flight of a new
Atlas-Centaur variant.
 
NASA and NASDA prepare for Spacelab-J, a flight that wil have several
modest firsts.  It will be the 50th shuttle flight, the first dedicated
to Japanese payloads, and the first for one of Japan's professional
astronauts (Mamoru Mohri).  It will also be the first flight of a black
woman (Mae Jemison) and the first of a married couple (Jan Davis and
Mark Lee were married late in training, and NASA decided that keeping
the flight on track was grounds for waiving its normal rule against
two family members on the same flight).
 
Lockheed is offering a new spacecraft bus, somewhat smaller than its
previously-announced F-Sat, derived from its Iridium design.
 
In a related development, the Iridium constellation has shrunk from 77
to 66 satellites as the result of design changes that made the individual
satellites bigger and more powerful.  [There is no mention of any plan
to rename the system Dysprosium. :-)]
 
Orbital Sciences stacks a dress-rehearsal Taurus launcher, authentic
in every way except that the fuel in the motors is inert.  First flight
is to occur in the first half of next year under the DARPA contract.
The contract also includes options on four more flights.
 
Mars Observer launch slips to the 25th due to the contamination cleanup.
There is considerable puzzlement over the contamination, which involved
a variety of types of particles and doesn't seem to be fully accounted
for by the known use of a dirty nitrogen line.  Several general precautions
have been taken against a recurrence from any cause.  The delay has also
permitted sorting out an electrical problem in TOS.
 
The Farnborough coverage is mostly nothing new, but does note an interesting
little episode...  In 1990, when the Gulf crisis was at full boil, US
officials showed French president Mitterrand several spysat photos as part
of an intelligence briefing.  Mitterrand asked if he could have copies of
the photos.. and was told "no"!  That little faux pas turned France's
Helios spysat program from a promising project to a top national priority.

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 14 AW&ST
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 04:38:43 GMT
 
ESA's first test of intersatellite communications, with data from Eureca
being relayed to ESA's ground network via the Olympus comsat, seems to
have worked, with results now being evaluated.
 
Magellan resumes radar mapping Sept 3, being nursed along to fill in the
last significant gap in the maps.  The mapping run will end Sept 13, to
be followed by resumption of gravity measurements.  This could be the last
Magellan mapping run, given Magellan's technical problems and the looming
threat of funding termination in the spring.
 
Rockwell signs Memorandum Of Understanding with NPO Energia for a number
of joint projects, notably having the Russian firm provide Mir-compatible
docking equipment to go on a shuttle orbiter.
 
The outlook for Hermes has gone from bad to terrible as the budget signals
from member nations keep on getting worse.  The program has already been
demoted from a manned operational craft to an unmanned demonstrator, and
may now get the kiss of death (conversion to a "technology development"
program).  The dark horse now is possible joint development with Russia
of a manned craft [presumably a semi-ballistic capsule; there have been
voices crying in the wilderness for years, saying that a capsule would
make much more sense than Hermes as Europe's first manned spacecraft].
 
Goldin appears ready to abandon NASP in favor of a pair of more modest
hypersonic projects, HALO and SAPHYRE, proposed by Dryden.  HALO would
be a manned Mach 10-ish research plane launched from the back of an
SR-71.  It would be boosted to high speed and altitude by a rocket
engine, and would then light up a scramjet for a few minutes' testing,
eventually gliding down for an unpowered landing.  It would fly 50-100
times over 5-7 years.  The concept is not new; ideas like this have
been kicking around for years as the logical approach to hypersonic
flight research.  Ken Iliff of Dryden, who is leading the effort, says
"a Mach 10-class vehicle is feasible with today's technology... an
intermediate step before we build a functional scramjet that has to
work the first time".  SAPHYRE, as a complement, would be a derivative
of Sandia's fairly secret SWERVE reentry vehicle, and would be flown a
small number of times at Mach 12-25 to investigate basic scramjet
physics at higher speeds.  Goldin is enthusiastic although he isn't
yet making promises:  "I don't want to commit to it yet... but boy,
does it make a lot of sense!".  The NASP people are trying desperately
to find something -- anything -- wrong with the concept.  [At last, a
hypersonics program that makes sense.  NASP, although conceived with
the best of intentions, was too big a step, and has turned into a
megaproject -- like the shuttle -- that is very hard to fund and,
if funded, cannot be allowed to fail... which is no way to run an
X-plane program.  The X-30 is dead, long live the X-32.]  [I assume
HALO would be the X-32; there already is an X-31.]
 
The space station survives another funding showdown in Congress, but
is likely to get a bit less money than it has asked for... which will
mean a small schedule slip.  There will also be some slippage if ASRM
dies, because all three lab modules will then need two shuttle flights
each rather than one.
 
Lockheed announces a technology-cooperation agreement with NPO Energia,
to include a joint effort to propose Soyuz-TM as an interim space-station
lifeboat.  ("Interim" because the current Soyuz designs don't have the
on-orbit lifetime to be parked at the station for five years without
attention, which is a design goal for the lifeboat.)
 
Ball wins USN contract for the Geosat Follow-On mission, one satellite
with options on two more, including delivery on orbit.  The satellite
will be a derivative of JHU-APL's experimental Geosat launched in 1985.
It will carry a passive radiometer and a radar altimeter, and will
use GPS for precision orbit determination.  The main mission is to
provide ocean data for naval operations (although the data will also
be available through NOAA).  Launch mid-1995 on Pegasus.
 
Editorial urging the US to get its act together, noting the diversity
of launch-vehicle projects -- NASP, ASRM, SSTO, NLS, shuttle upgrades --
and commenting that there seems to be no rational decision process for
deciding which ones are worth pursuing into full-scale development.

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 28-JUL-1993 12:20:42.96
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	space news from June 21 AW&ST

U of Queensland researchers demonstrate scramjet thrust exceeding drag
in a Mach 6.4 wind tunnel.

DC-X static tests completed June 17; move to flight-test area underway.

Full 353s static test firing of H-2 completed at Tanegashima.

[Not really space-related, but what the hell...]  Russians release the
flight-recorder tapes from KAL 007!  The Soviets recovered them shortly
after the incident, but kept quiet about it.  ICAO analysis shows that
the course deviation was crew error:  the aircraft's autopilot was
running off the magnetic compass instead of the inertial navigation
system.

Deke Slayton -- Mercury astronaut grounded due to heart irregularity,
long-time chief astronaut, docking-module pilot on Apollo-Soyuz, vice
chairman of Space Services Inc. -- dies June 13 at 69.

Randy Brinkley, manager of the Hubble repair mission, given approval
to slip the Dec 2 launch into January if necessary for adequate crew
training.  (NASA review panel had criticized the planning/training
schedule for the complex mission as overly tight.)  Brinkley says his
big worries right now are whether thermal effects have caused any
unexpected changes on Hubble, and how to best prevent any possibility
of contaminating the optics.

Clinton chooses:  a slightly slimmed-down option B.  It is going
to cost more than he wanted, and this will cut into the funding that
was supposed to be available for "new technology initiatives" within
NASA.  There will also be some slippage from the 2000-2001 completion
date, since OMB is adamant that the station will not get more than
$2.1G/year and all the redesign options would need $3G peaks to stay
on schedule.  [My, this sounds familiar... last time OMB dug in its
heels like this, the result was solid-fuel boosters for the shuttle.]
Clinton also declares:  "We are going to redesign NASA as we redesign
the space station".  Clinton says he has no plans to replace Goldin
[AW&ST repeats the rumor that Kutyna was about to be named Goldin's
successor, since determined to be false].

The Vest panel, it turns out, pushed options C and A.  Clinton's design
is billed as "A with improvements from B", but between the things that
got included from B, and the things that will have to be put back to
accommodate those things, the differences from B ended up being minor.
NASA has been given 90 days to sort out the details of the design.
As yet unresolved are orbital inclination (the Vest panel recommended
51.6), possible Russian participation other than use of Soyuz as the
lifeboat, termination costs for the existing program, the exact
configuration (notably, the number of science-equipment racks to
fly in the US modules), and program leadership.  The Vest panel agreed
with other station supporters that the project is not worthwhile
unless it is carried through to permanent manning.

The international partners are... well, not happy, but still in the
program at present.  At Canada's request, a meeting was called at the
US State Dept June 11 to give the partners a chance to air their
complaints about how this has all been done.  Political support for
ESA participation in Space Station Clinton is still uncertain, in
particular, and ESA is generally quite angry.  Jean-Marie Luton,
ESA's director-general, says that ESA is most unlikely to enter
into any further major cooperative agreements with the US unless
they include penalty clauses by which ESA could recover costs if
programs are terminated or revised by US political fiat.

Bits of news from the Paris Air Show...  Aerospatiale is shopping for
partners for two launcher projects:  a Delta-class launcher targeted
at a launch cost 1/3 that of Delta, and a small launcher targeted at
400kg into LEO for $7M.  E-Systems unveils the USAF's Joint Service
Imagery Processing System, demonstrating image enhancement etc. using
an image from a KH-9 spysat (showing a nuclear power plant being
built, in sufficient detail that one could see the workers' suspenders
and the gas hoses of their torches).  Matra Cap Systems announces
sale of a $5M mobile ground station for Spot data... to the USAF.

South Africa shows an engineering test model of its "Greensat"
environmental imaging satellite, now being built for launch in 1995.
It will operate in a 400km orbit, carrying a panchromatic imager
with 2.5m resolution, plus a multispectral camera with 16m resolution
in two bands optimized for agricultural data.  While the satellite
is billed as being primarily for commercial applications, 2.5m imaging
is clearly of military interest to South Africa and potential partners
like Israel (although South African officials say Israel is not involved
in the project).  The satellite weighs 300kg and is of a fairly advanced
design, including graphite-epoxy structure and South-Africa-developed
rocket thrusters.  Some technology is being imported, e.g. momentum
wheels from British Aerospace.  A launch vehicle has not yet been
selected.  South Africa is hoping to find a European partner to handle
some of the commercial marketing.

South Africa is also developing its own launcher, a three-stage solid
dubbed the RSA-4, designed to launch 515kg into LEO for $15M.  (The
program is said to be based entirely on commercial viability, although
this would obviously make a dandy ballistic missile.)  There are hopes
of finding a European partner for this project too, and its future is not
assured if commercial interest does not materialize.  A launch facility
is also being developed on the Cape of Good Hope; suborbital launches
have already been flown there.  Funding permitting, the first orbital
launch, possibly with a test payload, is set for 1996.

Spain shows models of its Minisat, a 300kg small satellite carrying
extreme-UV astronomy and materials-processing experiments, set for
1995 launch.  Launcher is as yet undetermined, although the obvious
possibilities are piggybacking on Ariane or buying a Pegasus.  The
satellite is being built as a flexible bus that could be adapted
to other missions.

Also in the works in Spain is yet another small launcher, Capricorni,
a three-stage solid capable of launching 50-150kg into LEO.  First
and third stages will be from Thiokol (Castor 4B and Star 30); the
second stage is being developed in Spain to advance technology there.

Israel Aircraft Industries announces plans for Arrow 2, a two-stage
operational successor to the Arrow tactical interceptor missile now
being tested in partnership with BMDO.  Arrow 2 will be smaller than
Arrow to make it more portable.  Development will start at the end
of the Arrow contract in April 1995.  Estimated cost, including
development money already spent, for a 350-missile system, is $1.7G.
Little information on Arrow has been released.  Israel's defence
ministry has notified BMDO that it is commencing work on system
components other than the missile, e.g. radar, computers, launchers.

NTSB investigation of the Feb. Pegasus launch cites poor coordination,
confusion about assignment of communications channels, and inadequate
preparations for unexpected events as the primary cause of Pegasus
being launched despite "abort" calls.  Officials from Wallops, the Cape,
and OSC had agreed to abort the launch if there was any signal dropout
from the Pegasus destruct system in the last 6 minutes, with a minimum
three-day downtime to allow analysis of the problem.  The Dryden people
[involved because it was their B-52] say they were not informed of this
and would have challenged it if they had been, because the routing of
telemetry data was complex and there was a fair chance of transient
dropouts unrelated to the health of the Pegasus hardware.  The dropout
*was* transient, and was recognized as such... but different groups
involved had different ideas about which radio channel was the primary
one, and about which Wallops official had final say on rescinding an
abort.  So the launch went off on time, quite safely but technically in
violation of rules.

FAA initiates major effort to integrate GPS into air operations; Canada
will follow.  In the initial phase, alternate navigation aids are required
to be present, operational, and continuously monitored.  These restrictions
will gradually be lifted as experience builds up and as GPS receivers
acquire the ability to monitor GPS integrity.

Magellan Systems unveils what it describes as the first GPS receiver to
meet the FAA integrity-monitoring specs.

Congress and satellite builders are pressing the CIA to ease up on
its opposition to export of high-resolution imaging satellites and data.
Foreign systems with 1m resolution are already on offer:  France is
actively seeking users for its 1m Helios system, Russia will happily
sell 1m satellites (and cheap launches for them), Germany is reportedly
pursuing 1-2m resolution, and even China is talking to possible customers.
Lockheed looks like the US test case:  it has applied for a permit to
operate a 1m commercial remote-sensing system.  CIA director Jim Woolsey
reportedly told a closed Senate hearing that the CIA will no longer
"automatically" oppose approval for high-resolution systems, but he
refused to say anything more helpful.  Litton Itek Optical says it may
have already lost a lucrative sale -- the United Arab Emirates wants
to buy a complete system including two satellites -- due to US government
inaction since the export-licence request was filed in June 1991:
the UAE is still interested in buying from Litton, but now considers
Russia and France to be viable alternatives.  The US companies are
pointing out that if such systems are bought from the US, this at
least gives the US government control over maintenance and spares.

Satellite image of the Pentagon, taken by a Russian satellite.

Bad News Of The Week:  both of the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometers
in orbit have failed.  The timing is lousy too, since stratospheric
ozone levels are unexpectedly low and everyone would like to be able
to see what's going on.  Both failures were in the chopper wheels
of the spectrometers.  The chopper wheel in the TOMS aboard Nimbus 7
simply stopped on May 6, and repeated efforts to restart it failed.
(Since Nimbus 7 was launched nearly 15 years ago, the assumption is
that the electronics have simply died due to accumulated radiation
exposure and general aging.)  The chopper wheel in the TOMS aboard
the Soviet/Russian Meteor 3 started having synchronization problems
in May, producing minor data dropouts.  The problem got worse, and
then cleared up.  By the second week of June, it got worse again,
to the point where the TOMS is essentially off the air.  The problem
is not fully understood, although it seems to correlate to memory
upsets due to solar-flare particle hits, and the prognosis is unclear.
NASA is considering trying to accelerate the Earth Probe satellite
(essentially a dedicated TOMS carrier) being built by TRW for launch
next year.
-- 
Altruism is a fine motive, but if you   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
want results, greed works much better.  |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 23-AUG-1993 01:14:32.34
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from July 19 AW&ST

[Oops, typo in the last one:  the letter I quoted part of was from *Rick*
Roberson.]

Discovery astronauts on the next shuttle mission will use a laptop
computer with special software to pick out data from the shuttle's
downward-bound telemetry stream -- data that currently has to be
read back up to them (!) and keyed in manually.  This will be used
to expedite rendezvous with and recovery of the Orfeus free-flyer.
Selected telemetry data on orbiter and target positions will go to
another laptop, which will do the navigation.

Hubble finds what seems to be a double nucleus in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Columbia Communications renegotiates its NASA lease on the commercial
transponders on two TDRSes -- instead of a flat fee, CC will pay NASA
an undisclosed percentage of revenue.

Fifteen US aerospace companies sponsor an advocacy group for a united
stand on launcher modernization, in the fact of waning government
interest.  They face the usual complication in that there is no
agreement among them on how best to proceed:  upgrade existing
launchers, develop a new expendable, or pursue a technological leap
like SSTO.

McDD considers joining the "Gang of Five" companies looking at new
space markets.  The GoF also just got a modest lump of NASA funding
for its work.

The White House informs the Senate that it will adhere to the
traditional interpretation of the ABM Treaty, which tightly limits
system development and deployment.  This may be laying groundwork
for sharp reductions in missile-defence budgets, and it may also
be fence-mending with Sen. Nunn -- powerful, a strong backer of
the traditional interpretation, and on the opposite side of the
gays-in-the-military issue from Clinton.

NASDA is worried over the high projected costs of the H-2.  The
hardware seems on track, but marketing is going nowhere:  NASDA
has entered four recent launch competitions and lost all of them.
NASDA's hope that the historical reliability of Japanese launchers
would help against Ariane doesn't seem to be working out, partly
since Ariane is doing pretty well on reliability of late.  NASDA
is also fighting several fundamental handicaps in bringing costs
down:  the value of the yen is rising persistently, objections
from the fishermen's union limit H-2 launches from Tanegashima
to two per year (which makes volume production impossible), and
pressure to maintain historical reliability has led to a launcher
with larger margins than its competition.

NASDA runs an unscheduled 60s test of the LE-7 engine July 7, to
"verify" data from the 350s June 17 test that was intended as the
last static test.  The short duration was because the data -- exact
nature unspecified -- could be obtained immediately after startup.

Ball switches its Geosat Follow-On satellite for the USN from
Pegasus XL to Lockheed's LLV1.  This is the first firm customer
for Lockheed, although it will not be the first flight since Ball
won't be ready until 1996 and Lockheed wants to start flying next
year.  The cost will be about the same as Pegasus XL, but payload
will be somewhat larger, simplifying the spacecraft design.  The
GFO contract is a "turnkey" deal giving Ball full authority to
use whatever launcher it pleases.  Ball badly wants GFO to work,
because the contract includes options for two more.

Alexis begins returning science data from its Blackbeard broadband
radio-background receiver.  Los Alamos controllers working on ways
to improve attitude control, in hopes of being able to activate
the X-ray telescopes that are the primary payload.  Alexis is not
spinning on the proper axis, which limits its available solar power,
and the loss of its magnetometer has crippled its on-board attitude-
control system.  An investigation into how Alexis was damaged during
launch is underway, results not expected until late summer.

[That's it, a light news week.]
-- 
"Every time I inspect the mechanism     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
closely, more pieces fall off."         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 26-AUG-1993 02:11:51.44
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from July 26 AW&ST

Contract sorted out for the shuttle-Mir docking hardware; NPO Energia
will supply a Buran docking mechanism to be mounted on the Rockwell
shuttle airlock.

Simulated countdown exercise at the Cape July 20-22 clears the way
for the long-awaited Titan-IV-Centaur launch.  [Only to have it
blocked again by the Vandenberg Titan IV failure...]

Clinton writes to Goldin, saying that NASA's future should be "linked
more firmly" to economic competitiveness and "environmental needs",
congratulating him on the station redesign, and wishing him "every
success in your efforts to restructure NASA".

NASA center directors sign an interesting memo pledging allegiance
to Goldin.  A few days later, Aaron Cohen quits as JSC director.
[Now, mind you, apparently Cohen was planning to leave anyway, so
this isn't quite as good a story as AW&ST makes it out to be.]

Commission on airline competitiveness strongly backs a switch to
GPS-based navigation.

The Pentagon has voiced strong objections to Inmarsat's plan to broadcast
differential-GPS correction data from the Inmarsat 3 satellites.  The
Clarke-orbit satellites (first launch set for early 1995), will broadcast
a GPS-like signal which not only can be used as a GPS ranging signal, but
will also carry data identifying ailing GPS satellites... and wide-area
differential-GPS corrections obtained from ground stations.  Inmarsat
points out that there really is no difference between this and the more
local differential-GPS corrections that the Pentagon apparently does not
object to:  the North-America corrections for Inmarsat would come from
FAA receiving stations and could be turned off in the event of attack.

The DoD/DoT task force on future civil GPS use hears report suggesting
that differential GPS may be significantly easier for terrorists or
pranksters to interfere with than plain GPS.

International concern over US control of GPS continues to increase.
The Europeans have pointed out that if GPS becomes the universal
navigation aid that it has the potential to be, and older systems are
then shut down as unnecessary, this would give the US great political
leverage.  There is talk that GPS cannot become the standard navaid
for international civil aviation unless the US signs a binding treaty
covering its operation and use.

Atlas flies again, this time successfully, July 19.  The payload was
a DSCS-3 military comsat, intended to replace the last of the DSCS-2s
(which is old and sick).  GD is gearing up to try to clear some of
the backlog, with a Navy UHF satellite to go in early Sept and an
AT&T comsat [on the first Atlas 2AS, I think] in early Dec.  Atlas
performance this time was essentially perfect, with the payload within
1nmi of the intended transfer orbit.

July 17 Discovery launch scrubbed due to problems with the SRB
explosive-nut detonator system.  A solid-state switch on the pad,
used to arm the detonators, turned itself on about an hour before
the scheduled liftoff; it is not supposed to turn on until T-18s, to
minimize the chance of accidents.  The exact nature of the failure
is unclear, although the switch in question did show below-specs
performance when tested.  This is the first time there has ever
been significant trouble in this system.  Launch rescheduled for
July 24.  [No such luck.]

Russia and Kazakhstan continue to squabble over the future of
Baikonur/Tyuratam, as problems of poor maintenance, crime, and
lousy working and living conditions worsen.  Russia is visibly
hedging its bets, with construction of a Zenit launch facility
underway at Plesetsk and a Proton facility being discussed.
Doing Mir 2 entirely from Plesetsk would be awkward with current
boosters because of the payload penalty on the "A" boosters used
for Soyuz and Progress, but the idea of switching them to Zenit
had already been broached for other reasons.

US-Russia argument over the sale of oxyhydrogen engine technology
to India resolved:  Russia will sell hardware, but not the design
and manufacturing technology, and will abide by the Missile
Technology Control Regime rules.  This is expected to clear the
way for resumption of US-Russia talks on space cooperation, which
were stalled by the dispute.  [On the other hand, India is furious.]

Lockheed-Khrunichev is among the parties relieved by the agreement,
because Khrunichev and Salyut recently formed a joint rocket center
for Proton marketing, resolving a previous debate about who had
the rights to Proton... and Salyut was involved in the sale to India.

P&W sketch possible booster designs using the Russian RD-170 engine.
Of particular note is a design for a shuttle SRB replacement, with
the usual possibilities for extending it into heavylift vehicles.

FAA plans tests of transmitting differential-GPS corrections through
its VOR beacons... using, unfortunately, a data format different from
the marine format used by current receivers.  [This frankly sounds
pretty dumb, but they may have a reason for the change, I suppose.
Hmm, perhaps the marine format doesn't include altitude...]

Wisconsin transportation dept. uncovers GPS accuracy degradations
while doing differential-GPS tests at Oshkosh; apparently satellite
PRN19 is slightly off spec.  Trimble (supplier of the survey-grade
receivers used) has several other similar reports.  The USAF says
there's nothing obviously wrong with the satellite.  Trimble says
that differential GPS is more sensitive than regular GPS, which
might explain the difference of opinion.  The error is not large,
introducing a bias of about 4m.

"Forum" article by Roger Pielke of U of Colorado:  "How much does
the space shuttle program cost?  The answer is not simple..."
[Since this is a common debating point in sci.space :-), I'll cover
this in some depth...]

NASA's cost tabulations understate the costs slightly, perhaps 10%,
because they do not include DoD investment or ASRM.  There is
endless confusion over constant dollars vs then-year dollars when
discussing past costs.  [He ends up quoting everything both ways;
I'll quote only the 1992-dollars numbers.]  Up to FY92, the shuttle
cost $79.2G, compared to $92G for the whole Apollo program; the
shuttle will pass Apollo by 1996.  If FY93 costs are typical, the
shuttle total will be $138G by 2005 and $160G by 2010.

If the program had ended at the end of FY92, cost per flight would
have been $1.6G.  If it averages 8/year to 2005, average cost will
be $900M ($825M to 2010).  If we assume 4/year -- which is arguably
more realistic for a long-term average -- to 2005, it's $1.35G each.

However, a more realistic number is operations costs.  Using NASA's
official designation of the development program as ending with the
fourth flight -- conveniently also the end of FY82 -- development
cost was $32.4G, and operational flight rate has been 4.6/year at
about $1G each.  $1G per flight, and $4.5G/year, is the best estimate
of future costs now available; other estimates should be justified
in detail.

NASA calls it $414M/flight right now; the discrepancy has two causes.
First, they assume that projected flight rates and costs will be
realized in practice -- historically a bad assumption.  Second, they
estimate based only on the current fiscal year, rather than using
the full operational history (ten years).  Actual costs *might* end
up as low as their number, but that's not the way to bet.

Then there are marginal and fixed costs.  GAO says the marginal saving
of killing one FY93 flight would be about $44M.  (Since the flight rate
is probably at or near its maximum, talking about the marginal cost
of adding a flight is probably meaningless.)  The low marginal cost
implies high fixed costs; indeed, in FY87 (no launches) the program
cost $4G, and in FY88 (one launch) $3.8G.  This indicates that messing
with the flight rate will not significantly alter total program costs.

Then there is attrition.  In the first 50 flights, NASA lost one
orbiter, at a replacement cost of about $2.5G.  [Remember, this is
all 1992 dollars.]  At a loss rate of 1 in 50, attrition cost is
$50M/flight.  But this is dubious:  orbiter production is ended,
and another loss could well introduce radical policy changes, so
this is of interest to future programs but not this one.

Pressure to cut per-flight costs can result in pressure to boost
flight rate, possibly hurting reliability.  However, given that the
annual costs are nearly independent of flight rate, it is better to
assess the program based on annual cost, and set flight rates based
on other criteria.  A complete program assessment should also include
schedule performance -- ability to launch and relaunch on schedule --
and operational capability.

[End of Forum article summary.]

Landsat images of midwest flooding, specifically the St. Louis area
on 4 July 1988 (drought) and 18 July 1993 (lots and lots of water).
[The difference is actually pretty shocking; the rivers are swollen
amazingly, and you have to look twice to convince yourself that the
two images are to the same scale.]  Eosat is providing Landsat images
at no cost for disaster recovery.  Both Eosat and Spot Image are having
an awkward time of it -- they've got intense demand for images of an
area that has been just about completely clouded over for weeks!
NOAA is experimenting with using data from the military-weather-sat
microwave imagers -- which can distinguish dry from wet surfaces --
to do low-resolution (20-50km) flood monitoring even through cloud.
-- 
"Every time I inspect the mechanism     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
closely, more pieces fall off."         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 13-SEP-1993 17:27:09.25
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	space news from Aug 2 AW&ST

Loral gets contract from TEMPO for two broadcastsats for US service.
Delivery in orbit, June and Oct 1996.

Gen. Charles Horner (head of US Space Command) now holds out little
hope that the USAF can take the lead role in new-launcher development.
No money.

Continental is equipping some of its Continental Express commuter-
airliner fleet with GPS receivers, in hopes of cost savings in operations
into mountain airports with poor weather and terrain unsuited to the
conventional ILS landing aid.  They will start with non-precision
approaches into Aspen and Steamboat Springs, proceeding to precision
approaches with the installation of differential-GPS gear next year.
On the agenda after that is DGPS precision approaches into Houston.
Continental's president has testified to a House committee that GPS
use could save the airline industry $500M+ annually.

Discovery launch attempt July 24 is another scrub, at T-28s, when one
of the hydrazine turbines that power the hydraulics in the right SRB
falls below its minimum speed shortly after startup.  Leakage in the
plumbing, leading to fuel starvation, is suspected.  The whole turbine
unit is being replaced.

Makeyev raises the necessary funding for the four-month preliminary
design phase of the Surf sea-launched booster (derived from Soviet
submarine missiles).  This will include production of a user's manual.
Payloads for the planned demonstration launch in June (using an
SS-N-23) are being sought.

Inmarsat short list for orbits for its global phone service includes
intermediate and Clarke orbits, with low orbit deleted [reportedly
because they concluded it would take too many satellites and run up
the bill unacceptably].

Norway proceeding with plans to piggyback DGPS corrections on AM and
FM broadcast stations, to provide precision navigation to the entire
country.  Eight reference-receiver stations are already operating,
and the remaining three will be running by the end of the year.
Data from the receiver stations will go to a control center at
Honefoss, whence it will be distributed to the radio stations.
The AM stations have longer range, but the FM stations should be
capable of a higher data rate; transmission trials will start this
winter.  The control center is already feeding data to Norway's
maritime radio beacons for transmission to coastal vessels; four
beacons are already carrying it, and the rest will be upgraded
over the next two years.  Maritime beacon tests are planned to
last until 1996, at which point tests of the full-scale system
should be underway.  Yet to be resolved is how to charge users
for operating costs, something the Norwegian government is committed
to doing.

Article on Russian plans for Mir 2.  [Obviously this is a bit dated
now with the recent developments, but...]  Launch target is 1997,
with final details now being worked out.  Zenit will be the launcher
for add-on modules and service vehicles.  The core module will be
a 20-ton module like Mir 1's, but the add-ons will be 8-ton modules
for Zenit launch.  (The idea of 80-ton modules launched on Energia
has definitely been dropped!)  Soyuz will continue to be used as
the crew carrier.  Progress will be replaced by a larger freighter,
retaining the current propulsion section, equipment bay, and docking
system but adding a much larger cargo compartment in between.  The
launch configuration of the add-on modules will be similar, with the
cargo compartment replaced by the module.  There is also a design
for a "space tug" vehicle which replaces some of the cargo capacity
with more fuel.

The normal Mir 2 crew will remain two men, like Mir 1.  The Russians
say that in their experience, adding the third man didn't actually
raise the work output all that much -- certainly not enough to be
worth the extra supplies.

The current Mir 1 crew will stay up six months as usual.  One of
their jobs will be an EVA to install a short truss, Rapana, a test
article for the structure that will support a pair of concentrators
for a solar-dynamic power system on Mir 2.

The next Mir 1 crew will be a three-man crew, one of whom will be
a doctor who will stay up for 18 months.

Russia still plans to launch the last two Mir-1 add-on modules, but
no firm date is currently set.

Goldin shuffles station program:  Bob Moorehead, head of Reston, is
being reassigned to Washington.  Moorehead is fighting the transfer.
Most everyone believes that Reston as a whole will soon get the axe.
Some other management shuffles have been made, with more to come
as the transition proceeds.

Goldin has also announced imminent staffing of the new station program
office, inviting all comers to apply for some 300 positions... which
doesn't sit well with the folks at Reston who already occupy some of
those positions.

House subcommittee approves bill authorizing NASA to offer employees
up to $25k to quit.  NASA needs to cut staff, especially on the
station program, and "attrition" staff losses have been low of late
because of hard times.

While NASA works on defining the new station design, the international
partners remain dissatisfied with inadequate involvement in decisions.
They're also wondering about possible US-Russia deals.  ESA, in particular,
thinks that if the "launch everything on the shuttle" decision is changed,
Ariane should be considered before Russian launchers.

Energomash develops uprated RD-170 to increase the lift capacity of the
Zenit, raising chamber pressure and making other small changes.  [Hmm,
just the thing if you want to launch Zenit from Plesetsk instead of
Baikonur.]  They've also come up with a proposal for the RD-180, an
RD-170 derivative with two chambers instead of four (and suitably
revised pumps).  Pratt&Whitney, involved in marketing Energomash gear
in the West, cites applications in upgrading existing US launchers,
building a new 20klb launcher, or replacing the shuttle SRBs (with
three RD-180s per booster for full engine-out capability).

Japanese government planners recommend funding for the Hope unmanned
spaceplane be phased in as H-2 development funding tapers off.

Editorial urging action on a global navsat program.  The obvious way
to do it is to get Inmarsat to put its personal-phone satellites in
medium-altitude orbits, with navsat transmitters piggybacked on them.
Inmarsat is thinking about it, but there's a funding problem -- so it's
time to stop debating and start talking major civil-aviation agencies
into coughing up cash, because this is a wonderful opportunity to get
an international civil navsat system at a bargain price.
-- 
"Every time I inspect the mechanism     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
closely, more pieces fall off."         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 15-SEP-1993 01:24:44.14
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Aug 9 AW&ST

Ariane 5 first-stage test article to ship to Kourou mid-August for
facility and fueling tests.

ESA pledges $1.8M/year to operations of the International Space
University's permanent campus in Strasbourg.

Major General Malcolm O'Neill, current deputy head of BMDO and
acting head, will be promoted to Lt. Gen. and made head.

The idea of bringing the Russians into Space Station Whatever,
in lieu of Mir 2, is being seriously explored.  One complication
is orbital inclination:  Moscow would prefer an orbit they can
reach from Plesetsk, while the other nations would reluctantly
agree to 51.6 degrees -- okay for Baikonur but not Plesetsk --
and don't want to go further.  Either of these orbits will raise
pressure to do ASRM or the lightweight ET, or both, to improve
space shuttle payload.

Well, the USAF boys at the Cape thought they finally had two
Titan-IV-Centaurs cleared for launch, two years late...  The
hardware was ready and the paperwork was clear...

Expensive Fireworks Dept:  Titan IV goes boom off Vandenberg Aug 2.
Billed as the most expensive space accident since Challenger.  The
payload is thought to have been an advanced naval ship-tracking
satellite [AW&ST mentions other possibilities, but I believe this
has since been narrowed down].  The cost of the lost hardware is
pegged at close to $1G, but the impact on programs could easily
equal that; "it comes at a terrible time... we're still trying to
work off the queue".  And it could hardly have come at a worse time
for the Titan IV program, which is already in trouble over the
upgraded-SRB cost overruns.

The cause of the failure is not known.  This Titan did not have
an upper stage.  At the time of failure, only the SRBs were burning.
The failure happened at 101s, 90mi downrange at high altitude, a few
seconds before the core stage would have ignited (the SRBs start to
burn out circa 115s and separate at about 130s).  There is quite a
bit of telemetry data on hand -- they're still instrumenting the
T-IVs quite heavily -- but a quick look says that everything was
normal until telemetry stopped.  A destruct command was transmitted
a few seconds after the explosion, just in case.

Video images show a normal ascent until a light-colored smoke ring
puffs outward, quickly followed by a large fireball, clouds of
dark smoke, and debris streaming downrange.  An aircraft dispatched
to the impact area found no floating debris; attempts will be made
to recover wreckage from the ocean bottom, several thousand feet
deep in that area.

The Cape crews have been told to continue processing their birds,
but the preliminary results of the investigation -- expected in a
few weeks -- will determine whether there is only a slight delay
or an extended hiatus.

USAF decides to halve the size of the Follow-on Early Warning System
satellites, making it possible to launch them on Atlas rather than
Titan.  Also, FEWS is the early-warning system that will get major
attention in the immediate future, beating out Brilliant Eyes and
Upgraded DSP.  Brilliant Eyes is thought to be a long-term effort --
and will be continued as an R&D program -- and there were doubts
about its treaty-compliance status, given its origins in SDI.  The
proposals to upgrade the DSP birds were seen as inadequate, given
technical limitations of the system and the growing threat from
short-range missiles with short flight times and mobile launchers.

(In particular, a substantial number of SS-21s seem to be missing
from the old Warsaw Pact nations -- either there were fewer of them
than NATO thought, or some have new owners.  The Serbians are on
everyone's mind, although there is no firm evidence pointing their
way at the moment.)

FEWS's design objective is detecting and tracking targets like
IRBMs and afterburning aircraft engines, using an infrared sensor
that has demonstrated a 20x improvement over the DSP sensor (this
is twice the previously-acknowledged figure).  Work is underway to
trim the satellite mass to about 5klbs, to get it off Titan IV,
which alone will cut program costs an estimated $2G.  Several
auxiliary payloads are being deleted, including a nuclear-explosion
detector (considered redundant since the GPS birds carry them).
The satellites will not have quite as much on-board intelligence
as originally planned, and will be in inclined circular orbits
instead of the elliptical ones originally planned (which maximized
northern-hemisphere coverage at the cost of a fair bit of fuel).

It is possible that the tail end of the DSP program may be curtailed
if FEWS runs on schedule.  The old plan of having FEWS fully deployed
before starting to close down DSP has been abandoned as too costly.

Pentagon under pressure to cut satellite costs...  Suggestions include
smaller satellites (i.e., ones that don't need Titan IV launches),
a pair of standard spacecraft buses (the Pentagon says a standard
payload interface is a high-risk item; GAO and ARPA disagree, citing
existing industry standards as workable starting points), and less
duplication of civilian programs (the USAF is under pressure to get
together with NOAA on a single polar-orbit weather-satellite system,
in particular).

Story on the Makeyev "Surf" launcher.  Payload 2400kg to 200km LEO,
1840kg to 200km polar.  Sea Launch Services plans to offer the plain
old SS-N-23 for smaller payloads, and one of those will fly the
demo flight in June, using Russian support ships.  Russian payloads
are available for the demo flight, but SLS would prefer a US customer
and is working on it.  The deactivated SLBMs will be acquired by
SLS on a firm fixed-price basis under a long-term contract.  The
main business will be low-orbit launches, which are not limited by
the US-Russian restraint-of-trade agreement, and SLS plans to keep
its prices within the "7.5% below lowest Western bidder" rule that
avoids "special consultations" at the governmental level.  Given
this, they do not expect export-licence problems, and they think
short lead time and proven reliability should attract customers
even at the artificially high price.  Land-based launches will be
available at customer request, and one option will be airlifting
the launcher in an An-225 to a customer-provided launch site.

Makeyev is also offering microgravity missions using reentry capsules
derived from Russian military warheads.

Story on Loral's recent entry into the broadcastsat market, with a
contract from two birds for Tempo (a part of the US's biggest cable
company).  This is Loral's first real sale to the US commercial
satellite market; historically they have emphasized foreign and
government customers.  Loral's birds will fly later than two that
Hughes is putting together, but will have greater capacity.  The
Loral birds are based on its FS 1300 platform, used for Superbird,
N-Star, and Intelsat 7, but with more powerful transmitters.  It
will be compatible with all major launch vehicles bigger than Delta.

Motorola completes the first stage ($800M) of Iridium financing [more
than somewhat behind schedule].  Investors include Great Wall and
Khrunichev.  Great Wall will launch 20 of the 66 satellites from
1996 through 2002; the contract was signed in April, apparently.
Khrunichev will share the rest with McDonnell Douglas.  Iridium has
assorted competitors, but being first is considered likely to be
a huge advantage, both for signing up impatient early customers
and for securing financing for later operations.
-- 
"Every time I inspect the mechanism     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
closely, more pieces fall off."         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer"  4-OCT-1993 01:16:55.64
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space News from Aug 17 AW&ST

Compton discovers an X-ray pulsar; moreoever, it may be a variable
X-ray pulsar, a real oddity.

Eutelsat plans to move Eutelsat 1F1 eastward somewhat, giving its beams
coverage of the western CIS states.  No specific customer named yet.

NOAA-13 checkout underway after launch by Atlas from Vandenberg 9 Aug.
[Well, we all know what happened then...]

JPL picks Rockwell and a Hughes/TRW consortium as short-list bidders for Mesur.

Marshall Aerospace begins flight tests of OSC's Pegasus-carrier TriStar.

Milton Thompson dies 6 Aug.  Thompson was an X-15 pilot, the first man
to fly a lifting body (the M-2), the only civilian selected as an X-20
Dyna-Soar pilot, and (at the time of his death) chief engineer at Dryden.

An unconventional launch bid:  Arianespace offers India a three-launch
package deal, with the second on Ariane 4, the third on Ariane 5... and
the first on Proton!  Ariane 4 is so heavily booked that Arianespace
cannot offer a launch for Insat 2C early enough, so it has made an
agreement with Russia and Kazakhstan to offer Proton instead.  Just
how this relates to Lockheed-Khrunichev's Proton marketing is not clear,
although presumably the Proton for India could be bought through them.
Arianespace says it will *not* be offloading existing customers onto
Proton; this is seen strictly as a way of acquiring new customers who
cannot wait for an Ariane slot.  Ariane is booked through the end of
1996 for primary payloads, although some slots are still available
for somewhat-smaller secondary payloads.

Meanwhile... Senate Armed Services Committee criticizes lack of any
well-defined plan for a new-generation launcher, zeroing funding for
Spacelifter and NASP but allocating $30M for some combination of
them and upgrades to older launchers.  The committee says the situation
is difficult:  DoD probably cannot afford to keep Titan, Atlas, and
Delta all in business, especially since upgrades to them are unlikely
to produce major cost reductions, but also cannot afford a massive
development program for a new launcher.  The committee recommended
that DoD look at possible use of foreign launchers.  [There is some
feeling that this was intended to scare DoD into getting its act
together, rather than as a serious suggestion.]

The corresponding House committee retained $54M for Spacelifter and
raised NASP from $43M to $79M.  It also supplied both $4.88M for DC-X
testing and $75M for SX-2 startup, recommending that the SSTO effort
be moved from BMDO to ARPA:  "If the United States is to regain its
international competitiveness in this critically important military
and economic area, it must pursue promising enabling space launch
technologies that have the potential of dramatic reductions in
launch costs".

In another bailiwick :-), NASA continues its own study of future
launch needs, in three parts.  Part 1 is looking at changes to the
shuttle to make it cheaper and more reliable, against the possibility
that it will be in service another 40 years [!!].  Part 2 is looking
at enhanced expendables taking over about ten years from now, with
some sort of manned capsule for manned missions, and the possibility
of foreign involvement.  Part 3 is looking at more radical ideas
[that is, ones more recent than the 1950s], such as SSTO and air-
launched TSTO:  "[this group] has come up with several very promising
options... one feature of this group's report will be the recommendation
for a strong NASA technology program over the next several years to put
us in a position to have enough confidence to go into a new vehicle
program...".

Discovery's engines shut down 3 seconds before liftoff 12 Aug due to a
failure in a flowmeter.  This will mean at least a three-week delay,
since the engines, having lit, must be inspected or swapped out --
they will probably be swapped, since it's difficult to do a full
inspection on the pad.  This launch attempt had already been slipped
from 4 Aug, after NASA noticed that that date would have Discovery
aloft during the possible Perseid meteor storm.  The latest slip
puts NASA in a bind, since it can no longer launch four missions
before year end as planned.  Columbia was set to fly Spacelab Life
Sciences 2 in Sept; Discovery would have been cycled around to fly
Spacehab 2, the Wake Shield Facility, and cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev
in Nov; and of course Endeavour is being readied for the Hubble
repair in Dec.  NASA particularly wants to fly the Hubble repair
on time while the crew's training is fresh, so the odds are that
Discovery's next flight will slip into 1994... which will mean a
relatively tight schedule in the first half of 1994.

Spot 3 launch delayed due to electrical accident during prelaunch
tests.  Initial inspection has turned up no significant damage,
although the satellite will be gone over more carefully and the
battery will probably be replaced as a precaution.  The likely
result is a slip of 2-3 weeks.  Spot Image wants it up soon,
because of the four tape recorders on Spots 1 and 2, three are
dead and one is ailing... which makes it difficult to get images
of areas far away from receiving stations.

ITD Space Remote Sensing Center (at Stennis) supplies an interesting
composite image of the midwest floods:  a pre-flood optical image from
Spot overlaid with an ERS-1 radar image of the flooding, indicating
exactly what's currently underwater.  (Heavy cloud cover has limited
optical imaging coverage of the area.)

Magellan control breathes a sigh of relief as aerobraking ends 5 Aug.
Total fuel burn was 31.6kg, against 53.2kg allocated, for an orbit
change that would have required 900+kg to do by rockets alone.  Magellan
has suffered no [detectable] damage, and indeed it is running cooler
now [just why Magellan tended to overheat is not known, but one guess
is surface contamination, and aerobraking may have burned it off].
Most of the fuel consumption was for attitude control (Magellan's
thrusters, more powerful than its reaction wheels, were the main
attitude-control system for braking passes), and most of the fuel
use actually was after the end of braking passes, when the thrusters
tended to bat the attitude back and forth after aerodynamic stability
was lost; some fuel was saved, after experience accumulated, by turning
the reaction wheels back on relatively early.  Small amounts were used
for correction burns and for the initial and final burns.

The orbit at the start was 8468x172km, and is now 541x197km, a net
velocity loss of 1221m/s.  The maximum dynamic pressure experienced was
0.4 N/m^2, equivalent to an Earth-surface airspeed of 1.5kt.  The
highest temperature on the solar arrays was 89.4C (the temperature on
the high-gain antenna was higher, but its temperature sensor has died,
so the solar-array temperature was used as a proxy).  After a slow
initial "walk-in" to allow for atmospheric uncertainties, drag was
kept more or less constant, requiring slow lowering of periapsis as
the braking passes drifted into the "late afternoon" side of the
planet where the upper atmosphere is thinner.  This required small
correction burns, first upward (when orbital dynamics tended to
push periapsis down) and then downward (as the orbit changed enough
to reverse the effect).

The tricky part of the operation was determining the exact time of
periapsis, basic to choosing the right attitude for entry.  The
normal method was via DSN tracking... but unfortunately that had
a turnaround time of several hours.  JPL developed two other methods
to do short-turnaround corrections:  the solar-array temperature
generally peaked 30+-3s after periapsis, and measurements of average
attitude variation during a braking pass could measure entry attitude
error (which showed up as oscillations around the flight direction)
well enough to determine periapsis time to about +-5s.  On several
occasions, these methods gave early warning of atmospheric density
variations that required modifying correction-burn schedules.

Apart from the significance to Magellan's own science work, spacecraft
designers are much more likely to include gradual aerobraking in mission
plans, now that it has been proven workable (on a spacecraft that was
never designed for it).

Magellan will start circular-orbit gravity mapping 16 Aug.  There
is funding for operations through Oct, and Magellan managers are
hoping for another 12 months of funding ($7.4M) to complete the
gravity work.  Doing gravity mapping in low orbit takes a bit longer
than in high orbit, because the planet gets in the way more.

Magellan actually has about another 8 years of fuel aboard.  Continued
operation for light experimental work would cost $5-6M/yr:  "our total
budget is less than the uncertainty in the Cassini spacecraft's budget".
The electronics probably won't last 8 years, mind you, and Magellan has 
lost two of its four gyros and will be in trouble if it loses another.

One experiment that may be tried is using Magellan's transmitters to
illuminate Venus for DSN's receivers.  This shows off-beam-axis
reflectivity, which would be interesting because Venus has areas that
reflect radar back to the sender much more efficiently than is usual
for natural materials, and off-axis data might give a clue as to what
they are.  This "bistatic" radar work requires the right alignment
of Magellan, Earth, and interesting areas on Venus.  Such an alignment
will occur on 6 Oct this year, and several more times in 1994; the
use of DSN for this has not yet been approved.  Magellan's electronics
problems now pretty much prevent it from returning data from its own
radar receivers to Earth, but its transmitters still work fine.

Langley researchers report a new method of measuring planetary atmospheric
densities, giving more flexibility to aerobraking operations.  The normal
method is to measure changes in spacecraft velocity due to drag, but this
is slow because it requires lengthy tracking to detect small changes.  If
you look at the attitude disturbances due to aerodynamic torques instead,
the spacecraft's own attitude-control telemetry gives rapid results.  The
two methods agree within about 5% using data from Pioneer Venus and Magellan.
The investigators are hoping for considerable data on Venus's atmosphere
from Magellan's new low orbit; a bonus is that if Magellan is kept running
for a while, it will give data from the low point of the solar cycle,
complementing Pioneer Venus data from the 1989 peak.  Funding and
approval permitting, Magellan may try a "windmill" test, orienting its
solar panels like ailerons to induce a slow roll at periapsis (this
would be done at normal periapsis, not at the lower aerobraking altitudes).
[There was talk of trying to do roll control during aerobraking that way,
in fact, although in the end it was deemed unnecessarily risky.]

Mars Observer preparing to enter orbit.  [Oh well...]

FAA beginning trials (at Bedford, Mass.) of a system using the standard
aviation Mode S data link to transmit differential-GPS corrections to
aircraft.  Even more significant will be transmissions the other way,
with the aircraft reporting not only barometric altitude but also GPS
position.  This could greatly simplify operation of collision-avoidance
systems and the like.  The major limitation, right now, is that current
airport radars are still mechanically scanned, and they rotate too
slowly, illuminating each aircraft every 4.8s, compared to a preferred
update rate for DGPS corrections of once every 1.2s.  Omnidirectional
antennas would have to be used... and that presents possible interference
problems, since there is no organized channel-contention procedure for
Mode-S transmissions.  The current trials are aimed mainly at assessing
this problem.

Lengthy article on USAF satellite-observing facilities on Haleakala in
Maui.  The site has wonderful optical conditions, between high altitude
and the location far away from pollution sources.  Image of Columbia
in orbit, taken by one of the 1.2m telescopes.  It's pretty good:  you
can see the cockpit windows, you could probably tell whether there was
someone at the window or not, and the position of the arm is clearly
visible.  The facilities can also do laser illumination of satellites
for work during orbital night, although precautions are needed to
avoid the possibility of damaging satellite sensors.

Complications appear in the Express mission, in which DARA is buying
a Russian reentry capsule for launch on an ISAS booster as part of
a joint German-Japanese research effort.  DARA is buying the Russian
capsule because the schedule makes it impossible to develop their
own in time, and that's where the snags have appeared.  There is now
some doubt that the Nov delivery date of the capsule will be met,
and that might slip the launch from next August -- awkward because
Japan has only two short launch seasons due to agreements with the
fishermen's union.  One problem is that the Salyut bureau managers
are used to being in control of missions, and DARA has to keep
reminding them that they are just a supplier and DARA is calling
the shots on this mission.  They would also like to do mission
control for the mission, but Germany's position is that this will
be done by DLR at Oberpfaffenhofen.  For this, DLR needs detailed
information about the capsule, and although this is in the contract
Salyut signed, they are being slow about supplying it -- probably
because the capsule was originally a ballistic-missile warhead.

The pair of Titan Centaurs that have been sitting on the pads at
the Cape for nearly two years now are going to go on sitting for
a while.  The current holdup is the Titan IV failure at Vandenberg,
which is a switch; most of the delays so far have been Centaur
issues.  The Centaur on these birds is the wide-tank Centaur,
originally meant for the shuttle but never flown on it, and that
makes people nervous, because *this* Centaur is in many ways rather
different from the one that has a long and (mostly) distinguished
launch history:  "this Centaur has never flown".  There is also
some concern about how Centaur changes made as a result of recent
Atlas-Centaur failures affect the somewhat different Titan hardware.

USAF gives Spaceport Florida Authority, the Florida state agency that
is trying to encourage commercial spaceflight, $2.15M to modify the
Cape's complex 46 -- primarily used for Trident tests -- for use
by small launchers based on the Castor 120 (this would include Taurus
and some of the Lockheed LLVs).  Trident launch capability will be
retained, and commercial launch facilities will be self-contained
modules wherever possible.  The plan is to have the facility ready
for use in the Taurus launch of Clementine 2 in 1995.

Orbital Sciences shelves plans to spin Orbcomm off as a separate
company and sell shares, at least partly to avoid muddying the waters
in FCC licensing of the Orbcomm system, which OSC is trying to hasten.
OSC has signed final agreements with Teleglobe, a Canadian company
that is the world's fifth largest international comsat operator, for
financing and operations of Orbcomm.  Phase one, mostly funded by OSC,
will cover the first two satellites and key ground facilities for $55M.
Phase two, $80M mostly from Teleglobe, will launch 24 more satellites.
OSC hopes for FCC approval by the end of the year, leading to launch
of the first two satellites in the first quarter of 1994 and initial
service sales in late spring.  Phase two will take place in 1995.
Launch of the phase-one satellites (by Pegasus XL) had been set for
late this year, but there have been development delays in some items,
such as the very lightweight antennas.

Compared to other LEO-comsat projects like Iridium, OSC is essentially
gambling that restricting service to electronic-mail delivery, with
no voice capability, will buy Orbcomm enough in lower costs and earlier
operational status to make up for the smaller market.  Some analysts
pick it as the single best bet in the LEO-comsat race, because of
its low cost and the selection of a niche market.  Others caution that
they'll have to actually deliver service, not just launch satellites,
and this won't come easy for a novel one-of-a-kind system.

Lockheed Skunk Works proposes its own SSTO concept, intended to deliver
payload to low orbit at $500/lb (or less) not long after 2000.  The
"Aeroballistic Rocket" would use a flat lifting-body shape and a linear
aerospike rocket engine.  [Note:  this is not an airbreather.]  Payload
capacity would be 40klbs, comparable to the shuttle or Titan IV.  The
vehicle would launch vertically and land horizontally, with a 12-72hr
stay in orbit.  Initial flights would be manned, but the intent is that
routine operations be unmanned.

The linear aerospike ties in well with a wide flat body shape, resembling
the X-24 flown 25 years ago, with a near-vertical fin at each "wingtip".
Thrust:weight ratio at takeoff will be 1.4, and the vehicle has full
engine-out capability, with a failure of an aerospike segment resulting
in shutdown of a matching segment on the other side, and diversion into
a trajectory that will burn off fuel and return to the launch site.
The lift:drag ratio at hypersonic speeds will be poor, below 1:1 due
to a very high angle of attack (45deg), but it will be a respectable glider
at lower angles (10deg), with an L/D of 5.5-6 for landing.  Lockheed claims
a unique lower-surface contour that will manage airflow and heat
buildup; the underside will be a high-temperature metallic structure,
not ceramic tiles (which are seen as heavy and costly).

Lockheed sees crucial issues in an SSTO as being minimal preparation
time for a mission (7 days or less), horizontal payload processing,
and certification done once per aircraft rather than once per flight.
Given these, Lockheed estimates a development cost of $5G and a unit
flyaway cost after the first one of $475M.  Each flight's consumables
would cost about $300k, with each aircraft needing about $250M of
spares during a 20-year lifetime.  Lockheed says that one aeroballistic
rocket could launch 30 times a year, and the $500/lb price could be
maintained with as few as 15-20 flights.  Costs could go as low as
$100/lb with 120 flights per year.  [The article also contains some
bits of fairly irrelevant propaganda from Scott Crossfield, who is
beating the drum for NASP-based airbreathers and sees Lockheed's solution 
as inferior.  I don't see, actually, why AW&ST included his remarks.]

Lockheed gets the spacecraft-bus contract for Iridium:  a production
run of 125 for $700M+.  This had been expected for some time, but
the final deal was only recently made.

Editorial urging that the US "stop trying to kludge Freedom and Mir
modules into a world space station and play to Russia's strength --
its launch vehicles".  AW&ST's suggestion is that Western station
hardware be launched on Energia, giving a bigger station sooner
(in a higher-inclination orbit), and minimizing program disruption
and loss of Western jobs while giving the Russians major station
business.
-- 
"Every time I inspect the mechanism     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
closely, more pieces fall off."         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 11-OCT-1993 17:23:20.37
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space News from Aug 23 AW&ST

DC-X FLIES!  [Not much AW&ST coverage, yet.]

The cover is a striking two-page foldout photo of the space station --
the one that's already flying, Mir -- seen against a background of cloud,
with the horizon in the background.  The Progress M-18 freighter has just
separated, and is still visible off to one side.  The photo was taken from 
Soyuz TM-17, waiting to dock at the port being vacated by the Progress.

Letter from Richard Oler, criticizing the government for bad decisions
after Challenger.  "Despite the obvious requirement that cheap access
to space is the starting point for any space project, both NASA and
the USAF are giving it lip service in deference to programs which are
designed to perpetuate the parochial interest of each organization."

Cosmic Background Explorer data becoming available through NSSDC.

NASA decides, as expected, to postpone STS-60 to January to relieve
the pileup resulting from Discovery's woes.

Aspin orders inquiry into claims that SDIO rigged the 1984 HOE test.

NASA reassures its international partners that Russian involvement
in the space station will not interfere with their roles; the
partners are skeptical.

US Court of Federal Claims rules in favor of Hughes in a massive
lawsuit alleging government infringement on a Hughes patent for
attitude control of spin-stabilized satellites.  The 84 satellites
named as infringing are valued at nearly $4G, and Hughes thinks
that 15% of their value would be appropriate compensation.  The
government say it should be more like 1%, and is considering an
appeal.  (The case is already 27 years old and has been to the
Supreme Court three times!!)

Story on possibilities being considered for a joint space station.
Some small things are already pretty definite -- Soyuz TM as the
lifeboat, and some of the Russian life-support gear ("it's been
in zero gravity in space for some years, and it does work").  The
Russian "space tug" module is being examined as an alternative to
Lockheed's Bus 1 system.  Broader possibilities are being looked
at; US officials have been invited to inspect the Mir 2 core now
under construction.  (The Energia managers say "There are still
skeptics who don't believe what they hear or what they read --
the hardware is there, it exists.")  Also being discussed is US
involvement in Mir 1 as a testbed and interim facility.

Mir 1 took a number of small meteorite hits during the Perseid
shower, including one that created a fist-sized hole in a solar
array.  Tests are being run to determine whether the array output
is down significantly, and there is talk of doing a spacewalk
to inspect Mir's exterior for signs of damage.

RKA director Yuri Koptev says the Russian space program is in
bad shape financially and is losing its good people.  He says
that international efforts and sale of hardware and services are
now crucial, because they bring in urgently-needed hard currency.

To the shocked surprise of absolutely nobody, Boeing and JSC are
the winners in the "who manages the space station" contest.  A
number of other key issues in the program are still unresolved,
and NASA is finding that if it's going to stay within the budget
cap, Yet Another Schedule Slip is likely.  [I'm going to skip
over the details lightly, since the US-Russian deal makes a lot
of it somewhat moot anyway.]  There are problems with shuttle
lift capacity, it looks like you can't put two Soyuz lifeboats
inside the shuttle cargo bay, and the assembly sequence is tricky.

Assorted official reasons have been offered for the Boeing/JSC
choice, but the bottom line is that it was probably the only one
that was politically feasible.  The political battle boiled down
to Johnson vs. Marshall, both with strong support in Congress,
and picking one center plus the other's main contractor was the
obvious way to minimize political backlash.  And JSC's contractor
is McDonnell-Douglas, of the notorious Work Package 2, so the
remaining choice was fairly easy.  Congress can still override
this decision, since it wasn't opened to competitive bidding,
but Congress has been dissatisfied with the station's byzantine
management setup for quite a while.

Contracts involving the other major suppliers will be "novated"
to make them report to Boeing instead of various parts of NASA.
The contractors officially support the idea, but privately say
that there will be considerable renegotiation involved, since
the complexities of a federal contract don't transfer easily
to a company-to-company commercial contract.

Richard Kohrs, ex-head of the station program, announces his
decision to leave NASA.

Preliminary analysis of the Titan IV failure says it was due to
burn-through of one SRB casing.  This is the result of a quick-look
analysis by the program office; the official investigation has not
said anything yet.  The telemetry record shows pitch and yaw
disturbances, just before the explosion, that are attributed to
gas leaking through the hole.  The Navy is still looking for debris
on the ocean floor, and the USAF is talking about recovering a
complete SRB from the next Titan launch for inspection.

Meanwhile, Titan launches are on hold.  The Titan II launch of
Landsat 6 has been delayed a few weeks until the Titan core is
exonerated [Titan II has no SRBs], and the two Titan-IV-Centaurs
on the pads at the Cape will sit there for a while longer.

Hercules is looking forward to the imminent final test of its new
Titan IV SRB design -- greater reliability is one of the benefits
the new design is supposed to provide, and it couldn't come at a
better time, with the old [non-Hercules] SRBs in trouble again.

Japan's Space Activities Commission orders delays in several missions
due to a funding pinch.  Muses-B slips from 1995 to 1996, the Planet-B
Mars orbiter goes from 1996 to 1998, the ETS-7 rendezvous-and-docking
test mission slips from 1996 to 1997, and the Express recoverable
capsule slips to 1994.  The commission did approve some new programs:
Adeos-2, a second-generation followon to the 1995 Adeos Earth-observation
mission, for launch in 1998; Astro-E, Japan's fifth X-ray astronomy
mission, for 1999; Hiros, a high-resolution Earth-orbservation satellite
for 1999; and early development of the unmanned Hope winged orbiter,
for launch in 1999.

Hughes/GreatWall probe into the Optus launch failure concludes.  A
cautiously-worded joint statement says "At approximately 48 sec. into
the flight, the Optus B2 spacecraft exploded."  No cause for the
explosion is cited, and it is thought that none has been determined.
Hughes has already made small design changes to the HS-601 family,
and the statement indicates that changes will also be made to the
Long March 2E launcher, although it says that the failure was not
caused by the launcher and "Hughes accepts this conclusion".  The
companies are negotiating terms for launch of Optus B3; Hughes did
have the reflight-insurance option on the Optus B2 launch.

Story on the Mir 2 plans, with the Russians optimistic about the
possibility of cooperation with the West but determined to go it
alone if they must.  One US source comments:  "While Mir 2 and the
US-led space station are starting to resemble each other more and
more, the Russians worked up to their design after years of operations
with Mir 1 and the experience gained with the Salyut stations.  The
US has come to a similar station concept after starting with an
ambitious program, then cutting back time and again during nine
years."  Yuri Semenov of Energia says that Mir 2 is proceeding despite
funding problems, and may launch as early as 1997 if no joint program
is worked out.  The Russians still want a 65-degree orbit, for better
coverage of Russia and accessibility from Plesetsk, but "we don't
rule out the possibility of changing the orbit if there is mutual
agreement... a 51-degree orbit could be a compromise, smoething we
can deal with..."  Mir 2's core will be a Mir 1 derivative, the
Soyuz TM crew transport will remain unchanged, and the Mir 2 trusses
are being tested, in scaled-down form, on Mir 1 now.

Mir 1 will remain active for several more years.  There are still
plans to launch the remaining two add-on modules.  The Russians
have confirmed that the two docking ports on the Kristall module
were meant for use by Buran -- one would have accommodated the
shuttle itself, the other a small add-on module carried up to the
station in Buran's cargo bay.  Those ports are based on the APAS
androgynous design used for Apollo-Soyuz, but have been improved
structurally for heavier loads and greater rigidity.

Not yet determined is whether Mir 2 will use Mir 1's hand-cranked
"space crane" manipulator arm, or a more sophisticated design
originally developed for Buran.

Ground-control facilities will be upgraded for Mir 2, partly because
the Russians plan to increase the on-board compouter capacity to
permit uploading a week's worth of program at a time, compared to
the daily uploads needed for Mir 1.  The existing shift scheme,
with five shifts of controllers, each on duty for 24 hours that include
planning the work for their next shift ("so controllers cannot blame
anyone else for their mistakes"), will continue.  "We've looked at
all kinds of schemes for organizing mission control, and this
arrangement seems to work very well."

USAF Talon Lance program testing systems for feeding satellite data
straight to combat aircraft, including ambitious on-board processing
to filter out unnecessary information and fuse the remainder with
data from the aircraft's own sensors.  This is seen as particularly
crucial for hitting fast-moving mobile targets, where pre-flight
briefings updated only by short voice messages are seen as inadequate.
Operational deployment would start on radar aircraft and airborne
command posts, although combat aircraft are the intended customers
in the long term.

Test flights begin on Rutan's Raptor/Talon unmanned aircraft, whose
design mission is to loiter above hostile territory at 65kft for
48-50 hours, carrying a sensor package and a pair of hypervelocity
ballistic-missile interceptors.
-- 
One flight test is worth                | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
a thousand simulations.                 |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

Article: 4915
Newsgroups: sci.space.news
From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Space news from Aug 30 AW&ST
Sender: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 04:37:27 GMT
 
Japan's transport ministry wants to launch a pair of aeronautical navsats
into Clarke orbit, one in 1999 and another in 2004.  These would supplement
GPS for more precise position determination.
 
Alaska Aerospace Development Corp. wins $1.1M federal grant to develop
Poker Flats into an orbital launch facility by 1995.  The intent is to
accommodate high-inclination missions up to 3500lbs payload, with all
processing done indoors.
 
Spysat contractors Lockheed, Litton, Orbital Systems, TRW, "and others"
tell the US government:  Either let us sell spysat systems and services
abroad, or watch your spysat manufacturing base die, because you aren't
giving us enough business to keep those capabilities alive.
 
US government bans exports of "sensitive space technologies" to China
and Pakistan for two years, in retaliation for China's sale of missiles
to Pakistan.  The ban will cost US companies $400-500M... more if China
decides to retaliate.
 
Contact with Mars Observer is lost 21 Aug.  Nobody knows whether the
orbit-insertion burn scheduled for 24 Aug happened, although MO was
already programmed for it and should have been able to do it without
help from Earth.  JPL is trying to regain contact; there are possible
later opportunities to enter Mars orbit if contact can be restored.
 
At 1721 PDT on the 21st, MO's transmitters were turned off, so that
the filaments of their travelling-wave tubes would be cold (and hence
relatively strong) when pyrotechnic valves were fired five minutes
later to repressurize MO's tanks for the orbit-insertion burns.  The
transmitters should have come back on around 1800; they didn't.
 
The transmitters had been turned off and on four times early in the
mission, for the three trajectory-correction maneuvers and for the
pyrotechnic high-gain-antenna deployment.  No problems were seen then.
The turnoff was in conformance with the manufacturer's recommendation,
and similar turnoffs have been done for other spacecraft, e.g. Magellan.
 
An attempt was made to observe the insertion burn with the infrared
telescopes of the USAF's Maui Optical Station and NASA's Infrared
Telescope Facility, but cloud cover prevented observations.  The
odds of the firing being seen were poor in any case.  Consideration
was giving to using Hubble, but it was in a poor position and would
have had to point closer than desirable to the Sun.  MO is much too
far away for ground-based radar detection.
 
If MO did not make its insertion burn, it would be in an elliptical
solar orbit between Earth and Mars... but if it didn't make the burn,
this would indicate a serious computer malfunction, in which case it
quite possibly has lost attitude control, and its batteries could
well be dead by around the end of August.
 
If MO is not saved, it will be the first post-launch total failure
for a US interplanetary mission since Surveyor 4 in 1967 [well, if
we quietly ignore Apollo 13 in 1970...].
 
There is no particularly good indication of what caused the failure,
due to lack of data.  One possibility being looked at is transistor
failure in the master computer clock generator (the "RXO").  The RXO
is dual-redundant, but only one side is in use at a time, and if the
backup side had failed sometime between prelaunch tests and now, and
the primary side failed at the pyro firing, it's all over -- MO is
dead without the RXO.  Attention is focussed on the RXO because a
similar RXO had a partial failure just before the scheduled June
launch of the NOAA-13 weather satellite.  The problem there was a
defective weld in a transistor; the transistors used for voltage
regulation and temperature control in MO's RXO are from the same
lot, which has been found to have about a 10% failure rate.
 
The other obvious possibility is that the tank pressurization failed
catastrophically, destroying the spacecraft.  The chances of this
are considered slim.  The tanks were pressurized before launch, and
had been left to "blow down" on their internal pressure for the
early correction maneuvers.  The helium feed was left turned off
as long as possible to avoid having the pressure regulators corroded
by fuel fumes, a problem encountered on Viking.  The large fuel
consumption of the orbit-insertion maneuver required repressurization.
 
[AW&ST's description of the fuel system is sketchy, but fortunately,
thanks to a friend of mine, I now have proper diagrams of the MO
plumbing...  There are actually two separate propulsion systems:
a monopropellant system for attitude control and stationkeeping in
the final orbit, and a bipropellant system for the big maneuvers
involved in getting there.  The bipropellant system would be closed
down permanently on arrival in the final orbit, because the fully-
deployed position of the high-gain antenna is in front of the big
rocket nozzles.  Disregarding fill valves and trivia, the biprop.
system starts with the helium tank.  Then two pyro valves in
parallel, used to start pressurization.  Then two pressure regulators
in series.  Then a split:  on one side, two check valves (one-way
valves) in series and the oxidizer tank; on the other, two more pyro
valves in parallel, two check valves in series, and the fuel tank.
The first set of pyro valves opens first, pressurizing the oxidizer
tank and incidentally sweeping oxidizer vapor out of the helium
plumbing.  Then the second set opens, pressurizing the fuel tank.
The check valves prevent major backflow of propellants, but won't
necessarily stop a little bit of diffusion, especially when the
system is idle.  It's not clear to me whether the 21 Aug sequence
was to open both sets of pyro valves or just the first, although
I'd guess both.  Anyway, there's no obvious single-point failure
here -- in particular, both pressure regulators would have had to
go bad to overpressurize the tanks.]
 
An investigation is underway, headed by Tim Coffey, research director at NRL.
 
Russian officials estimate that the data return from their Mars 1994
lander will be roughly cut in half without MO as a relay.  The Mars 1994
orbiter's own orbit is not as well-suited for surface data relay as the
one MO was meant to be in.  There is also some concern that the Mars 1996
balloon probe may have to be redesigned if MO is unable to relay for it.
 
Mars 1994 is having its own problems, with funding from both the Russian
government and western Europe running late, and delivery on some hardware
postponed until the suppliers see payment for it.
 
ESA's Olympus experimental comsat is being shut down.  Late on 11 Aug,
Olympus went spectacularly out of control, including a 2 RPM spin, for
unknown reasons (although it was during the Perseid shower, which is
an interesting coincidence).  Control was regained two days later, but
only after Olympus had already used up most of its fuel.  The Fucino
team has decided that there is not enough left to carry on with the
mission -- it was scheduled to end next summer anyway -- and what is
left will be used to move Olympus to a "graveyard" orbit somewhat below
Clarke orbit.  [A graveyard orbit above Clarke orbit is normally preferred,
but the lower one is easier to reach from Olympus's disturbed orbit, and
given that there is some uncertainty about exactly how much fuel is left,
the lower one involves less chance of Olympus being left in an orbit
intersecting Clarke orbit if it runs out unexpectedly early.]
 
A bad week all around...  Engineers from NASA, NOAA, and MM are looking
into what happened to the NOAA-13 polar-orbit weather satellite.  After
Atlas launch from Vandenberg 9 Aug, NASA did initial checkout and turned
the bird over to NOAA 12 Aug.  NOAA was doing its own lengthier checkout
when all contact was lost 21 Aug.  At about 1545 EDT that day, power
stopped flowing from the solar array to the batteries and power bus.
About two hours later, NOAA-13 passed near NOAA's Fairbanks station
where controllers noticed that the bird was in trouble -- with battery
voltages low and "all kinds of telemetry points... out of limits" --
and did a playback of taped telemetry.  On the next pass, about an hour
and a half later, NOAA-13 was silent.  It is now tumbling slowly, and
there is little hope of salvaging it, although NOAA is still trying.
The nature of the failure is not understood; in particular, the telemetry
contained nothing to suggest an impact by another object.
 
NOAA-13 was meant to replace NOAA-11, which is five years old and has
had two gyro failures (a third will cripple it).  NOAA-9, which had been
turned off to free up operations capacity for NOAA-13, is being turned
back on.  (The other operational bird is NOAA-12, which is in good shape
but does not have NOAA-13's search-and-rescue receiver.)
 
Pictures of DC-X's first flight 18 Aug.  Second flight planned for circa
18 Sept.  The transition from climb to hover is described as "eye-catching":
"When a rocket stops in mid-air like that, I expect to see a big orange
fireball."  The touchdown was rather slower than intended, indicating
that ground-effect phenomena weren't as predicted.  [To quote my previous
signature:  "One flight test is worth a thousand simulations."]  There
was more propellant sloshing than expected, although the flight controls
coped adequately.  There was more hydrogen buildup in the engine section
than is considered acceptable, and changes are already being made to get
it under control.  The nosecone was scorched, apparently by burning
hydrogen caught under its lip during descent; the lip will be removed
and the nosecone coated with a fire retardant.  Funding for further tests
is uncertain, given Washington budget wars:  "we're running on fumes".
 
NASA asks all groups involved in the shuttle program to review procedures
and paperwork to determine whether there are any fundamental flaws causing
the recent spate of shuttle launch delays.  The delays seem to be a chance
combination of unrelated difficulties, but NASA wants to make sure.
 
Press reports allege that the June 1984 Homing Overlay Experiment test --
the first really impressive demonstration of non-nuclear interception of
a missile warhead -- was rigged.  The Army denies it.  The allegations
include:
 
	(A) The target carried a radar beacon that the interceptor
initially homed on.  (The Army points out that missiles on the Kwajalein
range are required to carry transponders for range-safety purposes, but
notes that a suitable antenna for a homing receiver would have been
much larger than the interceptor, and that inserting receiver and antenna
secretly would have been essentially impossible, given range-safety rules
and the crowded interior of the interceptor.  It also notes that no
radar-based cuing of the infrared seeker was needed, since it was placed
on a trajectory that would carry it "within about 3mi of the target".)
 
	(B) The target carried a heater to make it more conspicuous to
an infrared seeker.  (The Army states that the target was at 100F at
launch and about 70F at intercept time -- substantially cooler than
a real warhead would be.  It was kept warm before launch to prevent
it from being ridiculously cold at intercept time, which had been a
problem in an earlier test.)
 
	(C) The target carried explosives to simulate a hit in the event
of a near miss.  (The Army says it carried a small charge of flash
powder simply meant to make the impact visible to range cameras... and
that the impact was far more violent than expected and the effects of
the charge were completely insignificant.)  [It was later admitted that
earlier HOE tests had carried a near-miss explosive charge... but it was
removed from this one as an unnecessary complication.]
 
An investigation has been ordered.  Fortunately, Lockheed hung onto the
original telemetry data from the tests.
 
[An AW&ST editorial observes that the alleged reason for the rigging was
to justify more funding for strategic defence... but in fact, at that time,
SDIO was pushing more exotic technologies and playing down HOE and related
programs.]
 
University of Leeds confirms claims that Navstar PRN19 is ailing, which
had already been suspected based on problems seen in differential-GPS tests.
The Leeds group says that the signal spectrum of the satellite's upper
("L1") transmission frequency is abnormal in several small ways.
 
The Pentagon's Joint Electronic Warfare Center in San Antonio announces
its primary areas of development work for the next year... and one of them
is direction finders to locate GPS jammers.
 
Israel vehemently denies claims in a GAO report, which says the US is not
putting adequate controls on technologies and money supplied to Israel for
the Arrow tactical missile-interceptor project.  The Israelis say that the
licensing rules have been followed to the letter, and that the contracts
for the project are all fixed-price deals in which payment is made only
in return for specific results.  The GAO also says that Israel is not
doing enough paperwork -- the Israelis say that their procurement
practices are "faster and cheaper" than the Pentagon's and that a
cooperative R&D project should not be subjected to the full weight of
US bureaucracy -- and that Israel may be underestimating the cost of
later phases in the technically-risky program -- the Israelis say that
the risk is justified given the urgency of Israel's requirement for
effective missile defences.
 
Global Information Systems Inc, a Russian startup company, is looking
for partners for its "Coupon" network of data-transmission satellites.
The satellite design uses a phased-array antenna for electronically
controlled beam shaping and steering, a technology the Russians have
not yet used for civilian purposes.
-- 
Politics, n:  from "poly ticks", short  | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for "many small bloodsucking insects".  |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

Article: 4918
Newsgroups: sci.space.news
From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Space news from Sept 6 AW&ST
Sender: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 17:47:07 GMT
 
Letter from Jim Waugh of Naperville IL, predicting that the Titan IV will
go the way of the Saturn V, given rising costs and shrinking user base,
and the US will be left with derivatives of 1950s missiles to compete
against more modern launchers designed elsewhere.
 
Social events at the Oceanic Airspace Conference in Fiji will include
a GPS navigation rally, with teams of attendees using handheld GPS
receivers on a specially-designed course.  (The Fiji area is being used
as a testbed for GPS-only air navigation.)
 
US and Russian governments agree to build Space Station Fredovitch
together.  [Well, that isn't *their* name for it...]  The notion is
to combine SSF and Mir 2 into a single station at 51.6 degrees.
Prior commitments to international partners will be honored.  [The
international partners' response has been "let's see some details".]
 
In phase one, starting immediately, the US will pay $100M/year up
to 1997 for substantial use of Mir facilities.  Details are yet to
be defined, but ideas include refitting the yet-to-be-launched
Priroda and Spektr modules with US experiments, flight testing of
a jointly-developed solar-dynamic power system, and development of
a common spacesuit and common life-support gear.
 
In phase two, an interim man-tended science capability will appear
with the combination of the Mir 2 core and a US lab module.  Both
the shuttle and Proton will be involved in launching hardware, and
this phase will be a crucial test for combined operations.
 
In phase three, that will be elaborated into a joint permanently-manned
station, using much of the hardware already proposed for Mir 2 and
son-of-Fred.
 
Also signed at the same time were agreements on joint aeronautical
research and the formalization of the US-Russian restraint-of-trade
agreement limiting Russian competition in the launcher market.
 
DoD's "bottom-up" report recommends a substantial program in tactical
missile defence plus relatively small efforts to demonstrate technology
for continental defence (the latter to include continuation of the
Brilliant Eyes program).  It also calls for continuing Milstar and
scrapping plans for a new launcher.
 
Tests demonstrate that differential-GPS guidance for aircraft landing
approaches is substantially easier to follow than the old ILS landing
system -- right at the end, the narrow ILS beams get hard to follow
without overcorrecting, but GPS-based guidance lacks this problem.
 
Moscow's Central Research Institute of Machine Building proposes a
three-stage launcher using engines developed for the N1 lunar booster.
The RS-9 "Norma" would have a launch weight of 5.24Mlbs and a payload
to low orbit of 168klbs.  It would have extensive engine-out capability,
being able to complete the mission even if several first-stage engines
failed.  The first stage would be reusable, flying back for a runway
landing using folding wings and jet engines.  The third stage would
also be reusable.  All three stages would use LOX/kerosene.  The
institute says development costs would be about $750M, rising to
$1.3G if it includes a new universal launch-complex design that would
also accommodate Titan IV, Ariane 5, Zenit, or Energia.  (Western
sources are, predictably, a bit skeptical of the cost estimates.)
 
NASA is pondering ideas for recovery from the loss of Mars Observer.
BMDO is proposing flying Clementines 2 and 3 and MSTI-2 and 3 to Mars,
carrying MO backup instruments, with launches on Titan 2 and Delta.
LLNL is proposing three Clementine derivatives.  Etc.  [All sorts of
weird ideas came out of the woodwork, I'm told.]  JPL has established
a team to look at possibilities, with an eye to getting most or all
of the same science return.  The major effort is going into three
possibilities:  build another Mars Observer from the spares, buy a
commercial Earth-orbit spacecraft and fit it with the MO instruments
[hm, *that* was the theory behind MO itself in the beginning...], or
use a spacecraft design from another NASA center.  Also up in the air
is choice of launcher, with Proton a definite contender.  Current
feeling among experts is that taken in isolation, it would be hard
to beat building a second MO... but the current push for smaller
and cheaper spacecraft may influence the outcome.
 
JPL has pretty much run out of ideas on salvaging MO itself.  All
the obvious things have been tried, including sending nothing for a
few days in hopes of activating MO's built-in recovery procedures.
 
NASA is checking paperwork carefully to be sure that ACTS, now ready
for launch on Discovery, is free of the defective transistors that
may have killed MO -- or any other common element that might be
responsible, for that matter.  There are two of the suspect transistors
in ACTS's TOS upper stage, and tests are being run to determine whether
they are a danger.  Discovery launch is set for Sept 10.  (If it slips
much more, TOS's batteries may get low enough to require replacement.)
 
ETA for the first Galileo image of Ida is mid-Sept.  The flyby went
well despite a couple of anomalies, including one that mispointed the
camera just 4.7h before encounter (JPL controllers reacted quickly, with
an estimated loss of only 3 images).  The anomalies are being studied
to make sure they do not cause trouble for future Galileo events.
Sampling of the taped images indicates 18 successful images, including
a high-resolution mosaic taken a few minutes before closest approach
that should give 35m resolution on the 53km asteroid.  (The best Gaspra
image had 54m resolution.)  Images were also shot right at closest
approach, with estimated 24m resolution, but only part of the asteroid
was caught due to remaining uncertainties in the exact timing of the
closest approach.  The 35m mosaic, five frames total, is now being
returned -- it takes about 30h/frame using DSN's biggest antennas,
at 40bps.  After 22 Sept, image transmissions will be suspended until
March, because greater distances will cut the data rate to an impossibly
tedious 10bps.
-- 
Study it forever and you'll still       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
wonder.  Fly it once and you'll know.   |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer"  2-NOV-1993 19:15:55.64
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Sept 13 AW&ST

Letter from Chris Stratford of Tokyo, observing that in projects such as
Lockheed's Aeroballistic Rocket, development costs dominate construction
costs, which in turn dominate fuel costs.  "Quantum reductions in cost
come from streamlined engineering and lower airframe expenses; consumables
are not the main cost driver..."  Given this, hypersonic air-breathing
propulsion [advocated by the NASP groupies, but not used in Lockheed's
concept] is probably not a good way to reduce costs.

Letter from Chet Richards, observing that given SSTO transport to orbit,
the remaining crucial step to reducing payload costs is in-orbit assembly
in a shirtsleeves environment -- a pressurized assembly facility.  This
would eliminate the need to design fully-assembled spacecraft to survive
launch loads, and would permit easy in-space testing of prototypes.  "The
station we really need is a small city, not a four-man outpost.  This is
within our existing technical and financial capabilities.  We simply need
to learn a new way of conducting business."

NASA is supplying startup funding for hypersonic-aeronautics courses at
three universities, observing that hypersonics research is dominated by
people trained in the 1950s and 1960s, many of them due to retire soon.

USBI trying to validate techniques for testing the strength of used
shuttle-SRB drogue parachutes, in hopes of extending their operational
life.  If the techniques work out, USBI plans to test the current "fleet
leader" -- a drogue chute which has reached the current ten-flight limit --
to destruction to confirm that it is still strong.

Panamsat adds a fourth Hughes HS601 to its current Hughes contract; the
bird is meant as a ground spare.

Pentagon investigation confirms the existence of an early-1980s campaign
to supply disinformation to the Soviets about US ABM work, but finds that
it was terminated ten months before the successful Homing Overlay Experiment
test.  The early (unsuccessful) HOE tests carried a system designed to
make a near-miss look like a direct hit, but none of those tests came
close enough to activate it.  The Administration decided that compromising
potentially-successful tests with extra complexity was not worth the gain
from fooling the Soviets.  The investigation also concluded that allegations
that the successful test was rigged are false.

Senate appropriates $14.6G for NASA, paring various programs somewhat and
telling NASA that $160M of its ASRM request must come out of other programs.
Another political battle over the station is imminent; the Senate is felt
to be a bit friendlier than it was, but the question of Russian participation
remains a major unknown.

NASA submits new station baseline design, temporarily dubbed "Alpha", to
the White House... without cost numbers, which are running late.  Alpha is
probably a rather academic exercise, since it's now clear that what the
White House really wants is to bring the Russians on board, and the plan
for that is still in the works.  Alpha does have a few interesting features.
It reinstates the alpha joints for the solar arrays, allowing Sun tracking
with minimal disturbance to microgravity work.  It also restores the full
US lab module and the connecting nodes.  Most important, though, it is set
up so that the arrangement of the NASA/ESA/NASDA/CSA components remains
much the same even if more Russian hardware is added.  It provides three
options, in fact:  build along current lines using Lockheed's Bus-1 for
propulsion and control, do likewise but using the Salyut FGB space tug
instead of Bus-1 (the tug's capabilities are described as "extensive
and impressive"), or combine with Mir 2 and a joint US-Russian solar-
dynamic power system.

O'Connor says that the Salyut FGB would be cheaper than Bus-1, can be
refuelled in orbit, and (unlike Bus-1) already has enough attitude-control
authority for the station's needs.  According to KB Salyut, the tug has
flown on four Cosmos missions, delivered Kvant 2 to Mir, and is planned
for Priroda and Spektr.

All the Alpha options assume availability of either ASRM or the lightweight
aluminum-lithium external tank, to increase shuttle payload.  Construction
would begin in late 1998 and be complete in 2003 after 19 shuttle flights.
Mixed in with those would be 7 more flights, starting spring 1999, using
the facility in man-tended mode.

The third-option unified station would be in a 51.6deg orbit, and would
use a rather different assembly sequence, with most of the early flights
Russian.  Assembly could start in 1997, it would need at least four fewer
shuttle flights, and it would have a crew of six rather than four.  NASA
is concerned about issues like how the station would be developed and
operated and how much responsibility would be delegated to contractors.

Congress is dissatisfied with the fuzzy nature of all this, and wants to
see specifics on exactly what Clinton and NASA want to build.  The
international partners likewise are reserving judgement pending further
information, although they cautiously approve of some of the Alpha changes.
They want to see a backup plan in case Russia is unable to meet its new
commitments, and are concerned about extra costs resulting from the
schedule slips revealed in Alpha (although ESA, in particular, may be
as much relieved as concerned, because its budget crunch was endangering
the schedule for the Columbus module anyway).  The partners want to see
Russia participating on equal terms, not a "US buyout" of the Russian
space program.  There is also concern about whether the existing partners
will be relegated to a second-class role in a US-Russian station, and
about whether RKA has adequate control over NPO Energia to keep things
on schedule in Russia.

STS-63, set for launch in mid-1994, will carry Vladimir Titov -- now in
training as backup cosmonaut for STS-60 (set for January) -- and also
the program's first female pilot, Eileen Collins as copilot.

Succesful Atlas launch of a USN UHF-Follow-On comsat, replacing the one
that was left in a useless orbit by the last Atlas failure.  Hughes is
relieved, since its Navy contract specifies delivery on orbit, and the
loss of one bird was painful enough.  The Navy is happy, because the new
birds will replace a "motley constellation" of aging military comsats
and leased commercial-comsat capacity that is overloaded enough to be
turning away potential users.  And General Dynamics is seriously happy
that Atlas is now behaving itself again.

Discovery launch, carrying ACTS, postponed two days to accommodate review
of components that ACTS might have in common with Mars Observer.  It was
built by the same group, now Martin Marietta Astro Space.  Engineers have
completed reliability tests on two transistors in TOS that come from the
same batch as the suspect ones on MO, and cleared them for flight.

NASA has also raised the minimum fuel reserve required for shuttle reentry,
after Endeavour's fuel consumption during its reentry from the Eureca
retrieval was substantially higher than normal.  It's thought that the
orbiter encountered a large number of rapid changes in atmospheric
density at high altitude.  There is particular concern because Endeavour
could easily have been somewhat low on fuel by that point:  the Eureca
retrieval went very smoothly and fuel consumption for it was minimal,
but other rendezvous missions in the past haven't been so economical.
The increased reserve will require more cautious planning of rendezvous
missions in future.

White House releases its much-promised "Reinventing Government" study,
proposing reduction of redundancy and elimination of waste.  [Yeah, sure.]
Space-related items include combining the civilian and military polar-orbit
weather-satellite systems and consolidating three existing administrative
groups -- one of them the moribund National Space Council -- into a
National Science and Technology Council.  Some of the other items are
likely to provoke Congressional opposition, however, and just what will
happen is unclear.

USN hypersonic-windtunnel tests confirm that small design changes,
including blunter leading edges, can make "waverider" high-hypersonic
aircraft much less sensitive to exact flight conditions than classical
waverider designs, at relatively modest performance cost.  The tests
found that the model had L/D of 3.8, against 4.5 for a traditional
sharp-edged waverider, and that this varied less than 10% over a
wide range of conditions.

Russia has tested a TV-aided remote-control docking system for use with
the Progress freighters.  Early this year, Gennadi Manakov, aboard Mir,
undocked a Progress, maneuvered it nearby, and redocked it, using the
system prototype.  Progress normally docks using the automatic Kurs
system, but the TV system will be a useful backup and will probably
be preferred if Mir is temporarily unmanned for some reason.  Normally,
the operator will be on the ground rather than on Mir.

Russians plan an EVA to inspect Mir for signs of Perseid damage.  Tests
will be done first to determine whether the solar arrays have experienced
significant output losses from Perseid impacts, although it's thought that
any reduction is minor.  Contrary to some previous reports, the EVA will
not use the maneuvering backpack -- it has been idle for some time and
the Russians would want to give it a major checkout first.

The Progress M-17 freighter, now separated from Mir, will remain in orbit
for 12-18 months rather than being commanded into a destructive reentry
immediately.  "American specialists asked us how long can Soyuz fly in
space, and since Progress is similar in its design and major systems,
the test with M-17 will provide good data."

NASA plans an effort to improve assessment of spacecraft risks due to
meteor showers like the Perseids.  When it was noticed that Discovery's
4 Aug launch date would have it up during the Perseids, JSC tried to
compute the probability of trouble... and discovered that the uncertainties
in the calculations were huge, because meteor-shower behavior is not well
understood.  So Discovery's launch was postponed, and Hubble and EUVE were
reoriented to minimize their exposure.  The Perseids were a bit of a dud
this year, but there is still a good chance of a major Perseid storm in
the next year or two, and a strong possibility that the Leonids will storm
late this decade, so NASA is seeking data from new instruments in hopes
that better risk estimates can be made.

Weather-satellite image from NOAA-11, showing the Midwest floods via a
large Sun glint from flooded land between the Mississippi and Missouri.

UK Civil Aviation Authority to provide startup funding for an Institute
of Satellite Navigation at Leeds.

France is sounding out Russia about the possibility of a joint European
antimissile system, possibly based on the Russian SA-12 antiaircraft
missile.  An SA-12 battery successfully killed 8 "Scud-type" missiles
with nine SA-12s in tests earlier this year.  The Russian officer in
charge says his unit already has the capabilities that Patriot will
acquire with the PAC-2 updates in 1995.  The SA-12 has been seriously
secret until fairly recently.

Editorial urging the US government to get its act together on future
launcher-development policy, preferably via a serious attempt to build
an all-new launcher in the next decade.  The editorial also suggests
that it might be a good idea to keep the STME team together, as one
of the few efforts the US has made recently to improve propulsion
technology.
-- 
Study it forever and you'll still       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
wonder.  Fly it once and you'll know.   |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer"  7-NOV-1993 22:19:06.28
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Sept 20 AW&ST

Letter from Karl Henize of JSC, commenting on an AW&ST report of Neil
Armstrong's Gemini glove still being in orbit and still being tracked.
Wrong in three ways.  First, the lost glove happened on Gemini 4, while
Armstrong flew on Gemini 8.  Second, such a relatively large and light
object, in the fairly low orbit the Geminis used, would have reentered
within a year.  And third, the Gemini 4 glove was never tracked well
enough to appear in the tracking catalog.

House Defense Appropriations funds NASP at $80M (twice DoD request) and
orders Pentagon to choose between Patriot upgrades and the Erint missile
interceptor.

Intelsat signs for three more Intelsat 8s from Martin Marietta (on fairly
favorable terms, settling the last litigation from the Titan-Intelsat
failure), and leases one Express satellite from Informkosmos.

[Not really space-related except that it indicates the sort of money that
private industry can throw around when the profits look good...]  Boeing
rolls out the 1000th 747.  747 deliveries to date, adjusted for inflation,
total $148G [yes, 148 *billion* dollars].  The order backlog currently
stands at another 177 [!].

Discovery launched 12 Sept, finally.  ACTS deployed successfully, its
TOS fired fine, its kick motor likewise, and it is now in Clarke orbit
and being moved to its operational position.  [Note for the Martin
Marietta bashers:  ACTS was an MM bird, and MM is also OSC's subcontractor
for most of TOS.]  ACTS deployment was delayed briefly due to problems
with communications.  One problem occurred:  both primary and backup
deployment charges appear to have fired, shattering part of the metal
retaining band.  Walz and Newman inspected the cradle during their
later EVA, specifically to confirm that debris would not interfere with
closing the payload-bay doors or come loose during reentry.

On Discovery's second day, the Orfeus-Spas free-flyer was released for
its program of ultraviolet observations.  Also aboard Orfeus-Spas is an
Imax camera to film the orbiter from outside!  Discovery maneuvered
briefly after Orfeus-Spas release, to give the camera a good view.

The third major activity of the mission was a seven-hour spacewalk,
mostly testing tools and procedures for the Hubble repair.  After the
inspection of the ACTS/TOS cradle, Newman tested a new arm-mounted
foot cradle, this one moved by foot pedals to leave hands free.  Both
astronauts tested a system for warming their gloved hands by holding
them against a lamp; they report that it works, but only for one hand
at a time, because they needed the other to help hold their position.
(There is concern about the astronauts' hands getting cold during the
repair mission, because while EVAs are usually done with the payload
bay facing sunward, Hubble will be kept in shadow to protect it from
overheating.  The bay will get pretty cold, even though it will be
turned toward Earth to prevent it from chilling down too far.  Story
Musgrave got frostbitten fingers during vacuum-chamber tests of the
tools, as a result of which the Hubble repair crew will have insulating
overgloves.)  Walz and Newman were unable to close the payload-bay
toolbox at the end of the EVA, and it took them an extra 45 minutes
to sort it out.  ("Some guys will do anything to extend their EVA.")

DC-X flies again 11 Sept [already a record compared to the typical
shuttle turnaround!].  The flight was delayed briefly by various
glitches, but looked flawless once it started.  The touchdown was
done faster this time, to minimize charring from recirculating exhaust.  
Ground crews were working on the vehicle 5 minutes after touchdown.

The next phase of this program would be construction of the SX-2,
a somewhat larger demonstrator capable of functioning as a reusable
sounding rocket -- taking 2000lb payloads to 100nmi -- and also
demonstrating orbit-capable mass ratios and thermal protection.
The SX-2 program would cost a few hundred million dollars over about
three years, to fly two competing designs.  The House is in favor;
the Senate is not so sure.

Assorted stories on GPS and satcom systems from the National Business
Aviation Association conference.  Honeywell proposes using radar
reflectors on airfields to lock GPS-based computer-generated runway
images to the real thing, as a blind-landing aid... especially promising
because the FAA is talking about adding radar reflectors to runway
lights to help tracking of surface traffic.  There is interest in using
GPS in surface vehicles for surveying.  NAVSYS proposes a motor-vehicle
emergency signalling system using its TIDGET GPS sensor -- developed
for "military applications" -- which does not process the GPS signals
at all, but just relays them to a receiver elsewhere for processing
there, reducing per-vehicle cost.  Pilots of large aircraft reportedly
are already using handheld GPS receivers -- meant for light aircraft --
as a backup navigation aid and a check on the aircraft systems.  New
light-aircraft GPS receivers, designed to mount on the control yoke,
are starting to come with built-in databases of airport information.
AlliedSignal is building a new combined package, a GPS receiver plus
a VHF radio, intended to be the only electronics a light aircraft needs
for fair-weather operation.

NASA Langley completes a series of tests aimed to determining whether
differential GPS plus pseudolites -- GPS-type beacons at airports --
could meet requirements for blind landings.  The answer is yes:  "we
could theoretically achieve an accuracy of 10 centimeters...".  Also
under test is an interferometric GPS system developed at Ohio University,
which is demonstrating similar accuracies but has a number of technical
challenges left to be sorted out.

University of Leeds reports that three Glonass satellites have had their
frequency channels changed, apparently to minimize interference with
radio astronomers.  The Russians have also now assigned the same channels
to a couple of satellites on opposite sides of the Earth, which might
permit halving the number of channels used.

Trimble will be the first licensee of Differential Corrections Inc's
technology for transmitting DGPS corrections on subcarriers of FM
radio stations.  DCI will offer licences for 1m, 2-5m, or 5-10m
accuracy once service is in place (planned for late this year in major
US centers, with full coverage of the US next year, and tests underway
in several other nations).

Khrunichev and other Russian groups sign agreement with Space Transporation
Systems of Australia to provide commercial Proton service from a launch
site in Papua New Guinea.  STS has not yet pinned down a specific site;
it says that negotiations with landowners in the Admiralty Islands and
New Britain area are "well underway".  The PNG government likes the idea,
and its Prime Minister has pledged support.  The agreement gives STS a
20-year monopoly on Western commercial Proton services.  Funding, estimated
at $750M including two test launches (set for 1997-8), is STS's problem
and nothing specific has been said about the matter.  The agreement has
a clause stipulating adherence to MTCR rules limiting spread of missile
technology.

This agreement signals final abandonment by STS of the Cape York concept.
The Zenit booster chosen for Cape York is a joint Ukrainian-Russian bird,
which has made for endless political complications since the breakup of
the USSR.  The political process in Australia wasn't going terribly well.
And PNG is technically a better site, closer to the equator (Khrunichev
estimates Proton payload to Clarke orbit at 4 tons from PNG, versus 2.4
from Baikonur) and capable of a wide range of launch azimuths (including
launch to polar orbit) over ocean.

Loral books the first firm commercial order for Proton with Lockheed-
Khrunichev-Energia International:  one launch in 4Q1995, with options on
four more in 1996-8, all from Baikonur.  LKEI is optimistic that most
of the options will turn into orders.

LKEI in fact thinks that it is likely to have more customers than it can
handle under the current restraint-of-trade agreement limiting it to
eight major Clarke-orbit payloads this decade.  LKEI wants to sign up
customers as quickly as possible, to lock up those quota slots before
other Russian launch suppliers get their act together.  It says that
once it has eight firm customers, "we'll be back in Washington working
the issue" of loosening the quota.

LKEI says that the Proton launch failure last May was due to contaminated
propellant, and steps will be taken to prevent a repetition.  No details.

Titan IV project office thinks the Aug failure was due to a casing
burn-through in SRB #1 in the third segment from the bottom, possibly
due to a fuel flaw.  (The project office is running its own accident
investigation in parallel with the official one, in hopes of starting work
on a fix sooner.)  Existing testing procedures would not have found a
fuel crack in areas where the fuel was under compression, keeping the
crack closed.  General belief has been that such cracks normally would
stay under compression during operation, and hence would not provide a
flame path to the casing... but there is now suspicion that complications
of some kind, perhaps transient forces during ascent, could change that.
The USAF would still like to recover some of the debris for further
information; USN robot vehicles have supplied photographs but have not
yet brought anything back.

Meanwhile, those two forlorn Titans that have been sitting on the pads
at the Cape endlessly are still grounded, although there is hope that
new testing procedures might permit certification of SRB segments in
time to get one of them up this year.  With the general consensus that
the failure was in an SRB, the Titan II launch of Landsat 6 is back on
schedule for 28 Sept (no SRBs on a II), and the payload has been stacked.

And speaking of Titan SRBs... Hercules's SRMU upgraded Titan SRB passes
its final test firing at Edwards 12 Sept.  Preliminary data indicates
that motor performance was exactly on predictions, although data analysis
and casing inspection will delay a final decision on production of the
first flight motor until late Oct.  Nominal first flight is mid-1995.
The USAF is starting to talk about maybe moving this up some, given the
problems with the existing SRBs, although late 1994 would be about the
earliest date -- processing facilities and handling equipment are still
being modified to cope with the larger and heavier Hercules segments.

Full-page ad from LKEI:  "The world's most reliable rocket is now
available in the West."  They claim a 96% success rate in 200+ launches.

Editorial urging Goldin to officially declare that there will be two
Hubble repair missions, with an eye on cancelling the second mission
if the first really does complete its long list of jobs.  This would
minimize the public-relations damage if the first mission does hit
snags and a second is needed.

Editorial urging Congress to order the Pentagon to return to the old
system in which classified documents go public after 30 years unless
specific justification is offered for keeping them secret.  Why?
Because the current system makes it easier to destroy records than to
release them to historians... and substantial chunks of US aerospace
history are being destroyed for that reason.
-- 
Study it forever and you'll still       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
wonder.  Fly it once and you'll know.   |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 12-NOV-1993 02:28:30.47
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Sept 27 AW&ST

Letter from David Armbruster, observing that while US heavy launchers
cost hundreds of millions per flight, Zenit is a Titan-IV-class rocket
that is launched in two hours by ten men.  "US industry and government
leaders should realize Russian rocket technology is not going to go
away because the Cold War is over and the Americans do not have their
act together enough to invest in it..."

Letter from Mark Toft, commenting that the ARPA/Pentagon plan to develop
a standard bus/payload interface for satellites is reinventing NASA's
Multimission Modular Spacecraft, flown successfully on Landsats 4 and 5,
Solar Max, UARS, EUVE, and Topex/Poseidon.

Japan to form special committee to examine the question of what their
next major space goal should be, now that the H-2 seems about finished.

Five-frame mosaic of Ida from Galileo.  Lots of craters, some larger
than those seen on Gaspra (which is about a third the size of Ida).
The surface appears to be old, judging by the cratering etc.

Orbital Sciences buys Perkin-Elmer's Applied Science Operation branch,
a major builder of scientific sensors and life-support monitoring gear.

India's PSLV launched 20 Sept from Sriharikota... unsuccessfully.  A
"disturbance" during the second/third stage separation resulted in a
suborbital trajectory only.

OSTP begins Yet Another Review Of US Space Policy.

Astronaut William McArthur writes to the NRC, questioning the "improved
safety" rationale for ASRM.  "This program is viewed warily by the
Astronaut Office... we are concerned about the number of technological
'firsts'..."

Senate rejects another attempt to kill the station.  Noteworthy is that
Sen. Tom Harkin, long-time station foe, has switched sides in the wake
of the US-Russia deal.  Meanwhile, major House committee leaders write
to Gore expressing concerns about Russian reliability, reluctance to
fund a vaguely-defined project, dislike for an assembly sequence that
starts with Russian components, and a preference for a "compromise"
orbital inclination less than 51.6.  Meanwhile, the Senate fenced off
about half of next year's station budget until it sees the Fredovitch plan.

Goldin reports to Gibbons on Alpha costs:  using the Russian tug but
no other major Russian elements, it's $19.4G, first launch in 1998,
and occupation by a crew in 2003, if annual spending is capped at $2.1G.
However, the timing could accelerate with greater Russian involvement.
No firm numbers on costs that way, yet.

Meanwhile, ASRM is on the block again, with supporters pointing to the
need for higher lift capabilities now that the station is going to go
into a higher-inclination orbit, and opponents pointing to high costs
and potential risks.

Unexpectedly, given Russian financial problems and lack of activity by
the Russian navy, Russia launches the first of what seems to be a new
constellation of ocean-surveillance satellites.

Russians report continuing problems at Baikonur:  more unrest among
the troops last June (only just being admitted), many staff vacancies,
and problems with pad maintenance and theft.  However, the pads now
considered most important are being adequately taken care of and protected.

Discovery makes the first night landing at KSC, a day late due to
weather.  The Orfeus/Spas scientists say they got all they wanted,
including a "target of opportunity" when amateur astronomers alerted
them to the occurrence of a dwarf nova.  The retrieval rendezvous used
less fuel than expected, and retrieval included waving Orfeus/Spas
around on the arm, giving its Imax camera a view from various angles.
(Photo of the shuttle nose from the side, taken from a TV camera
used to help aim the Imax camera.)  Some more waving was done to
gather calibration data for the Wake Shield Facility deployment.
Various other bits of equipment testing were done, including turning
off and restarting one of the orbiter's fuel cells, and testing
both a laser rangefinder (intended for the Mir rendezvous next
summer) and GPS receivers (on both the orbiter and Orfeus/Spas) for
navigation.  What looked like flames, seen near Discovery's tail via
IR cameras after landing, were vent plumes from the APUs -- although
JSC controllers thought they looked odd enough to ask the crew to
shut down two of the APUs early.

Postmortem on the Eureca retrieval indicates that an electrical
connector on Endeavour's arm was misassembled at Spar Aerospace,
making it impossible for Eureca to draw power from the orbiter
while on the end of the arm.  This complicated retrieval, because
when Eureca's antennas failed to stow fully, a snap decision had to
be made before Eureca's batteries got too low:  unfold its solar
arrays (folded for retrieval), or waive the usual rule against
berthing a spacecraft with unsecured appendages and get it berthed
and connected to orbiter power.  Since it was the end of the work
day for the crew, and JSC prefers not to leave a payload on the
arm with nobody awake to keep an eye on it, the rule was waived.
In retrospect, it is likely that the rule would have been waived
anyway, since the EVA work on the antennas would have been rather
more difficult at the end of the arm.  However, management is
unhappy that the problem was not caught before launch:  Tests
checked the connector's electrical properties, but not whether
it was in the right *location*.  A suitable test fixture is
being designed to check placement of future arm-attached hardware,
and procedures are being reviewed.

FAA decides that the "TCAS-3" upgrade to airliner collision-avoidance
systems will have to use GPS.  The original TCAS-3 plan called for
use of a directional antenna to determine the bearings of nearby
aircraft, but it turns out that reflections off the aircraft skin
and other antennas degrade the accuracy of such systems to the point
where the bearing information is of minimal value.  Having the other
aircraft transmitting their GPS positions and velocities should
work much better.

Japan's transport ministry seeks major startup funding for a ten-year
project to switch to a satellite-based air-traffic-control system,
with a goal of reducing flight spacings from 15min to 5min on busy routes.

Pictures from the Moscow aviation show, including an engineering-test
Glonass and the recovered Cosmos 2207 optical spysat.

Story on Orbital Science's Orbcomm data-messaging satellites.  The first
two are in final assembly.  They have an odd configuration:  a thin flat
disk, with the two flat faces hinging out as solar arrays and an antenna
assembly extending in the plane of the disk, with just a ring of electronics
left of the original disk.  They are designed to be launched in a stack of
eight (!) on a Pegasus XL.  With everything retracted, the disks are 41in
in diameter and 6.5in thick.  "It's quite unlike any satellite you may
have seen before."  They will be separated, one a time, from the Pegasus
third stage by springs, and then maneuvered into their operational slots
by nitrogen-gas thrusters.  OSC says the solar arrays are the thinnest
rigid arrays ever built, 0.5in thick.  The VHF antenna assembly is
104in long, with two hinges for deployment.  Each satellite includes
17 "data processors" and seven separate VHF antenna elements.  The
whole system (26 satellites) is estimated to have a capacity of five
million digital messages per day.  The first two satellites are set
for launch early next year, with three full stacks following later
in the year to give near-continuous mid-latitude coverage from 45deg
orbits.  OSC is considering adding one more stack to improve coverage
in low latitudes.  The nominal 26-bird constellation will have a total
of 6kW of power in about 1000kg of hardware -- twice the power and
under 25% the weight of an Intelsat 6.  The Orbcomm bus will also be
available for other applications, under the name Microstar.

Meanwhile, OSC signs up its first customer for Microlab, a 150lb
remote-sensing satellite design:  NASA Marshall.  OSC will build,
test, launch, and operate (for 2 years) Microlab 1, carrying NASA's
Orbital Transient Detector for studying the world distribution
of lightning.  Also aboard will be a UCAR/NSF payload to study
the effect of atmospheric occultation on GPS signals -- all the
Orbcomms will carry GPS receivers, and there is hope that measuring
atmospheric effects with them might be useful to weather forecasting.
Microlab 1 will fly early next year; total fee payable to OSC will
be under $7M.

Details of a robot arm planned for the Spektr add-on for Mir.  The
novel part of this one is that it will be able to move experiment
packages between external mounting points and a small airlock.
Spektr will have 11 external mounting points for these "Pelican"
packages, which can be about 330x330x500mm and can have power and
data links via the mounting points.  The arm itself will be almost
entirely mechanical, with the outside segments moved by manipulating
similar but smaller segments inside.  Spektr managers say they are
expecting the module to be launched to Mir next year.

JET-X, the Joint European X-ray Telescope, passes preliminary testing
in preparation for its flight on a Russian Spectrum satellite in 1995.
The telescope is a joint UK/Italy/Russia project.

Russian space companies and government groups growing concerned about
personnel losses due to poor pay.  For example, the Space Data Research
Center at the Ministry of Fisheries has only a small group of people
left, and research has essentially ceased.  Things are looking a bit
different at NPO Energia:  "It is amazing to come to work on certain
days and find 40-50 Americans in our facility.  Who could have imagined
this...?"

Clementine 1 passes its major readiness review in preparation for its
January launch (22 months after development go-ahead).  The project is
within budget ($75M, including $20M for the Titan IIG launcher).

NASA is pondering what to do about a Mars Observer replacement, and
in particular whether anything can be done in time for a 1994 launch.
Goldin says he will not be hurried into a decision, and it is more
important to get it right than to make a particular launch window.
Ideas include building a second MO from spares (although not all
the instruments have full spares, the failure mode of the original
is still not understood, and choice of launcher is not at all clear),
putting MO instruments on an MSTI bus (MSTI-1, built by JPL for BMDO
in under a year, was launched last Nov; a problem with this is that
MSTI would need modifications and might not be ready for 1994),
sending Clementine 2 to Mars with its original instruments (not as
good for the mission as the MO instruments, but still respectable,
and *this* one could be ready for 1994 launch), and putting MO
instruments on TRW's Eagle bus, specifically the version developed
for Goddard's TOMS ozone mapper (again requiring mods for an
interplanetary mission).  There has been some criticism of the
JPL assessment process, characterized by some as a "kangaroo court"
obviously stacked in favor of MO 2:  all non-JPL ideas were presented
by JPL people rather than the managers of the original projects, JPL
was allegedly heavy-handed in details of scheduling and presentation,
and MO people were heavily represented in the audience.

Meanwhile, the MO controllers are still pursuing faint hopes.  The
latest effort has had JPL sending commands to turn on the low-power
beacon of the "balloon relay" package meant to relay data from
Russian Mars landers and balloons, with Jodrell Bank listening for
the signal (from both Mars orbit and the no-insertion-burn solar
orbit).  [This would work even if MO's main transmitters are dead.
Unfortunately, nothing was heard.]
-- 
Study it forever and you'll still       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
wonder.  Fly it once and you'll know.   |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 15-NOV-1993 02:27:29.07
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Oct 4 AW&ST

DC-X flies for the third time 30 Sept, to higher altitude and higher speeds.

ESA gives Aerospatiale the $156M contract to develop the Huygens Titan probe.

CIS uses Spot satellite imagery plus GPS fixes at sites within Moscow to
produce the first accurate, unclassified map of Moscow.

Martin Marietta to close or relocate assorted facilities to consolidate
operations following acquisition of GE's satellite business.

Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee kills Brilliant Eyes funding
while supporting FEWS and DSP.  Also zeroed is NASP.  House disagrees.

Asiasat and Thaicom settle their long battle over Clarke-orbit slots.
Thaicom 1 is on track for Ariane launch in December; Asiasat 2 is being
built for early-1995 launch, although that was supposed to be a Long March
launch and Great Wall Industries is on the Clinton trade-sanctions list.

ESA finally admits that Hermes is dead.  The new proposal, to be presented
to the ESA Council on 13 Oct, calls for an Apollo-like capsule with a
substantial payload-return capability instead.  The capsule would carry
at least four astronauts and have the ability, unlike Soyuz, to return
a substantial amount of cargo.  It would go up on Ariane 5.  Also a high
priority would be ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle, a small space tug
that would be used to move the capsule (and other payloads) around.

The new ESA plan also specifies a redesigned Columbus module, weighing
about 10 tons and roughly the size of Spacelab... and including the
previously-dead option of operating it as a man-tended free-flyer.
As a free-flyer, it might offer better microgravity than the space station,
and more important, it would give ESA the option of going it alone in
manned spaceflight if Fredovitch dies of an excess of politics.  "We are
not happy about being considered a minor party in Phase 3 of the station
development."  If the station does survive, Columbus would be launched
on Ariane 5 and moved to the station by the ESA tug.

The background behind all of this is a need for substantial budget cuts
at ESA, as member nations continue to feel the pinch of the recession.
ESA specifically states that science and environmental missions, including
ERS-1 radar operations and the newly-approved Rosetta comet-landing mission,
will not be cut.

Spot 3 launched 25 Sept, along with a handful of microsatellites.  Spot 3
was meant to go up about a year from now, but Spot 2 (particularly its
tape recorders) has aged more rapidly than expected.  Spot 3 is still
basically a Spot 1 clone, but with some modest improvements:  more
durable tape recorders, an NRL/USAF ozone instrument, and a precision
orbit-determination system.  The piggybacked microsats were Stella (French
passive laser reflector), PoSat-1 (Portugal's first satellite, carrying
a 200m-resolution imager, a GPS navigation experiment, and a cosmic-ray
instrument), Healthsat-2 (US store-and-forward digital comsat for
third-world medical communications), Kitsat-B (Korean satellite with
a variety of experiments), Eyesat-A (US interferometric-tracking
satellite), and Itamsat (Italian radio-relay satellite).  PoSat-1 and
Healthsat-2 were built by Britain's Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.,
and Kitsat-B used SSTL components.

NASA short-lists four payloads for two Small Explorer missions to be
launched on Pegasus in 1996 and 1997:  Juno (Joint UV Night Sky Observer,
surveying the sky in far UV), Poems (Positron Electron Magnetic
Spectrometer, measuring +/- ratios in cosmic rays), Trace (Transitional
Region and Coronal Explorer, studying plasma phenomena on the Sun),
and Wire (Wide-Field Infrared Explorer, studying galaxy evolution with
a small IR telescope).  The first Small Explorer was Sampex (July 1992),
the next will be Fast (Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer, next Aug), and
the third will be Swas (Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite, June 1995).

Pictures from Discovery's mission, including the latest experimental
spacewalk, ACTS, and Orfeus/Spas.

HST's Faint Object Camera images Nova Cygni 1992, getting an unusually
early look at the gas shell blown off.

Meanwhile, WFPC-2 is cleared of suspicions of serious misalignment.
A test of WFPC-2 and Costar at Goddard seems to show WFPC-2 out of
alignment by 8mm, well beyond what its adjustable mirrors could handle
in orbit.  Several earlier tests had all shown alignment within 2mm,
so Goddard officials decided to ship WFPC-2 to KSC on schedule while
investigating the test results.  The error has been found:  the Goddard
test rig generated several different images, and WFPC-2 was focused on
the wrong one.  [Given HST's history, there was a certain amount of
paranoia on the subject, so two independent review boards checked --
and confirmed -- the Goddard results.]
-- 
Study it forever and you'll still       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
wonder.  Fly it once and you'll know.   |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 13-DEC-1993 20:22:34.54
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Oct 11 AW&ST

[Hmm, I seem to be a bit behind.  The next few summaries may be a bit
terser than usual, to save time.]

[Aviation Week & Space Technology subscription address is 1221 Ave. of
the Americas, New York NY 10020 USA.  Subscriber service (800)525-5003,
International (609)426-7070.  Rates depend on whether you're
"qualified" or not, which basically means whether you look at the ads
for cruise missiles out of curiosity, or out of genuine commercial or
military interest.  Best write for a "qualification card" and try to get
the cheap rate.  US rate is $82 qualified, higher for unqualified.
It's weekly, it's thicker than Time or Newsweek, and most of it has nothing
to do with space, so consider whether the price is worth it to you.]

William Pickering, whose involvement with spaceflight included working on
the first US satellite and being head of JPL in the 1960s, receives the
first Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Aerospace Prize.

ESA contract for the Artemis experimental data-relay satellite goes to
Alenia.  Launch circa 1996.

Grumman gives pink slips to all 854 staff working on the station
engineering and integration contract, effective 30 Nov.  NASA would like
to keep a few dozen of them, but Congress said no.

Interesting coincidence:  the $400M that the US will pay Russia for use
of Mir in the next four years matches Russian estimates of the financial
loss from the cancelled hydrogen-engine contract with India.

It's Been A Bad Autumn Dept:  Landsat 6 is missing and feared dead.
The launch, on a refurbished Titan II, went fine:  L6 was put into a
transfer orbit with an apogee of 391.08nmi (390.95 planned) at an
inclination of 98.01deg (98.006 planned).  "The orbit at which we
injected the satellite-upper stage combination looks like it was
absolutely perfect."  Payload separation looked normal... after which
L6 vanished.  It was supposed to fire its apogee motor about 14min
later; presumably it didn't, and reentered unobserved.  Early reports
that it had been tracked were wrong:  the trackers saw ERS-1, which
is in a similar orbit.

Eosat and NOAA are unhappy.  Landsats 4 and 5 are still in orbit, but
are old and not in great shape -- their design life was three years,
and they were launched in 1982 and 1984 resp.  Landsat 7 exists only
as long-lead bits and pieces, and on a normal schedule would not be
available for 4-5 years.  The loss is especially painful because L6
had an enhanced Thematic Mapper, with a 15m-resolution panchromatic
band that would be a bit more competitive with Spot than the 30m
resolution of the older TM.

Martin Marietta is also unhappy.  It supplied both launcher and
satellite for this one.  MM has appointed an internal review team,
in addition to the group that is looking at company-wide quality
control.  MM says there appears to be no common element in the
losses of Mars Observer, NOAA-13, and Landsat 6.  The gloom is
mitigated only a little by the success of ACTS and the L6 Titan II
(fourth of 14 ex-ICBMs modified as launchers; there are several
dozen more old ICBMs in storage, currently being shifted from the
closing Norton AFB to an Army storage depot near Pueblo, Colo.).

Speaking of failures...  The USAF still hopes to get one of its
patiently-waiting Titan-IV-Centaurs off the Cape this year.  One
of the SRBs is being destacked to replace a segment that underwent
fuel repairs; it is now deemed suspect under new rules.  Some
consideration is being given to replacing two segments in the SRBs
of the other T-IV-C.

MM is in final negotations to buy GD's Systems Systems Division,
builders of Atlas and Centaur.  Talks have been underway for some
time, but have been delayed repeatedly when launch failures changed
the economic picture of the two companies enough to invalidate some
of the earlier work.  GD has been looking for a buyer for SSD for
over a year, as it unloads what it sees as peripheral divisions.
SSD's future health will depend a great deal on whether Atlas 2AS,
whose development has absorbed a lot of cash, flies well in December.
GD hasn't signed a new launch contract in a while, and it really has
to get its act together on both reliability and launch rate if it is
to recover from its recent failures; if it does, it's in good shape.
Right now, things are strained, and SSD has tightened up, with both
layoffs and a reduction of management layers.  GD considered simply
closing SSD, but there were too many contractual commitments to customers.

There is a possibility that Loral may try to bid for GD-SSD.  Its
chairman is acquisition-hungry and has outbid MM on several other
things in recent years.

An unusual bipartisan coalition of congressional staffers is pushing
for a new government-developed medium launcher, criticizing existing
US launchers as complex, fragile, and more concerned with performance
than with reliability and costs.  "In the US, we build launchers that
are like race cars, but what we really need are trucks."  Of interest
is a comparison of manpower and times:

			Crew Size	Days on Pad
	Ariane 4	about 100	10
	Delta 2		300		23
	Atlas-Centaur	300		55
	Titan IV	>1000		100

				Staff
	Kourou Space Center	900
	Cape (except NASA)	11000
	KSC			18000

[Personal opinion:  the staffers have identified the key problems, all
right...  The trouble is that their answer is an old-technology launcher
built by a massive consortium of contractors supervised by a massive
consortium of government agencies.  This is a recipe for pork, not for
horsepower.  The idea that free enterprise might produce something better
through competition appears never to have entered their heads.]

Columbia crew prepares for Spacelab Life Sciences 2 mission.  Payload
includes 48 rats; late in the mission, Martin Fettman (who is, by the
way, a vet) will decapitate and dissect five of the rats so that changes
in their systems can be studied without the disturbances introduced by
reentry and landing.  Other studies will follow up the SLS-1 work, which
among other things upset a number of earlier assumptions about short-term
human reactions to free fall.  Fettman and Shannon Lucid will wear heart
catheters on ascent.  After landing, the crew will be flown to JSC lying
down, to minimize immediate readaptation effects.  The mission will last
14 days, and assorted engineering tests will include use by the pilots
of a portable-computer-based shuttle landing simulation, meant to give
long-duration crews refresher training before descent.

Congress is getting tired of the unsettled space-station plans, especially
given recent political turmoil in Russia.  Congress in fact is generally
tired of business-as-usual at NASA and wants to see some changes.  The
latest example is that the House has completely lost patience with ASRM:
on 6 Oct, they voted 305-123 not to even consider the NASA appropriations
bill until ASRM is deleted from it.

ICAO to establish special task force aimed at getting navsat systems into
widespread use in aviation ASAP.  The last time this sort of thing was
done was in the late 1950s, when a special task force was put together to
sort out the problems of introducing jet airliners.  ICAO feels that the
technical issues are solved but the institutional ones -- notably, who
owns, controls, and operates the satellites -- are not.

Inmarsat braces itself for competition in the mobile-communications business,
most notably from Iridium and its lookalikes.  Inmarsat is seeing major
growth in its aviation business, but expects that nautical and land-mobile
users will remain the backbone of its business for now, because while the
aviation market is bigger, the higher costs will slow its development.

Major story on DC-X, which has now flown three times.  The next step would
be DC-X2 [aka several other names], which would be larger and would
demonstrate the lightweight structure that is the one major omission from
DC-X.  BMDO is interested in a reusable sounding rocket, carrying a ton
or payload to 100nmi, but would like to make study awards to at least
two contractors with differing approaches.

AW&ST traces the history of recent SSTO work to a 1982 Boeing proposal,
which became part of the classified Science Dawn program, to build a
sled-launched HTHL SSTO.  Other contractors joined, and about 1986 it
was renamed Science Realm.  At this point, it started to become clear
that the requirement for horizontal takeoff was "warping the design".
"Rockets have good thrust-to-weight ratio and you might as well use
it for vertical takeoff."  As NASP began to build up steam for its
air-breathing work, Science Realm became Have Region "to throw the
rocket guys a bone".  Have Region built prototype lightweight structures
with 1970s materials -- mostly mildly-exotic metals -- to see if it
was possible to fly something soon.  The Have Region structures worked
and were within 3% of the specified weights, so the basic answer was
"yes", but some problems had been encountered, and it looked like some
of the simpler materials being studied by NASP -- notably graphite-epoxy
composites and aluminum-lithium alloys -- would be better.  In 1989, as
Have Region wound down, SDIO funded a small study on using these alternate
materials (but not the more exotic ones NASP was developing from scratch)
in an SSTO, and the current program grew out of that.

DC-X, within its limitations, appears to have been a complete success.
In particular, it has demonstrated cheap refurbishment by a small team
of a reusable rocket... albeit at a much smaller scale than the shuttle.

P&W is also happy about the performance of DC-X's RL10A-5.  It's basically
a standard RL10 with the nozzle shortened, but some other small changes
were needed too.  The chamber was stretched slightly, because the pumps
are powered by chamber and nozzle heat and the shortened nozzle would
have reduced the available heat too much.  Also added, to meet the need
for throttling to 30% of full thrust, was a throttling valve that controls
bypassing of hot gas around the pump turbine.  Production RL10s actually
already have such a bypass valve, used to trim the chamber pressure, and
the -5 just needed one with more authority.  P&W thinks they could get
thrust down to 20-25%, but at 15-20% it has instability and overheating
problems.  Even at 30%, things run warmer due to reduced flow rates:
the turbine gas is at +50F instead of the usual -100F.

Aerojet teams with Lyulka to improve, market, and build Lyulka's D-57
oxyhydrogen rocket engine, a 90klb-vacuum-thrust engine using staged
combustion at 1600psia chamber pressure.  The engine is 1960s-vintage,
and is "a little heavy", but otherwise is most interesting because
there is no other hydrogen engine in that size range.  In particular,
it's perfect for an SSTO demonstrator, where the RL10 is a bit small.

The D-57 was built as a hydrogen replacement for the kerosene upper-stage
engines of the N1 lunar booster.  With the standard 143:1 nozzle, vacuum
Isp is 456 at a 5.8 mixture ratio.  Use at sea level would require either
a two-position nozzle or some way of inducing symmetrical flow separation
in a high-expansion nozzle.  A two-position nozzle was tested, although
its low-expansion position was still a bit long for sea-level use.  Four
unused D-57s still exist, plus two used ones (one with the two-position
nozzle) and an assortment of spare parts.  The production tooling appears
to have been misplaced and is being sought.

Pressures in the D-57 are about half those of the SSME and materials
are not exotic.  One minor oddity is that the chamber is LOX-cooled;
the hydrogen cools only the nozzle.  The engine is throttlable to 10%.
It has accumulated 53000s of run time.

Brief story on Aerojet's gaseous H2/O2 RCS for DC-X.  [The story doesn't
mention that it hasn't yet been used in flight!]  Aerojet says GH2/GO2
is a logical choice for an LH2/LO2 vehicle's RCS:  gas storage is bulky
and maintaining constant flow to the thrusters can be tricky, but having
fewer propellant types and nontoxic propellants is a win, and the gas
tanks can be recharged from the main fuel tanks via pumps and flash
boilers (DC-X, for simplicity, doesn't do that).

USAF considers adapting its Cobra Ball aircraft, which carry infrared
telescopes for tracking ballistic-missile tests at a distance, to
detection of tactical missile launches.  Also being discussed is putting
a shrunken version of the Cobra Ball sensors on existing sensor platforms
like the E-3 radar aircraft.

Warfare within the Pentagon over air-launched anti-tactical-missile
weapons...  The USAF has proposed putting SDIO's LEAP lightweight
interceptor on top of an SRAM air-launched missile, providing a
relatively long-range (150+ mi) interceptor that could do ascent-phase
interception and could be deployed overseas as quickly as an aircraft
could fly.  BMDO would prefer to develop its own Peregrine missile,
a longer-term project.  Critics of the USAF concept say that the SRAMs
are old and the USAF has already complained about their aging rocket
motors when trying to get funding for a replacement, and that USAF
aircraft would need expensive new sensors to use SRAM/LEAP in combat.
Supporters observe that SRAM/LEAP, unlike any other US tactical-missile
interceptor except the limited-effectiveness Patriot, could be fielded
within a few years and provide practical defences while follow-on
systems are being developed.

The critics have also announced the discovery of a new class of threat
which SRAM/LEAP could not counter:  "small clustered munitions", which
would deploy during ascent, and could carry chemical/biological weapons
or radioactive isotopes.  There is no evidence that anyone is even
working on the idea right now, and opinions vary on how difficult the
technology is -- it depends a lot on whether you want the submunitions
to disperse at altitudes too low for near-term interceptors to reach you.
Patriot and its relatives would be pretty useless against such a system.
On paper, Peregrine could reach the carrier rocket at lower altitudes
than SRAM/LEAP, but the technology for doing that isn't by any means
an off-the-shelf item.
-- 
Belief is no substitute                 | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for arithmetic.                         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 17-DEC-1993 13:40:00.25
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Oct 18 AW&ST

Cover photo is a dummy reentry craft coming down under a gliding parachute,
part of a JSC/Dryden project, "Spacewedge", that is investigating use of
gliding parachutes and GPS navigation for precision spacecraft landing.
Dryden is flying a 4ft 150lb "generic reentry vehicle" under various sizes
of commercial parachutes, with commercial GPS receivers.  Landing accuracy
has been 170-500ft, and the engineers say it could be consistently within
100ft with military or differential GPS.  The key objective is development
of autonomous-landing software that can make the final upwind flare
maneuver at the right time for a gentle touchdown.  [The article notes
that there are several commercial groups developing similar technology,
but claims that NASA is ahead of them.  This claim has been disputed.]
NASA's immediate interest is for cargo return, but use for manned spacecraft
is not out of the question.  The military is also interested, not for space
but for doing precision cargo airdrops from a distance.

Letter from Wesley Moore (of Boeing) observing that the space station could
be quite useful as an engineering base.  He suggests adding an unpressurized
hangar, where spacecraft final assembly and checkout could be done (using
lightweight "indoor" spacesuits), a pressurized workshop, and a space tug.

NOAA manager Thomas McGunigal to head investigation of Landsat 6 loss.
Evidence continues to indicate that the Titan booster functioned fine.

Lockheed wins two big ones:  Gravity Probe B, and the "engineering, test,
and analysis" contract at JSC.

Goldin, commenting on the how-healthy-is-Baikonur debate, notes that
Russia has run 39 launches this year with 1 failure, compared to the US
with 19 attempts and 5 failures.  He does think the reports of deterioration
are worth investigation, though, and is sending a NASA team to witness
processing and launch of a spacecraft and generally investigate.

US government is dropping hints that it may reduce regulatory barriers to
Inmarsat competing in the US domestic market, perhaps in combination with
opening Inmarsat's own traditional market to competition.  Not everyone
is pleased.  Motorola smells competition for Iridium and is complaining
about having to face subsidized competitors.

The latest Progress freighter to Mir (launched on schedule 12 Oct) carried
a Boeing crystallization experiment that will spent a month in free fall
and come down on a Raduga return capsule.  Noteworthy is that the experiment
went from conception to flight in six months.

First Proton launch since the May failure successful 30 Sept.

NASA investigating the one flaw in the ACTS deployment:  both the explosive
charges on the retaining ring fired, instead of only one, and the result
was a shower of high-velocity debris in the payload bay.  Workers checking
out Discovery after landing found tears in insulation blankets and assorted
"dings and scratches" that will require minor repairs.  Nothing important
was damaged, but there was one disturbing item:  at least one bit of debris
penetrated the aft bulkhead near the APUs, although without doing any damage
after penetration.

Russia announces a new telecommunications initiative, including expansion
of internal communications by replacement of the old Gorizont satellites
with new Express and Express-M birds, launch of several new GALS TV-broadcast
satellites, and development work on a mobile-communications comsat system.

Michael Gibson, planning director for Britain's air-traffic system, dashes
some cold water on satellite-based traffic-control ideas.  He says the
biggest problem is going to be getting airtight agreements on who bears
legal liability when something goes wrong.  He also comments that when he
asked his advisors how much airways could be narrowed with satellite
navigation systems, he was astonished when they said that separation should
be widened!  "This is due to the nature of errors in the new system as
compared to traditional navigation aids.  The new systems are either perfect
or subject to such gross errors that they are unpredictable."

Aeronautical navsat users are making one thing clear:  they want a voice
in policy decisions and satellite operations before committing to widespread
use of satellite navigation.  They would prefer operation and control by an
international civilian agency; failing that, they want binding treaties to
establish the ground rules.

Plot of GPS accuracy vs Glonass accuracy.  The GPS position error wanders
around due to DoD's error injection.  Glonass, which apparently lacks this
capability, yielded a much tighter pattern with a slight offset from the
true position.  A combined receiver kept the tight pattern of Glonass but
removed the offset.  There are some problems for combined use, however.
Particularly noteworthy is that GPS and Glonass use different time
references -- which can be several microseconds apart -- and different
models of the Earth's shape.  Information about the Soviet Earth-shape
models is particularly difficult to come by.  Studies have generally
concluded that Glonass is a bit better than GPS even if you disregard
the errors injected into GPS, because Glonass's orbital pattern gives
more uniform coverage.

Stanford continues to investigate the concept of "pseudolites", low-power
GPS-like transmitters located at airports whose signals could greatly
improve the precision of GPS for landing approaches.  Experimentally
measured errors are a few centimeters.

Navsys Corp. continues promoting its "Tidget" scheme for precision
tracking of low-cost sensors, in which the sensor receives GPS signals
and relays a compressed (but not decoded) version to a more intelligent
base station.  Navsys is running preliminary tests of using Tidget for
precise location of sonobuoys (sonar buoys dropped by antisubmarine
aircraft) and radiosondes (weather balloons), the former sponsored by
the UK's Defence Research Agency and the latter by Vandenberg AFB.
Navsys is estimating production sensors to weigh about 50g, take about
2W of power if run continuously (0.2W if you only need updates, say,
every ten seconds, as in the sonobuoy application), and cost US$75.

Spot 3, launched 25 Sept, is carrying a BMDO/USAF experiment:  POAM 2,
Polar Ozone and Aerosol Measurement.  (This is reportedly the second
POAM to fly, but what the first flew on is not mentioned.)  It measures
light passing through the atmosphere at nine wavelengths during satellite
sunrise and sunset, yielding data on the vertical distribution of a
number of gases and particles.  Data will be released to the scientific
community after preliminary data reduction at NRL.

NASA DC-8 flights confirm the existence of brief flashes of light
covering volumes of many cubic miles at high altitudes near and above
thunderstorms.  Pilots and other observers have reported seeing them
for many years, but scientific interest dates from 1989, when U of
Minnesota researchers accidentally recorded some of them on ground-
based video cameras.  Researchers at Marshall [thought I wasn't going
to find a space angle in this, didn't you?] then found them on video
recordings of thunderstorms taken by shuttle missions.

DoD-funded US/Russian space experiment on ICBM tracking slated for next
year [now there's a report nobody would have believed five years ago...].
Utah State U and the Moscow Aviation Institute are building a small
satellite, dubbed Skipper, for piggyback launch on the Molniya booster
carrying India's IRS-1C into orbit late next year.  Skipper will start
out in a near-circular 819km orbit, whence its propulsion system will
lower its perigee to 150km, and then still lower until the satellite
appears to be endangered, perhaps 120km.  When its overall orbit gets
too low, it will be briefly maneuvered into a circular orbit, and then
brought down for destructive reentry on the Kwajalein range, with data
expected to stop at about the 80km mark.  The point of the exercise is
that repeated passes through the upper atmosphere at those low perigees
will produce UV-emitting bow waves quite like those of a rapidly-climbing
ICBM.  Tracking of the UV emissions from the bow wave has advantages over
trying to track the IR emissions of the exhaust plume, notably the low
background (Earth is largely dark in UV, due to absorption by the ozone
layer), the closeness of the bow wave to the missile (compared to the
plume, which follows at a distance), and the fact that the bow wave is
still there even with a fast-burn booster whose engines shut down early.
The bow wave is poorly understood; a pair of BMDO sounding-rocket
flights showed that some theoretical predictions of bow-wave phenomena
were off by orders of magnitude.

The Skipper project people say that only about 10% of their problems have
been technical.  Technology-export issues have been a nightmare:  "There
are people in the various bureaucracies in Washington who simply don't
have direction...  Either they said they don't know what the policies
are, or don't quite know how to interpret policies once they have been
enunciated..."  This sometimes makes aerospace contractors leery of even
getting involved; the supplier of Skipper's attitude-control system didn't
dare participate in a design review in September because it lacked State
Dept. approval.  BMDO says, however, that the situation is improving, and
notes that Skipper is only about a year old (it began when Gennady Malyshev
of MAI, attending the annual USU small-satellite conference last year,
offered the use of the piggyback payload slot).
-- 
Belief is no substitute                 | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for arithmetic.                         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

Article: 607
From: [email protected] (Myles Sussman)
Newsgroups: sci.space.policy
Subject: AEROSPACE RESOURCE, VOL. 2 NO. 4: Silicon Valley Space News
Date: 4 Feb 1994 00:24:51 GMT
Organization: AIAA San Francisco Section
 
==================================================================
|                                                                |
|                       AEROSPACE RESOURCE                       |
|         ... of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area   |
|                                                                |
|                       Volume II, Number 4                      |
|                        January 27, 1994                        |
==================================================================

AIAA AEROSPACE RESOURCE
PO Box 1548, Mountain View, CA 94042-1548
 
Editors:                                     Contributors:
Dr. Brian L. Haas   (415) 604-1145	     Dr. Norman Bergrun
Dr. Gregory Wilson  (415) 604-3472	     Mr. Brad Schrick
 
Published monthly by the San Francisco Section of the American Institute of 
Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) to inform government, membership, and the 
general public of developments in the aerospace field with direct impact upon 
Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area.  All material is 
excerpted directly from established publications.  AIAA is the non-profit 
professional society of aerospace engineers, scientists, and managers with 
1,800 members locally. 
 
EMAIL:  [email protected]
==================================================================
 
GAO Report Exonerates NASA Ames Management
 
The U.S. government's General Accounting Office (GAO) has issued a report 
which rejects the findings of an unpopular NASA internal investigation into 
the management practices at Ames Research Center (Moffett Field, CA).  In 
August 1992, Ames employees were stunned when investigators from NASA 
headquarters in Washington descended on the center and moved quickly through 
offices, seeking evidence of alleged security breaches.  The investigation, 
ordered by NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and led by retired Adm. Thomas 
Betterton, led to a harshly worded report accusing Ames of lax security, 
especially regarding computer passwords, that made it vulnerable to foreign 
espionage.  Betterton's Management Review Team (MRT) blamed much of Ames' 
alleged problems on its academic culture.  Shocked by the MRT report, three 
members of Congress asked the GAO to launch an independent investigation.  
The GAO concluded that the MRT probe "did not disclose sufficient information 
to support the view that NASA's competitively sensitive information is being 
widely transferred to U.S. industry's foreign competitors."  According to the 
GAO report, an internal NASA investigation later criticized the Betterton 
team's methods.  Although the GAO report is dated August 1993, it hasn't been 
publicized by NASA or the GAO.  Indeed the report's existence was largely 
unknown until discovered by Space Fax Daily and reported in its 23 December 
1993 issue.  
SOURCES: Space Fax Daily, Dec. 23, 1993.
         San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 24, 1993. [BS]
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
LLNL: Lawrence Livermore National Labs
 
* Lawrence Livermore National Labs (Livermore, CA) received one of the 55 
awards issued during the second round of the Technology Reinvestment Project 
(TRP).  Totaling $110 million this round, the TRP provides matching federal 
funds to support industrial conversion from defense to commercial ventures.  
Livermore will share its $2.3 million award with Aerojet General Corp. and 
Lawrence Berkeley Labs to assess new products and applications using aerogel 
technology. 
SOURCE: Aviation Week, Nov. 29, 1993. [BLH]
 
* A giant experimental cannon built at LLNL, with its 150-foot barrel, is 
being used to flight-test hypersonic scramjet engines at eight times the 
speed of sound.  Photos, taken from high-speed cameras developed originally 
at the lab for its nuclear testing program, show the scramjet firing and 
operating during its brief flight lasting 1/100th of a second.  Having spent 
$4 million so far, the lab's "Supergun" project benefits Rockwell 
International in its bid to develop the engines required to power hypersonic 
passenger aircraft.
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 14, 1993. [BLH]
 
* Working on possibly the most significant astronomical project since the 
Hubble Telescope, LLNL recently completed testing and calibration of an 
engineering model of the X-ray polarimeter.  The model has been shipped to 
the Russian Space Research Institute in Moscow and is slated to be part of 
the Russian Spectrum-X-Gamma orbiting observatory to be launched aboard a 
Proton rocket in late 1995 or early 1996.  
MORE INFO: 510-422-8995
SOURCE: Space Fax Daily, Dec. 23, 1993. [BLH]
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Loral Wins Antenna Matching Funds
 
Space Systems/Loral (Palo Alto, CA) has received $1 million in matching U.S. 
government funds to develop a satellite antenna that will be half the weight 
and five times the power of current antenna arrays.  The company will develop 
the antenna with Syracuse Research Corp. and the U.S. Air Force's Rome 
Laboratories.  The research is part of the Defense Department's Critical 
Technology Reinvestment Project, a partnership intended to help 
high-technology companies find civilian uses for defense related technology.
SOURCE: Space News Vol. 5 No. 3, January 17-23, 1993.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Wing Heater Tested on Airliners
 
TDG Aerospace (Pleasanton, CA) is evaluating its wing heater on three 
American Airlines MD-80 transports this winter to see if it reliably prevents 
ice that could be ingested by the aft engines.  The heater is mounted on the 
upper wing  in an area that can be chilled by cold fuel and form ice even on 
warm days.  Wing ice caused an all engine flameout and crash of a 
Scandinavian Airlines DM-80 in Dec. 1991.  The heater's economic value will 
be to eliminate an airworthiness directive to manually inspect the upper wing 
for ice at ambient temperatures to 70F.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 10, 1993 
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Explosion at UT-Chemical Systems Division
 
A United Technologies Corp. storage facility in the foothills of Coyote 
Valley, CA, that contained ingredients for rocket fuel exploded December 15.  
The powerful blast was heard in Morgan Hill and San Martin but no one was 
injured.  The cause of the explosion is still under investigation.  This is 
the third explosion at the Coyote Valley plant.  The others occurred in 
August 1977 and in September 1985.
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, December 16, 1993
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Stanford Telecom VSAT Business
 
Stanford Telecommunications Inc. is supplying Andrew VSAT Systems with Very 
Small Aperture Terminal receiver sub-stations for rural telephony 
applications.  The initial order for 1,000 systems is worth about $500,000.  
The VSAT systems are planned to provide service to remote locations and 
underdeveloped cities unable to access other telecommunications services.
MORE INFO: Julie Cross (408) 745-0818 x3285
SOURCE: Space Fax Daily, December 23, 1993.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
LMSC: Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.
 
* Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. (Sunnyvale, CA) took pleasure in NASA's 
recent successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope, a satellite assembled 
by the company.  At one time involving 1,100 employees in Sunnyvale, Lockheed 
incorporated the instruments, mirror, and solar arrays on the $1.5 million 
satellite.  Not only has the company operated the Hubble since its launch in 
1990, but it trained the astronauts for the successful repair mission and has 
had 150 Lockheed engineers standing by at two NASA centers.  NASA awarded the 
company two seven-year contracts totaling $267 million in 1992 for its Hubble 
work.
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 9, 1993. [BLH]
 
* LMSC will develop a computer-aided software engineering environment for use 
by the Defense Dept. to develop management information and command and 
control systems software under a $400 million contract.  The Integrated 
Computer-Aided Software Engineering (ICASE) contract awarded by the Air Force 
will enable the use of the Ada programming language for management 
information systems (MIS).  Lockheed will develop software and hardware 
needed to automate program generation, and will provide training, 
maintenance, and technical support over the 10-year life of the contract.  
Providing the government with 12,000-15,000 engineering workstations 
dedicated to software development, the company plans to use off-the-shelf 
equipment from IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems.  
SOURCE: Aviation Week, Dec. 13, 1993. [BLH]
 
* LMSC announced that Charles H. Lloyd, former VP and Managing Director of 
General Dynamics Commercial Launch Services Co. , will head 
Lockheed-Krunichev-Energia International.  Lloyd will oversee day-to-day 
operations for the joint venture which promotes worldwide sale of Russia's 
Proton rocket.  
MORE INFO: Susan Walker, Lockheed, 408-742-7704
SOURCE: Space Fax Daily, Jan. 7, 1994. [BLH]
 
* LMSC announced Jan. 11 that it plans to offer international customers a 
generic version of the Iridium spacecraft frame sent into orbit aboard a 
Lockheed Launch Vehicle for as little as $25 million.  To create a general 
purpose satellite, LMSC will have to modify the Iridium design of which 120 
copies will be built for Motorola's planned telecommunications constellation.  
Lockheed may also offer to mate a customer's payload to small satellite 
frames in order to launch several of them aboard the Russian Proton rocket 
marketed through the company.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 4, Jan. 24-30, 1994. [BLH]
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
GPS: Global Positioning System
 
* Trimble Navigation (Sunnyvale, CA) and Orion Electronics introduced their 
"Slik-trak GPS" satellite-aided buoy.  Equipped with a GPS receiver, each 
buoy is designed to stick to an oil slick and ride with it, transmitting its 
precise location in real time, 24 hours a day, via radio modem to a PC with 
tracking software.  
SOURCE: Space Fax Daily, Jan. 26, 1994. [BLH]
 
* Scientists speaking at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San 
Francisco have used the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system to show 
that there are many unknown and dangerous faults throughout California.  
These discoveries were made by measuring minute distortions in the earth's 
surface at more than a dozen locations throughout the state, pinpointing 
buried faults.
SOURCE: Space Fax Daily, December 8, 1993. [GW]
 
* Trimble Navigation (Sunnyvale, CA) announced that Japan's Geodetic Survey 
Institute purchased 60 of the company's Geodetic Surveyor receivers as part 
of the world's most ambitious effort to predict earthquakes.  The equipment 
will be placed on either sides of fault lines to measure millimeter-level 
movements of the earth's tectonic plates.
MORE INFO: Barbara Thomas (408) 481-7808
SOURCE: PRNewswire, October 5, 1993. [GW]
 
* Trimble Navigation has announced a new generation of GPS marine products at 
the London International Boat Show.  The products, available in March, 
feature big screen displays and built-in differential receivers capable of 
10-meter accuracy.  
MORE INFO (408) 481-7808
SOURCE: Space Fax Daily, January 6, 1993. [GW]
 
* Space System/Loral (Palo Alto, CA) and Trimble Navigation (Sunnyvale, CA) 
have made an exclusive licensing deal to develop a spaceflight-qualified GPS 
attitude determination unit called GPS Tensor.  The device is being billed as 
a low-power, all solid state unit that is expected to lower the size, weight 
and cost of attitude determination equipment.  The technology is a spin off 
of work with Stanford University on NASA's Gravity Probe B program.
MORE  INFO: (408) 697-1105
SOURCE: Space Fax Daily, January 13, 1993. [GW]
 
* Oldsmobile will incorporate a computer navigation system relying on GPS in 
its 1994 Model 88 LSS, going on sale in California this spring.  The system, 
which uses a detachable full-color liquid display, calculates the most 
convenient route to a given destination, and reports in audible turn-by-turn 
instructions.  The system has been tested at an Avis dealership in San Jose, 
CA.
MORE INFO: (517) 377-4430
SOURCE: Space Fax Daily, January 5, 1993. [GW]
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
NASA: NASA Ames Research Center
 
* A battle is being waged over NASA's hopes to build a $2 billion wind tunnel 
complex at Ames.   NASA wants to build two of the world's most advanced 
tunnels for both military research and for development of commercial 
airliners.  This would allow U.S companies to cease using foreign testing 
centers and reduce the time and cost of developing new aircraft.  Funding 
such an expensive project is difficult in the current budget environment but 
the project is being lobbied heavily by industry and regional interests 
including California's congressional delegation and a coalition of San 
Francisco-area companies led by PG&E which hopes to provide the immense power 
required by the tunnels. 
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, December 22, 1993. [GW, BS]
 
* NASA Administrator Dan Goldin announced his long-awaited shake up of agency 
center directors.  Ken K. Munechika, a Hawaii state space official who had 
been a senior commander of Onizuka AFB, Sunnyvale, will lead Ames Research 
Center starting January 28 when current director Dale Compton retires.  
Munechika said he would work toward hiring more minorities and women and 
tighten security at Ames (two areas for which the center leadership has come 
under criticism).  He also plans to continue with Goldin's vision to make 
Ames one of the top three aeronautical research centers in the country while 
scaling back space research.   Goldin has also separated the management of 
the Dryden Flight Research Facility from Ames.  In related news, Stanford 
University's Bradford W. Parkinson, the first director of the Global 
Positioning Satellite system, has been appointed to lead the agency's top 
panel of outside counselors, the NASA Advisory Council.
SOURCES: Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 10, 1993.
         San Jose Mercury News, January 10, 1993. [GW]
 
* A C-130 aircraft from NASA Ames has mapped a large area of the Los Angeles 
earthquake to help state officials assess landslide dangers on Jan. 21-22.  
Photos from the flights helped field crews map fault ruptures, provided 
bridge damage information for the Dept. of Transportation, and assisted the 
Dept. of Water Resources to identify damage to a water filtration plant.  
Similarly, the NASA Ames ER-2 aircraft provided a quick "first look" at 
damage on the day of the earthquake.
MORE INFO: Diane Farrar, 415-604-3934
SOURCE: NASA News, Jan. 25, 1994. [BLH]
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Aerotherm part of Erint/Storm BMDO Vehicle
 
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Army are conducting 
tests of the Extended-Range Interceptor (Erint) as an alternative to the 
Patriot missile to intercept tactical ballistic missiles.  To evaluate the 
Loral Vought Systems Corp. 's Erint, it is being launched to intercept a 
Orbital Sciences Corp. Storm missile simulating a chemical weapon attack.  
The first test was done on Nov. 30 and the second is planned for mid-January.  
The Storm target reentry vehicle is made by Aerotherm Corp. (Mountain View, 
CA) and contains cylinders filled with water to simulate chemical weapons 
canisters.  
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology,  Dec. 6  & 13, 1993. [GW]

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 13-FEB-1994 16:44:45.94
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Oct 25 AW&ST

[Hmm, dearie me, I've gotten behind again...  Expect things to be a bit
terse while I try to catch up.]

Letter from Peter Thomas (Cornell) criticizing the notion of sending
Clementine 2 to Mars as an MO replacement, on the grounds that its
instruments are not up to the job.

NASA moves to shut down ASRM, after House votes 401-30 against it with
the Senate expected to follow suit.

Hubble takes a look at Shoemaker-Levy 9, the shattered comet now on a
collision course with Jupiter.  The Hubble images suggest that early
estimates of the size of the nuclei were excessive, so the impacts will
not be quite as violent as first thought.  The Hubble images put a rough
upper bound of 5km on the size of the bigger lumps, as against a 15km
bound from ground-based observations.

Third test of the Ariane 5 SRBs postponed -- bubbles have been found in
the fuel of the test SRB.  Such bubbles are not unheard-of, and are not
necessarily disastrous, but ESA is unable to determine how large and how
numerous they are at the moment, and if there are too many and too big,
it could ruin the test and possibly damage the test stand.  The SRB with
the bubbles will be set aside and not fired until later, if at all.  The
delay will be used to implement planned improvements in the fuel-mixing
process.  The problem is not expected to delay Ariane 5 first flight.

The Russian-rocket-technology-for-India issue surfaces again, as Rep.
Sensenbrenner asks the State Dept. to assess reports that Indian
technicians in Russia are getting access to hardware and information
that would violate the recent US-Russian agreement.

Shuttle and station programs are under a single boss again:  Maj.Gen.
Jeremiah Pearson.  Pearson may also be temporary director of JSC for
a while, with the mission of knocking heads on Goldin's behalf.  Other
management changes include astronaut William Shepherd becoming manager
of the JSC station office, with Bryan O'Connor picked as station director
(in Washington).

Aerojet is importing a Trud NK-33 LOX/kerosene rocket engine into the
US for examination and display.  They say its design is substantially
more advanced than the US LOX/kerosene engines, most of which are fairly
old, and it would make a good upgrade for Delta or Atlas.  Thrust is
339klbs (sea level), Isp 297s (s.l.) to 331s (vacuum), with a sea-level
thrust:weight ratio of 125.  It is throttlable.  The chamber pressure
is about double that of US LOX/kerosene engines.  Aerojet would like
a bit of government funding to test-fire the engine at US facilities,
validating the Russian claims and sorting out operational issues.
There are 70 nominally flight-ready NK-33s in storage, and parts for
about 32 more.  The one en route to Aerojet is officially not cleared
for firing, although it is to full production standard and would only
need disassembly and inspection.

Second Arrow failure in a row involving the warhead failing to fire.
The Israelis thought they'd fixed the fuze software after the March
failure; evidently not so.  Otherwise the test intercept worked.

Interview with Charles Bigot, head of Arianespace.  "A good year so far",
he says, with 14 new satellites booked for launch.  He's expecting some
drop in business a few years out unless new customers materialize.  He
sees no new US competitor soon, thinks the Chinese don't really have
Long March under control yet, but is concerned about Proton:  he wants
to see Russian markets opened to Western launchers if Western markets are
opened to Russian launchers.  He's happy about Ariane 5 and sees it
proliferating into a family of launchers.  He's not interested in moving
into the small-launcher business, which he sees as crowded already.  He
is unhappy with Motorola's push to have Iridium launch suppliers invest
in Iridium:  Arianespace wants to stay neutral and supply launches to
everyone, rather than picking winners and losers.

Much talk about new efforts at Mars exploration, with the loss of Mars
Observer and declining confidence that Russia will get Mars 94 launched
in 1994.  Russian attempts to attract Western financial support for
Mars 94 have fallen flat; "it's as if a bankrupt company came to court
appealing for help, but showed up without a restructuring plan".  Some
now think that even a 1996 launch for Mars 94 is optimistic, and the
outlook for Mars 96 is equally gloomy.

On the US front, Goldin is unenthusiastic about a duplicate Mars Observer,
although JPL likes the idea.  It would be old technology, and would be a
single spacecraft without a backup -- particularly worrisome when the
design is known to have a nasty flaw in it *somewhere*.  JPL, at Goldin's
prodding, put out an RFP for a two-spacecraft "Mars Observer Recovery
Mission", with each craft carrying some of the MO instrument spares.
Launches could conceivably be in 1996, although one in 1996 and the other
in 1998 is more likely.  Mesur Pathfinder is still on track for 1996.

There are assorted proposals farther down the road, with Japanese, ESA,
French, and Italian participation also proposed.

AW&ST gets copy of Russian document, essentially a price list for space-
station components.  NASA and the White House are firmly saying that
they want to see Russia in the station program on the same terms as the
other partners, with Russia paying for its own hardware.

Japan and Russia sign space-cooperation agreement, with space-station
efforts first on the agenda.  The possibility of launching Japan's
station module -- rather heavy for the shuttle to lift into a high-
inclination orbit -- on Proton has been mentioned.

Clinton formally asks the station partners to admit Russia as a full
partner, reiterating his own enthusiasm for the project.

Columbia aloft on Spacelab Life Sciences 2 mission, slated for 14 days
(longest yet), with four astronauts and 48 rats as guinea pigs.

Goddard engineers run yet another set of optical checks on WFPC2, clearing
it for launch despite earlier doubts.  NASA is waffling about whether or
not to move the Hubble-repair launch up; they want to leave as much room
as possible for hardware or weather problems before things close down for
Christmas, but there are range conflicts and they don't want to have to
bring work crews in over Thanksgiving.  Official date still Dec 2.

China has lost control of a recoverable microgravity spacecraft, including
a two-ton reentry capsule that will likely come down in one piece.

NASA ozone sensor aboard the Russian Meteor 3-5 satellite reports the
deepest Antarctic ozone hole yet seen, attributed to an unusually harsh
winter there.  The area of the hole is a bit smaller than last year.
-- 
Belief is no substitute                 | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for arithmetic.                         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 13-FEB-1994 16:33:23.64
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Nov 1 AW&ST

Letter from Prof. Douglas Way of Ohio State U, suggesting the Landsat 6
fiasco as "a great business school case study" of mismanaging a program
with known-to-be-significant risks:  "Where is the backup?"

Joint US-Russian life-sciences experiment in the works, with a rapidly-
built prototype already flown on Mir to test the hardware.

Goldin to present plan for the four-year $100M/yr pre-station cooperation
with Russia, involving up to 10 Shuttle-Mir flights.

IBM told that its contract for station computers is being terminated.

DC-X grounded as test-flight funding runs out just before the fourth
flight [actually a pair of flights!] planned for Oct 23.  The flight
had been scrubbed twice, once on the 20th due to an instrumentation
problem and once on the 21st due to a slow engine startup.

The out-of-control Chinese spacecraft came down in the Pacific off
Peru on the 28th.

First Intelsat 7 launched by Ariane Oct 22.  The launch was precise
enough that estimates of its lifetime have been raised a year.

NASA eases the low-temperature limits for shuttle launches slightly,
by figuring in humidity, turbulence, and later warming -- the old
rules assumed smooth flow of dry air, which is decidedly unrealistic,
and did not really consider that things would warm up again after a
brief temperature dip.

"Forum" piece by C.A. Willits, proposing an alternate space-station
design:  a bigger and more complex station, launched on Energia,
built from modules of somewhat-revised design, powered by ground
laser illumination of rather-smaller solar arrays.  [His ideas on
schedule and assembly seem plausible, given use of Energia, but the
laser-illumination idea frankly seems half-baked -- the concept is
technically sound, but just how many laser stations is it going to
need, and where is he going to put them all?]

[This issue was just plain light on space news otherwise.]

-- 
Belief is no substitute                 | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for arithmetic.                         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 13-FEB-1994 16:40:05.93
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Nov 8 AW&ST

Letter from John Brandenburg and Trevor Sorensen [Clementine people],
partly rebutting the earlier letter criticizing Clementine 2 as a Mars
Observer replacement.  Clementine's multispectral imaging could distinguish
different Martian minerals, a capability MO lost when it lost its Near-IR
spectrometer.  Clementine's pointing accuracy is much better than MO's,
and its high-resolution camera would considerably improve on the Viking
images.  C2 wouldn't replace MO, but it could considerably advance knowledge
of Mars, at 1/10 of the cost of MO and with launch possible in 1994.

NASA to loan IKI computer equipment to get IKI onto the Internet.

Japan Satellite Systems to buy an HS-601 for launch in 1995.

NTSB report on the Pegasus abort fiasco recommends that OCST set specs
for, and issue licenses for, pre-launch preparations.

NASA unveils the new US-Russian station design.  No big surprises.
Completion in 2001, crew of six (two of them normally Russian).

Koptev says that Russia is generally willing to proceed as a full
partner, paying for its own contributions.  Regarding political
uncertainty, he commented:  "Russian orbiting stations have been
operating for 22 years.  Freedom has been in discussion for nine
years."  Also, allegedly to Goldin in private:  "You've had nine
votes [in Congress] since you've been administrator.  How do we
know you're not going to back out?"

Columbia lands after SLS-2, at Edwards.  (Old rules mandated Edwards
landings for long-duration missions, and planning for this one was
too far advanced to change when the rules were relaxed.)

NASA is designing a 90-day visit of a US astronaut to Mir in 1995,
including US hardware of various kinds and a 10-day Shuttle visit.

HST-repair components being cleaned after preparation area found
to be contaminated with sand from sandblasting operations at the pad.
The parts were in sealed containers and should be okay.  The real
concern is whether the pad facilities can be cleaned in time; the
alternative is to move the shuttle to pad B.

Russian satellite image showing the area in Israel believed to be
the base for Israel's Jericho missile force and nuclear-bomber force.

USAF cuts Milstar 2 buy from five to four, and plans a study of a
followon satellite that would be smaller and cheaper.  The first
Milstar 1 has been flown to the Cape; it will be the next Titan IV
payload, and the Milstar people are nervous about this.

Japan sets Feb 1 as launch date for the first H-2.

USAF and MM trying to sort out how to destack the Titan IV on pad 41
at the Cape.  One of its SRBs may have faulty repair work -- suspected
as a contributing factor in the August Titan loss.  They'd like to do
the destacking at the pad, but the SRB is awkwardly placed, the long
payload fairing used for Centaur prevents the lift-over-top technique
that would normally be used, and it may be necessary to roll the whole
thing back to the assembly building.  Launch has been postponed indefinitely.
-- 
Belief is no substitute                 | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for arithmetic.                         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 14-FEB-1994 14:03:55.79
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Nov 15 AW&ST

Letter from Marc Maderazzo, expressing grave doubts about Willits's idea
of using ground-based laser power for the space station, including the
observation that Willits doesn't count the cost of the laser stations
in his cost estimates.

Letter from Bill Norton, on program management, citing the SSC and DC-X
as examples:  "...continued debate and challenges well into program
execution are counterproductive..."

Mir crew rotation postponed from Nov to Jan to save money, reportedly.

Endeavour will be moved from pad A to pad B at KSC, since pad A can't
be cleaned of sand in time to meet the Hubble-repair schedule.

Compromise DoD authorization includes $2.6G for BMDO, $802M for combined
early-warning programs (with DoD told to sort out its priorities; the
funding is $240M less than the sum of the requests for the individual
programs), and reduction of NASP to a $40M technology program.

Orbital Sciences, Litton Itek, and GDE Systems combine to push a commercial
imaging satellite, Eyeglass, with 1m resolution.  This has added fuel to
the debate over US government restrictions on commercial hi-res imaging
satellites.  A further complication is a proposal to open the CIA image
archives for commercial purchases, opposed by commercial suppliers as
unfair competition for a not-yet-established industry.

Euroconsult suggests that Russia will have trouble meeting its commitments
in space and launch projects due to funding shortages and personnel losses.

Arianespace prepares to launch Solidaridad 1 [Mexican comsat] and Meteosat 6
[European weather satellite].  Once M6 is in position, ESA will move
Meteosat 5 to a Western-Hemisphere position for loan to the US, replacing
the aging Meteosat 3 in that role.

Meanwhile, GOES-I, the bird intended to resume US Clarke-orbit weather
coverage, is in final tests.

Short editorial discussing reliability of the space-station partners.
The sincerity of the Russians is not at issue, but their ability to
deliver is.  "Yet it is the US that is probably the more apt to renege
on the deal..."

[Another light week.]
-- 
Belief is no substitute                 | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for arithmetic.                         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 21-FEB-1994 01:32:48.00
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	space news from Nov 22 AW&ST

Letter from Stephen Hoar regarding the space station:  "If NASA had been
around to help the Wright Brothers, we would not have flown until the
747 was perfected."

Chinese researchers claim considerable success in predicting earthquakes
in coastal regions from satellite ocean-temperature data:  the sea gets
1-3C warmer a few days before a quake.

Endeavour cleared for 1 Dec launch after the move to pad B.

NASA's FY95 budget is going to be smaller than FY94's.  How much, and who
gets hurt, are the questions.  AXAF and SIRTF believed in danger.

House clears a bill authorizing the president to share missile-defense
technology with the ex-USSR nations.

"NASA is in chaos... can't develop a strategic plan... can't develop a
vision..."  That's Dan Goldin testifying to the Senate Science Committee
about the effects of having NASA five-year funding projections change (for
the worse) every few months.  "When you can't plan, you can't perform."

Congress expected to fight Pentagon decision to kill FEWS in favor of
a smaller cheaper system 4-5 years later, although Congress has not been
too generous with FEWS funding.  There are mixed signals everywhere on
this issue.

Senators threaten to take action to force the White House to get going
on remote-sensing policy.  Administration officials won't even set a
date, much less enunciate a policy.

[That's it for this one; light news week.]
-- 
Belief is no substitute                 | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for arithmetic.                         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 21-FEB-1994 01:37:40.15
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	space news from Nov 29 AW&ST

The cover picture is an Imax shot of Discovery in orbit, taken from SPAS.

Simulations suggest that it may be possible, at low temperatures, to form
fullerene structures out of nitrogen atoms.  They would decompose violently
on heating, and might be useful as a rocket fuel.

JPL group develops a highly-porous glass that changes color when exposed to
various chemicals.  It's meant for planetary-atmosphere work, but other
applications are possible.

LDEF materials database to be made available to the public.  [No details.]

Clinton signs executive order creating the National Science and Technology
Council, replacing (among other things) the National Space Council.

NASA waives a launch rule to permit Endeavour to fly with a faulty pressure
sensor on an elevon actuator.  (Three other sensors on the same actuator are
working properly.)

ESA is very unhappy about the space-station situation and is reconsidering
its role.  "We are being considered second-rate partners... the question
arises... what role do the Europeans plan to play..."  ESA would like to
see some involvement early -- "we do not want to wait, sitting on the fence,
until Phase 3 and the year 2000" -- and also has a long-term interest in
building a manned capsule, and the Columbus module is being squeezed between.
"There is now quite a lot of discussion about whether Europe is interested,
willing, or able to contribute an attached laboratory in Phase 3..."

A further complication in all this is that Deutsche Aerospace is proposing
Plato, a small unmanned lifting body that would function as sort of a
self-recovering Eureca.  It would be 12m long and carry up to 1300kg of
payload, with the design oddity that its vertical fins would contain its
landing gear, and it would roll 180 degrees just before landing to point
the fins downward.

[For a long time I've been including missile-defence stuff as space-related,
but increasingly little of it actually is, and I'm going to drop the non-
space side of it to save time.  Apologies to BMD fans.  The first missed
item is an article on THAAD development in this issue.]

The usual NASA factions saying "we need a shuttle replacement" and "nobody
will fund anything like that anyway" are being joined by a third, which is
pushing radical upgrades to the shuttle as the preferred approach.  NASA
is taking one of their ideas seriously:  replace the SRBs with flyback LRBs.
[About time...]  The current FLRB notion would use a pair of F-1 engines
for launch and a commercial turbofan for return after a steep reentry.
A development version might be manned for testing.  Max Faget is pushing
this idea and another:  at least one orbiter either built for or heavily
modified for unmanned operation, eliminating crew-support equipment to
increase payload.

Also being urged are improved-technology tiles, a better RCS (either with
better valves to minimize leaks, or with less toxic fuels), elimination
of hydraulics or at least replacement of the APUs with electric pumps,
modernized communications and navigation electronics, and a separate
payload computer.  The group decided that it was overly ambitious to
forgo overhauling the SSMEs after every flight, however.  [Which is dumb,
because I'm told that the shortest-lived components are now cleared for
three flights without inspection.]

Others urge reexamination of the whole shuttle program, in particular
making some decisions about operations objectives and then building the
organization around them, streamlining procedures and eliminating overlap
and complicated certification.  "If we took a look today at how many
steps we've got in our procedures that are non-value-added, some of the
things that you'd see are staggering..."

Current shuttle operations are generally improving, slowly, with manpower
requirements and costs declining slowly, at the cost of less flexibility
and reduced tolerance for last-minute changes.

Work on replacing the shuttle's cockpit instruments with modern LCD-based
systems is well advanced, with work on the orbiters to begin in 1995.
Cost benefits are now seen as minimal due to lower-than-projected flight
rates, but spares are becoming scarce for the current systems, and the
new systems will have extra computing power that may have other uses.
The computers will have a lot of spare capacity, and are being built with
provisions for add-in boards separate from those used for the main job.
One suggestion is to move PILOT -- the flight simulator used to help
maintain pilot proficiency on long flights -- into the displays, which
would make it more realistic.

Hubble repair mission imminent.  One tricky issue is what happens if the
first rendezvous attempt fails:  under standard flight rules, there would
not be enough fuel to try again (because the high orbit limits reserves),
but in practice there would be intense pressure not to abandon the mission
so easily.  There are practically no secondary payloads because of the
fuel issue, but two that *are* along are Imax cameras in the cabin and
the cargo bay.

TOPEX/Poseidon radar-altimeter maps spot a "Kelvin wave", 10-15cm high,
moving across the Pacific, possibly heralding another minor El Nino event.
-- 
Belief is no substitute                 | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for arithmetic.                         |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Dr. Brian L. Haas"  4-MAR-1994 13:01:54.67
To:	distribution:;@us1rmc.bb.dec.com 
CC:	
Subj:	Aerospace Resource - sorry if you received it twice....

==================================================================
|                                                                |
|                       AEROSPACE RESOURCE                       |
|     ... of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area       |
|                                                                |
|                       Volume II, Number 5                      |
|                           March 1, 1994                        |
==================================================================
AIAA AEROSPACE RESOURCE
PO Box 1548, Mountain View, CA 94042-1548

Editors:                                     Contributors:
Dr. Brian L. Haas   (415) 604-1145	     Dr. Norman Bergrun
Dr. Gregory Wilson  (415) 604-3472	     Mr. Brad Schrick

Published monthly by the San Francisco Section of the American Institute of 
Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) to inform government, membership, and the 
general public of developments in the aerospace field with direct impact upon 
Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area.  All material is 
excerpted directly from established publications.  AIAA is the non-profit 
professional society of aerospace engineers, scientists, and managers with 
1,800 members locally. 

EMAIL inquiries or to be on mailing list:  [email protected]
==================================================================

Lockheed Launch Vehicle Has First Payload

CTA Inc. (Rockville, Md.) plans to loft a satellite on the demonstration 
launch of a new rocket built by Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. (Sunnyvale, CA).  
The launch is scheduled for November and will cost CTA Inc. $2.5 million, a 
substantial discount over the regular $15 million launch price.  As of Jan. 
28, CTA was not confirming the story nor providing details of the nature of 
the payload.  Lockheed had been scrambling for weeks to find a payload for the 
first launch of its LLV-1 rocket after a deal to carry a NASA payload fell 
through.  The new rocket is Lockheed's attempt to enter the small-launcher 
market which is currently dominated by Orbital Sciences Corp.  (Dulles, VA). 
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No.5, Jan. 31-Feb. 6, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Periscope Tested for Hypersonic Aircraft

NASA has tested a large periscope on a Lockheed F-104 to see if pilots can 
rely on it to land future high-speed aircraft.  Conventional windows are 
difficult to engineer for these aircraft because of the heat and high drag at 
hypersonic speed and because of the high body attitudes on final approach 
typical of high-speed aircraft, making it difficult to see over the nose.  The 
periscope project was started in 1986 with General Dynamics' role in the 
National Aerospace plane program to provide external vision.  Systems 
Technology Inc. (Mountain View, CA) became the prime contractor for the system 
in 1991 to make use of available Small Business Innovative Research Funds and 
has been funding General Dynamics (now Lockheed Ft. Worth).  NASA Ames 
Research Center also participates in the project. 
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Feb. 14, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Non-Explosive Bolt Used On Clementine

A new releasing-bolt mechanism from TiNi Alloy Co. (San Leandro, CA) was 
instrumental in the successful Feb. 3 deployment of the solar panels on the 
Clementine spacecraft en route to the Moon.  The device, called "Frangibolt", 
uses a commercially available bolt and a small collar fashioned from a 
shape-changing metal which, when heated by a coil, elongates to exert a 5,000 
lb. force capable of breaking the restraining bolt.  Frangibolts replace 
conventional costly "explosive bolt" mechanisms which possess inherent risks, 
require special handling, and cannot be tested prior to use as can the new 
device.  Furthermore, the Frangibolt produces no gases, particles, or high 
shock loads associated with exploding bolts.  
MORE INFO:  John D. Busch, TiNi Alloy Co., 510-483-9676.
SOURCE: Press Release, TiNi Alloy Co., Feb. 3, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

LKE Proton Launch Contracts Strong

The Krunichev State Space Scientific Production Center, which is cooperating 
with Lockheed (Sunnyvale, CA) in the Lockheed- Krunichev-Engergia (LKE) joint 
venture, has booked 9 commercial contracts in the past 12 months for launching 
Western satellites aboard Proton rockets.  These contracts exceed $600 million 
in value and have the center's satellite launch schedule booked until the year 
2000. 
SOURCE: Space Fax Daily, Jan. 28 1994

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Loral Picks Atlas for Tempo Launch

Space Systems/Loral (Palo Alto, CA) has contracted General Dynamics Commercial 
Launch Services Inc. to launch one of two broadcast satellites which Loral is 
building for Tempo Satellite Inc.  In September, the Atlas 2AS will loft the 
FS-1300 platform-based high power direct-to-home TV satellite as part of a 
$400 million contract between Loral and Tempo.
SOURCES: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 7, Feb. 14-20, 1994.  
         Space Fax Daily, Feb. 9, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crash of Unmanned Livermore Plane

A high altitude unmanned aircraft referred to as the Raptor/Talon crashed at 
Edwards Airforce Base on Feb. 2.  The aircraft is being  developed to kill 
battlefield ballistic missiles just after they launch  The plane's development 
is being managed by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory under a program sponsored by 
the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.  The crash adds a new setback to 
the program which was already in trouble in Congress because of budget 
cutting.  After a $36 million 1993 budget, the Pentagon requested $22.5 
million in 1994 but got only $1.7 million.  The cause of the crash is not yet 
been determined.  The aircraft had been flying continuously for 32 hours when 
it suddenly lost control during a test of the flight control system.
SOURCE: San Francisco Examiner, Feb. 4, 1994

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lockheed to Build Space Station Solar Panels

Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. (Sunnyvale, CA) will begin soon to build the 
solar panels for the planned international space station under subcontract to 
Rocketdyne which will integrate them into the overall power system.  With 
funding coming from the space station budget, the Lockheed deal will be worth 
"tens of millions of dollars"  according to LMSC's NASA Programs manager, Gus 
Guastaferro.  LMSC performed about $100 million worth of space station work in 
1993, and hopes for about that much in work in 1994.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 8, Feb. 21-27, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Real Time Information Management

The Geological Survey Institute of Japan will acquire a digital image mapping 
system that will enable it to monitor and precisely locate natural disasters, 
and quickly formulate relief operations.  The system will be integrated by 
International Imaging Systems, Inc. (Milpitas, CA) and will coordinate data 
from U.S. Landsat, French SPOT, U.S. NOAA, and Japanese Earth resources 
satellites.  The system will allow real time information management, display, 
analysis and mapping and will run on 10 Fujitsu Sparc 10 workstations.  It 
should be completed by June.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Jan. 17, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Milstar Launched

The U.S. Air Force returned its Titan 4 booster to flight with the launch of 
the first $1-billion Milstar advanced military communications satellite.  It 
was the first Titan 4 flight since one of the vehicles exploded after launch 
from Vandenberg AFB on Aug. 2, 1993.  The satellite was built by Lockheed 
Missiles and Space Co. (Sunnyvale, CA) and is the first of six in the planned 
$17.3 billion constellation.  The satellites are designed to provide 
instantaneous, uninterceptable communications between the U.S. military 
command and deployed tactical forces.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Feb. 14, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

NASA: NASA Ames Research Center

- NASA Ames (Moffett Field, CA) just completed a $6 million project, launched 
in 1984, to study helicopter rotor vibration, noise, motion, and airflows.  
The UH-60 Airloads Program gathered data for use by the helicopter industry 
and academia to improve future helicopter design and research.  Engineers and 
aircraft designers will be able to access the stored data by telephone with a 
computer modem.  
MORE INFO: Michael Mewhinney, 415-604-9000.
SOURCE: NASA News, Feb. 9, 1994.

- NASA's only centrifuge for humans returned to operation in February 
following a year-long refurbishment.  Ames scientists use the 20-G centrifuge, 
built at Ames in 1965, to examine the effects of increased gravitational 
forces (hypergravity) on humans.  The centrifuge has a 58- foot diameter arm 
and three enclosed cabs for test equipment at one end, the test subject in a 
jet-fighter mock-up at the other end, and test monitors at the center.  The 
$750,000 modernization effort included a computerized data acquisition system, 
an improved medical monitoring system, and additional safety features.  
MORE INFO: Jane Hutchison, 415-604-4968.
SOURCE: NASA News, Feb. 8, 1994.

- Ames scientists are studying how snakes regulate their blood flow to better 
understand human blood pressure problems, particularly under exposure to 
increased gravitational forces.  Indicative of external interest in Ames' 
gravitational facilities, a visiting professor from the University of Florida 
performed much of the snake research using the 8-foot diameter centrifuge at 
Ames.  Apparently, snakes are an excellent animal model for studying human 
cardiovascular adaptation.  Tree-climbing snakes are very similar to humans in 
their blood vessels and blood pressure.  This research may help scientists 
understand human cardiovascular adjustments to space flight and lead to better 
treatment of blood pressure problems on Earth.  
MORE INFO: Jane Hutchison, 415-604-4968.
SOURCES: Space Fax Daily, Feb. 7, 1994.  
         NASA News, Jan. 28, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hovercraft Ferries for San Francisco Airport?

San Francisco airport officials are considering a ferry service that could 
transport travelers from the Financial District to SFO in as little as 20 
minutes.  With service available in perhaps 2 years, it would save commuters 
(currently 21,000 daily) from the typical 60-90 minute drive between downtown 
and the airport, and may cost around $8 for a one- way trip.  Hovering craft 
are not only speedy, but may travel over land, simplifying short-term docking 
options for the airport ferry plan.  Ferries are already used successfully to 
link downtown areas to airports, including La Guardia in New York, and Logan 
Int'l. in Boston.  Hoverteck Inc. (Billoxi, Miss.) is vying to operate the 
service, estimated to cost roughly $25 million for startup and $300 per hour 
to operate.  Some funds are being sought from a federal defense conversion 
program designed to assist regions hurt by defense cutbacks.  
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 21, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Small Rocket Engine

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory flight tested a small prototype rocket 
engine on Feb. 4 that could power the "Talon" interceptor missile for theater 
missile defense.  The piston-pumped liquid engine powered a 6-ft.-long, 50-lb. 
"Astrid" rocket for a one-minute flight from Vandenberg AFB into the Pacific 
Ocean.  The ideal change in velocity of a small Talon missile would be over 2 
km/sec (6,560 fps.).
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Feb. 14, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stanford GPS Researchers Honored

Aviation Week and Space Technology Magazine honored Brad W. Parkinson and 
Clark E. Cohen of Stanford University with its Aerospace Laurels of 1993. 
Aviation Week published its list, honoring individuals and teams who made 
significant contributions in the global field of aerospace in 1993 or during a 
lifetime of service.   Honorees were selected from nominations submitted by 
Aviation Week editors.  Parkinson and Cohen, in Stanford's Aeronautics and 
Astronautics Department, were honored in the field of electronics.  The were 
cited for leadership in the use of Global Positioning System satellite 
navigation for aerospace guidance and navigation and control, as well as for 
research into using low-powered ground-based pseudo-GPS transmitters with the 
satellite system for aircraft precision landing systems.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Jan. 24, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

GPS Now Operating in U.S. Airports

With little fanfare, the Global Positioning System (GPS) was officially 
integrated into the National Airspace System on Feb. 17.  This action paves 
the way for satellites to eventually become the sole source of navigation 
guidance in U.S. Airspace.  The FAA plans to certify about 300 GPS instrument 
approach procedures annually for use by general aviation aircraft.  Approval 
for precision instrument approaches could occur as early as 1996 or 1997.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Feb. 21, 1994

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Airport Funds Diverted for Municipal Projects

The Wall Street Journal reported that 17 of 33 airports surveyed in a 
congressional study, including San Francisco International Airport (SFO), 
diverted almost $900 million from airport revenue for non- aviation purposes 
since 1982, an amount nearly equal to the federal grants the 17 airports 
received. The report was released by the House Transportation Appropriations 
Subcommittee. The report claimed that although $640 million was diverted 
legally, some was improper.  The Journal reported that San Francisco, which 
diverted $119 million from SFO to subsidize public transportation according to 
the report, claims it is exempt.  The Department of Transportation has not 
decided yet whether San Francisco is exempt.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, Feb. 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amroc Helped by Defense Conversion

The American Rocket Company (Amroc) of Ventura, CA, will receive $22.2 million 
from the Clinton administration's defense reinvestment and conversion program 
for its hybrid rocket motor.  It is hoped that a commercial hybrid rocket 
motor could pave the way for a new generation of less costly launchers.  
Hybrid propulsion makes use of solid fuels in combination with a liquid or 
gaseous oxidizer rather that a complete solid propellant.  Amroc partners will 
receive a share of the Technology Reinvestment Project money.  This includes 
United Technologies Corp.'s Chemical Systems Division (San Jose, CA) which 
will be responsible for the solid motor nozzle and rocket casing work.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol.5, No.6, Feb. 7-13, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Artificial Intelligence Cuts Monitoring Costs

Through development of an Artificial Intelligence computer system, scientists 
at the University of California at Berkeley hope to cut the costs of 
monitoring telescopes and spectrometers aboard NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet 
Explorer, a satellite launched in 1992 to make a map of the sky in the extreme 
ultraviolet wavelengths.  Currently, during three daily shifts, one student 
and one professional staff member in Berkeley watch computer screens 
displaying data on the satellite instruments to make sure no problems occur.  
The 1994 budget for these activities is about $3.8 million.  However, through 
the use of the computer software developed by Talarian Corp. (Mountain View, 
CA), UC-Berkeley plans to drop the afternoon and night shifts by the end of 
this summer, slashing the 1995 operations cost to $1.5 million, a savings of 
$2.3 million.  The software is expected to cost roughly $600,000.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 8, Feb. 21-27, 1994.

=================================== END =====================================

% ====== Internet headers and postmarks (see DECWRL::GATEWAY.DOC) ======
% Date: Fri, 4 Mar 94 09:49:03 -0800
% From: [email protected] (Dr. Brian L. Haas)
% To: distribution:;@us1rmc.bb.dec.com 
% Subject: Aerospace Resource - sorry if you received it twice....

From:	VERGA::US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Barry 
        Hamilton  21-Mar-1994 2030" 21-MAR-1994 20:25:25.48
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	AIAA E-mail Service

                       Subject:                               Time:2:54 PM
  OFFICE MEMO          AIAA E-mail Service                    Date:3/21/94

Attn:  Potential AIAA E-mail subscriber

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a
non-profit organization who's purpose is to "advance the arts,
sciences and technology of aeronautics and astronautics and to nurture
and promote professionalism of those engaged  in these pursuits." 

The San Francisco section of AIAA is putting together an Internet
account to post event notices, have on-line resume and technical paper
sections, establish technical groups, post bulletins and anything else
our members would like to have.  Currently we are sending out notices
regarding our events each month as well as Aerospace Resource, a
bi-monthly publication that describes aerospace events occurring in
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be on our list, simply reply to this letter and I will put you in our
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Barry Hamilton
                                                                           
AIAA Career Enhancement Director

% ====== Internet headers and postmarks (see DECWRL::GATEWAY.DOC) ======
% Date: 21 Mar 1994 17:31:09 U
% From: "Barry Hamilton" <[email protected]>
% Subject: AIAA E-mail Service
% To: [email protected]

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 3 AW&ST
Date: 24 Mar 1994 07:57:37 -0800
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
[Busy, busy... but here I am again.]
 
Cover story this time is the Hubble repair..
 
Matra Marconi Space is installing videoconferencing systems connecting
space facilities in France, Germany, and Russia, with a connection to
ESTEC in Holland as well.
 
Cropix Inc., in Oregon, is testing a system to warn farmers of crop
problems using satellite imagery.
 
ESA engineers are studying a problem in Meteosat 6's infrared radiometer,
affecting temperature sensing.  It is hoped that software changes can
work around it.
 
Martin Marietta begins implementing recommendations of an internal panel
that reviewed its operations after the spate of failures last year.  The
panel didn't find anything major, but did uncover some cases of poor
organization and sloppiness.
 
Rand Corp. study urges a thorough review of post-Cold-War military comsat
needs before Milstar 2 is funded, but supports launch of the Milstar 1s
that are already paid for.
 
Rep. George Brown, after a visit to Baikonur, says that reports of major
deterioration there are exaggerated.
 
And speaking of Baikonur, it's reported that Russia and Kazakhstan have
reached agreement on lease terms for the cosmodrome.
 
White House in the middle of Yet Another Study Of US Launch Needs, as
launch companies urge rapid action, claiming that the commercial market
alone cannot fund necessary improvements in launchers and infrastructure.
 
One immediate issue that the White House is going to have to deal with is
the question of MM acquiring GD... which MM has made conditional on full
approval, and preferably some help (notably, a willingness to share some
of the savings expected to result from consolidated launch operations).
 
Meanwhile, Rep. Joel Hefley is preparing a bill calling for a national
launch services corporation, to have a monopoly on government launch
business, first priority on access to facilities, and full authority
to compete in the commercial market.  [The funny thing is, this guy is
allegedly a Republican.]
 
US and Russia sign key agreements on station cooperation (despite some
skepticism from Congress).  Krikalev's backup on STS-60, Vladimir Titov,
will fly on STS-63, the Mir flyby.  Beginning late next year, there will
be up to ten shuttle visits to Mir, and at least four NASA astronauts
will stay for long visits, totalling two years.  The Spektr and Priroda
modules will be equipped with US instruments and experiments.  Goldin
says he expects NASA will continue spending about $100M/year on Russian
hardware and facilities.  Various other agencies will also cooperate on
assorted joint missions and coordinated projects.
 
RKA pledges full support to get Mars 94 up in October, but questions
linger.  Injections of funds have helped get things moving again, and
things do seem to be happening... but time is short, testing will be
skimpy, and the Russian government continues to be slow with funding.
Russian managers agree that there is risk in maintaining the schedule,
but fear that the Russian planetary program may disintegrate if it
loses momentum.
 
Russia prepares to launch a three-man crew to Mir, including physician
Valeri Poliakov.  He will spend 14 months aloft, staying on Mir as the
primary two-man crews continue their normal 5-month rotation.  Russia
is also beginning preparations for a long-duration flight by a woman.
 
Despite its recent fall in fortunes, Russia still launched more space
missions in 1993 than the rest of the world combined:  47 launches,
compared with 23 for the US.
 
DoD partially gives in to widespread pressure, agreeing to manage GPS
jointly with the Dept of Transportation.  Many users would prefer an
international civil organization, but this is as far as the government
is ready to go right now.  DoD will continue to supply the major funding,
with DoT contributing when civilian needs are involved.  DoD says that
deliberate degradation of GPS accuracy will continue.
 
Endeavour lands at KSC, using a new steeper approach intended to minimize
chances of unfavorable winds making it impossible to reach the runway.
 
More pictures from the Hubble repair.  Early results from calibration
and focussing are looking good, and no operational problems have yet
been seen.  No contamination or other problems caused by the servicing
visit are apparent.  The new solar arrays are much better behaved; a few
"twangs" have been seen, but much less frequent and much weaker than the
old arrays used to produce, and it is not certain that they are even
coming from the new arrays.  (Slight twisting of the new arrays was seen
during Hubble release, but that is within what was expected.)  The WFPC2
team says their detectors are free of contamination -- a real worry because
WFPC1 had unexplained contamination.  Costar's arms for the FOS and FOC
are in position, with the GHRS arms waiting until the FOS/FOC arms are
fully adjusted.
 
1994 shuttle launch schedule is looking uncertain:  the Discovery flight
carrying the Wake Shield Facility has been postponed a week after work
crews found a thruster leak, and an independent investigating panel has
been appointed to look into the SRB pressure spikes seen on several
recent flights.
 
Sea Launch Investors Group is looking for payloads for three cheap demo
launches of the Shtil 2N -- a modified SS-N-23 SLBM -- this year.  These
are intended to pave the way for the larger Surf launcher that Makayev
and SLIG are developing, which will put an SS-N-23 on top of an SS-N-20
first stage.  Shtil 2N payload is 265kg into a 200km orbit at 70deg.
The launches will probably be from Makayev's water-filled tower facility
at Arkhangelsk; they would like to do a sea launch, as planned for Surf,
but that requires a final guidance update from the launch ship, and the
gear for that will take a while to sort out.
 
Editorial urging ESA to continue with the Columbus module, even if it
must temporarily take second place to earlier participation on the
space station.
-- 
Critics have long said "NASA specializes| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
in pork"; now that's White House policy.|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 10 AW&ST
Date: 24 Mar 1994 07:58:16 -0800
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Letter from F.A. Beswick, urging that the now-vacant backup Hubble-servicing
mission slot late this year be used to carry Spektr or Priroda to Mir.  No
docking would be needed, he suggests, as the shuttle arm could pass the
module to Mir's arm.
 
Letter from Charles Lurio of the Space Frontier Foundation, criticizing the
NASA notion of flying the shuttle until 2030 and the inflated cost estimates
for SSTO development.
 
Planetary Society contracts with Russian organizations to study a possible
Russian role in Pluto Fast Flyby, in the belief that NASA is not adequately
considering the idea.  Emphasis is mostly on propulsion, including Proton,
upper stages, and solar-ion thrusters.
 
Japan's Broadcast Satellite System Corp buys two broadcastsats from Hughes,
for launch 1997-8.
 
Euroconsult describes use of Russian SLBMs for launches as "likely to
remain a short-lived and largely unsuccessful experiment", citing difficult
satellite integration, declining hardware reliability after the time
needed to gain customer confidence, and arms-control restrictions.
 
Two Russian spysats demonstrate rather longer life than usual for their
predecessors, suggesting new more-durable hardware.
 
Goldin announces (long-predicted) shakeup of center directors.  Carolyn
Huntoon, now associate director of JSC, will take over JSC (directorless
since Cohen retired).  Porter Bridwell, involved in the latest station
redesign, will take over MSFC from Jack Lee.  Ken Munechika, a state space
official in Hawaii and former commander of Onizuka AFB, will take over
Ames, as Compton retires.  Ken Szalai remains head of Dryden, but becomes
a center director as Dryden regains its independence from Ames.  Don
Campbell, currently a USAF asst. sec., takes over at Lewis, succeeding
Lawrence Roth.  Several other people named to lesser positions.
 
China issues a new version of the official story on the FSW-1 satellite
that went out of control last autumn, acknowledging that part of it has
reentered.
 
Mars Observer failure report criticizes design of propulsion system as
the probable cause of the accident, while conceding that other possibilities
remain.  The investigating board says that several significant flaws were
present in the spacecraft, and that they could have been found with better
management.  The report criticizes use of a firm fixed-price contract, and
casts doubts on building a one-of-a-kind planetary mission as a modified
copy of an Earth-orbit spacecraft.  (Originally MO was the first of a series,
but no change in approach was made when it became the only one.)
 
The highest-probability failure, says the board, is oxidizer leaking
through check valves and condensing in cold helium lines during the 11-month
cruise phase.  Opening of the helium valves did not sweep the lines clear
adequately, and when the second set of valves opened to connect the helium
system to the fuel tanks, fuel and oxidizer mixed.  The resulting internal
fire ruptured the plumbing, and the ensuing spill either destroyed electronics
or sent MO into an unrecoverable spin.
 
Other possibilities in the propulsion system are regulator failure and tank
rupture [both fairly unlikely] and violent ejection of an initiator from a
pyro valve on firing (which has happened to ESA, although not to NASA).
A power-supply short to the spacecraft chassis is another good possibility,
hard to correlate with the pyro-valve firing but still on the list because
examination of the spare revealed defective workmanship in several areas.
The board largely rejected various multiple-failures hypotheses, including
the popular one of a double clock-oscillator failure.
 
JPL says that the MO propulsion-hardware developers did not blindly assume
that the check valves would work.  They tested them with helium, thought
to be a fairly worst-case test because of its small molecule, and they
passed.  Unfortunately, post-accident tests indicate that they don't
pass with nitrogen tetroxide.  [This *is* a bit surprising.]  Results from
these tests and computations at NRL suggest that as much as 2g of oxidizer
could have been in the plumbing.  Or possibly more:  some of the check-valve
seats used an elastomer which, according to its manufacturer, will
deteriorate with lengthy exposure to the oxidizer.
 
The board recommends having one more try at activating MO's balloon-relay
transmitter, in hopes of getting a bit more information.
 
More details on MM's internal review.  Notably, it recommends streamlining
management, and urges that future organizational changes and reassignments
of people should be made with attention to the impact on continuity and
morale.
 
GD is happy:  the first Atlas 2AS flew perfectly 15 Dec, carrying a Telstar
4 for AT&T.  Further 2AS production commitments now total 14, with 6 of
those sold.
 
The Telstar 4 spacecraft is also noteworthy for its use of arcjets for
north-south stationkeeping [the usual limiting factor for comsat life].
 
NASP officials, looking at a total budget of $60M, are closing down the
X-30 effort and organizing and archiving data.  What remains will be
a generic hypersonic-technology effort, not directed at supporting a
specific full-scale-vehicle program.  (This will simplify proposals to
do flight experiments, since they need no longer accurately simulate
a larger vehicle.)
 
Plesetsk prepares to launch a modified Meteor 3 weather satellite,
carrying a French instrument and Tubsat-B, a small piggyback German
satellite exploring new attitude-control technology.  Launch will be
on a Cyclone, made in the Ukraine, and there was concern that politics
and finances might prevent purchase of the launcher... but a barter
deal was struck, in which the Ukraine supplies two Cyclones and the
other one is used for Plesetsk launch of a Ukrainian "Okean" satellite.
 
Would-be modernizers of air-traffic control systems for large-scale use
of GPS navigation and automatic dependent surveillance (in which each
aircraft automatically reports its position to the ground by digital
data link at regular intervals) are stuck on the question of choosing
technology for a two-way digital data link between aircraft and ground.
Rapid deployment and long-term capability conflict somewhat, cost issues
indicate that light aircraft will probably continue using voice, and
any data link also used for tracking airport surface vehicles faces
severe cost constraints.
 
"Forum" article by Jerry Grey of AIAA, on SSTO.  He's actually pretty
reasonable, saying that we need better engines and that the mass-ratio
requirement is demanding, with SSTO at the edge of feasibility overall.
He urges separation of near-term USAF concerns -- best met by either a
new conventional expendable or upgrades to existing ones, depending on
funding -- and long-term technology issues.  He says that the best answer
to the latter is small evolutionary steps, citing DC-X as a good first
step and the SX-2 proposal as a logical next step.  He criticizes lack
of long-term planning, says that it's now "both practical and beneficial
to include SSTO development" in such a plan, and concludes:  "Above all,
it is critical that the SSTO role be formulated on the basis of engineering
reality, not wishful thinking."  [I'd call his assessment pessimistic but
not grossly unreasonable -- unlike some -- and the suggested "small steps"
approach to SSTO technology a sensible one.]
 
Successful static test of the Astrid rocket, testing an LLNL piston-pump
rocket engine, meant as a technology demo for fast lightweight missile
interceptors.  Launch expected later this month.
 
The new Technology Reinvestment Program gives Amroc $22.2M for flight
demonstration of its 250klb-thrust hybrid rocket motor, tentatively set
for about two years from now.
 
Micro Pulse develops a GPS antenna for cheap retrofit to large military
aircraft:  it fits into the sextant port already found in many of them.
 
Iridium and Globalstar jointly petition the FCC to authorize spectrum
use for LEO comsats on a first-come-first-served basis.
 
GPS officially achieved Initial Operational Capability 9 Dec.  This triggers
FAA authorization for aircraft to use it for non-precision approaches,
given that they use a sophisticated receiver that can detect a bad satellite.
 
The editorial this week is excerpts from the Rand study urging that DoD
reconsider Milstar 2.  The study says that M2's data throughput is very
limited and its cost may not be justified, given the clear need for
something better.
-- 
Critics have long said "NASA specializes| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
in pork"; now that's White House policy.|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Jan 17 AW&ST
Date: 24 Mar 1994 07:58:49 -0800
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
Letter from Eumetsat, noting that Meteosats 4-6 are operated by ESA but
owned and funded by Eumetsat, and that operations will also move to
Eumetsat with Meteosat 7.
 
One of the short-wave radiometers on Fuyo-1 [this may be another name
for JERS-1] has failed; controllers are hoping to work around it.
 
Martin Marietta returns $17M to JPL, this being the part of its Mars
Observer performance bonus that had already been paid when MO went silent.
 
White House struggling to find funds to keep Landsat 7 on schedule.  DoD
is balking at funding development of the satellite, and NASA is not keen
on funding data processing either, but lots of people want it done.
 
Jean-Francois Clervoy will fly as the ESA mission specialist on the Atlas 3
shuttle mission this autumn.
 
Soyuz TM-18 docks to Mir 10 Jan, carrying three crewmen, including Valeri
Poliakov who is beginning a 14-month stay.
 
George Abbey, Goldin's top assistant, returns to Houston as deputy director
of JSC.  And Michael Griffin quits, taking a job with Space Industries.
 
First release of fresh images from Hubble... good ones.  "It's fixed beyond
our wildest expectations."  Much work remains, but both WFPC2 and FOC images
confirm that the optical fixes are nearly perfect, with imaging performance
approaching the diffraction limit.  The spectrographs have not yet finished
focussing and checkout, but their results are expected to be similar.
 
Concern is being expressed that the Clinton administration so dislikes the
notion of space-based elements in missile-defence systems that they may be
ruled out even when they are the best solution, e.g. for detecting missiles
for boost-phase interception.
 
Arianespace plans 10-11 launches annually through 1996 to work off its
backlog.  [Well, those plans will need a bit of revising...]  Meanwhile,
the first production order for Ariane 5s is going in, for 14 of them.
Arianespace signed 16 new contracts in 1993, and demonstrated once-a-month
launches in the last four months of the year.  The last one, in December,
was the first SDS launch, with a 1-ton satellite as a secondary passenger
on launch of a 3-ton satellite.  A number of Ariane's near-future bookings
are for 3-ton birds, so there is room for other 1-ton payloads, suited to
small comsats (the December one was Thaicom 1) for smaller nations and
as gap fillers in larger networks.
 
["Ton" here is, of course, the metric ton, 1000kg.]
 
Phillips Lab's Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland AFB produces first major
astronomical images using laser "guide stars" to control adaptive optics.
Good results, better than Hubble in some ways, and all the more noteworthy
because the Starfire site is not optimized for astronomy.
 
Clementine 1 launch imminent -- the first US mission to the Moon in twenty
years.  The launch is set for 25 Jan, the date established at the start of
the program 22 months ago.  Total program cost is estimated at $80M, about
$55M of that being for the spacecraft and its sensors.  Assorted problems
have been found and fixed in the ultra-lightweight hardware, including
vibration sensitivity in the 1-kg infrared cameras, inadequate cooler
capacity in the long-wavelength infrared camera (too late to fix --
procedures may be altered slightly to reduce cooling load), and slow
star-tracker image processing in the R3000-based imaging computer.
Final prelaunch checkout included taking Clementine 1 outdoors at night
to test its star trackers on an actual sky -- a test which did find one
alignment flaw due to a software error.  "Conducting real tests with the
star trackers was the best way to see how they worked, rather than rely
on simulations, which we tried to avoid as much as possible." (Lt. Col.
Pedro Rustan, BMDO mission manager).  Final dry weight of the spacecraft
was 508lb, including balance weights, somewhat above the original goal
of 350lb.  Clementine 1 will spend ten weeks in lunar orbit, followed
by an encounter with the near-Earth asteroid 1620 Geographos around the
end of August.  Clementine will approach Geographos from its dark side,
with most imaging done after closest approach (planned for 100km).
 
Clementine 1 will be the first Titan 2G launch after the loss of Landsat 6
in October.  Landsat's Titan worked perfectly, and the current best guess
is that Landsat 6 had an attitude-control problem that messed up the
firing of its solid apogee motor.  The motor itself is not believed to
have been at fault... which is of some importance because Clementine is
using a very similar (although not identical) motor for boosting into its
lunar trajectory.
-- 
Critics have long said "NASA specializes| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
in pork"; now that's White House policy.|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

Article: 5489
From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.news
Subject: Space news from Jan 24 AW&ST
Date: 1 Apr 1994 17:49:19 -0800
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Sender: [email protected]
 
Two letters in the letters column this week urging bringing back the
F-1 engine.
 
This is Aviation Week's "Laurels" issue.  Lead award in the "Space/Missiles"
section is to the Hubble repair team under mission director Randy Brinkley;
not only was the repair entirely successful, it was on schedule and under
budget.  Also cited is JPL's Magellan-aerobraking team, and assorted others.
Conspicuously missing is any mention of DC-X.
 
GD is talking to possible customers about raising Atlas 2AS performance to
9klbs into GTO and 19.7klbs into LEO, by strengthening the interstage
section; this would have to be funded by a customer.
 
State Dept. wants assurances from China of compliance with the Missile
Technology Control Regime, as the price of authorizing launches of US-built
satellites on Long March.
 
Rep. George Brown, possibly the most influential Congressman on civil
spaceflight, decides that he will run for reelection again.  [His recent
campaigns have been hard ones, and he was considering retiring.]
 
LANL demonstrates a mobile lidar system that can track missile exhaust
plumes, and is designing a satellite-based version for BMDO.  The system
could also be used from aircraft.
 
Allen Osborne Assoc. to supply Australia with 13 high-performance GPS
receivers for precision mapping and differential-GPS correction broadcast.
 
NPO Energia, still looking for customers for the Energia launcher, is
committing to hanging onto the program by retaining key people and doing
necessary maintenance on the Baikonur facilities.  "With the international
space station issue seemingly settled, we're actively seeking Western
interest in the next logical step -- using Energia as a launch vehicle
for missions to Earth orbit and beyond."  NPO Energia says it has an
agreement with Kazakhstan for use of Baikonur for commercial launches.
The Energia family has a payload of 30-100 tons into 200km LEO, and up
to 30 tons to lunar or Mars trajectories.
 
Vigorous activity among astronomers and spacecraft-operations planners,
preparing for observations of the impact of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet
chain with Jupiter July 16-22.  SL9 appears to have been torn apart by
Jupiter's tidal forces in summer 1992, and is now a "string of pearls"
containing at least 21 distinct fragments.  Estimates of the sizes of
the fragments have fallen somewhat as more observations have been made,
but at 60km/s the energy release will still be massive.  Annoyingly,
the impact region will be over Jupiter's horizon as seen from Earth,
although Jupiter's rapid rotation will bring the impact points into
view 10-20min after impact.  The actual impact fireballs will not last
that long, so plans are afoot to watch from spacecraft, and also to
watch for reflections from Jupiter's moons.  Major impacts will occur
every few hours for most of a week; the largest fragment is expected
to hit on the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, July 20.
 
Galileo will have a reasonable, if still somewhat distant, view of
the impacts, with Jupiter about 60 pixels across in its camera.  Other
instruments may also be used.  Scheduling the observations will be
tricky because of the glacially slow data rate through the low-gain
antenna; one proposal is to shoot 130 images 2.5s apart bracketing
the time of each major impact.
 
Voyager 2 is the only other spacecraft with a direct view.  Its cameras
were turned off quite a while ago, and it is too far away for useful
imaging anyway, but its UV spectrometer will be used.  [Last I heard,
the idea was to use the Voyager spectrometer to determine the exact
impact times and simplify the return of Galileo images.]
 
Over 23hr of Hubble time is already allocated.  EUVE and IUE will be
watching.  Ulysses will be listening [it has no camera].  Clementine,
en route from the Moon to Geographos, may get involved [although its
viewpoint is not significantly better than Earth's].  And NASA is
deferring scheduled downtime for upgrading of the Kuiper Airborne
Observatory, to make it and its 0.9m IR telescope available.
 
Spacehab proposes that its shuttle-extender modules could be used as
logistics carriers for the shuttle-Mir flights, increasing pressurized
payload volume... and also improving Spacehab's cash flow, recently
hurt by a NASA decision to stretch out the remaining planned Spacehab
flights.  Spacehab is working on a proposal to shift the module aft
in the cargo bay, using Spacelab's access tunnel, to remove balance
constraints that limit the module's total mass.  Spacehab is still
having trouble attracting non-NASA customers for its locker space,
at least partly because the NASA Office of Space Flight charges a hefty
fee for such payloads... a fee that is not applied to payloads in the
shuttle middeck or Spacelab.  An agreement with OSF for shuttle-Mir
use would help even things out.
 
One of Dryden's SR-71s is flying Iridium tests for Motorola (charging
circa $200k/flight), simulating the rapid passage of satellites overhead.
 
NASA safety officials prepare to assess the SRB-pressure-spikes review
panel reports and to decide whether Discovery should launch on schedule.
(Also of concern is a leak problem in Discovery's RCS system.)  The
spike problem is thought, as predicted, to be due to aluminum oxide
pooling around the nozzle throat and slopping out into the exhaust jet.
Other possibilities have been investigated, and the worst-case possibility
is believed to be well within safe limits.  (Charlie Bolden, Discovery's
commander, has been monitoring the investigation and agrees.)
 
Russian officials are investigating how Soyuz TM-17 came to bump into
Mir during a flyaround before its return to Earth.  Neither was damaged,
but the potential was there.  Soyuz has very poor pilot visibility,
which may have contributed.
 
ESA council endorses both continuation of the Columbus module and early
ESA participation in Phase 2 of Fredovitch.
 
LA earthquake Jan 17 cracks walls at Rocketdyne, but does no damage to
satellites under construction at Hughes and TRW or to orbiter Atlantis
at Palmdale.  The biggest problem will be the disruption of the highway
connection between LA and Antelope Valley (Palmdale, Edwards, etc.),
heavily used by government and contractor personnel.
-- 
Critics have long said "NASA specializes| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
in pork"; now that's White House policy.|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

Article: 5500
From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.news
Subject: Space news from Jan 31 AW&ST
Date: 4 Apr 1994 23:22:19 -0700
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Sender: [email protected]
 
Wilbur Trafton, new head of space station Fredovitch, visits Russia and
is impressed.  "I do not have any reservations at all about the Russian
Space Agency organization, leadership, or ability to pull off this program."
 
A bad day for Arianespace...  Jan 24, all was normal until 60s into the
third-stage burn of the Ariane carrying Turksat 1 and Eutelsat 2F5.  Then
temperatures on one of the LOX-pump bearings started to climb, and 20
seconds later the bearing seized and the pump self-destructed.  Splash.
 
Minor temperature rises in the bearings have been seen before, but never
before this drastic.  Ariane had flown 26 flawless missions since the
last failure four years ago.
 
Arianespace's busy 1994 schedule is, of course, shot to hell.  The
insurance companies are deeply unhappy.  And the schedule slip will
cause problems for a number of satellite owners waiting for launches.
 
The most immediate impact, of course, will be on Eutelsat and Turkey.
Eutelsat was fully insured for its satellite, and has what amounts to
a free launch for a replacement bird (although it has not yet decided
whether it will build one).  Eutelsat 2F6 is in the queue, slated for
October launch, and Arianespace will give it priority when flights
resume.  Turkey has bigger problems:  not only will the start of its
satellite operations be delayed until Turksat 2 is launched (slated
for June, also to receive priority from Arianespace), but the start
of full two-satellite operations may be delayed up to two years while
Aerospatiale builds a replacement satellite.
 
Experts are trying to sort out what caused near-identical electronics
failures in Aniks E1 and E2 on Jan 20.  Anik E1 lost its primary
momentum-wheel control system, but was eventually restabilized using
its secondary momentum wheel.  About an hour after the E1 failure,
Anik E2's primary momentum-wheel controller also died... and this
time the secondary didn't work either.  Anik E2 has lost attitude
control and is currently useless, although Telesat Canada is working
on a plan to use E2's thrusters for attitude control.  This will
take some time to work out, and will shorten E2's life, but it's
better than nothing.  The cause of all this mayhem was probably a
buildup of high-energy electrons due to solar activity, causing
charge accumulation within the satellites and eventually arcing.
Intelsat K, over the Atlantic, had attitude-control problems a
few hours earlier.  A similar disturbance last summer caused temporary
pointing trouble in several satellites.
 
Clementine 1 launched Jan 25, on budget and on schedule.  Titan 2G
performance was flawless, placing Clementine into LEO.  There were
some communications problems after launch, but these were coordination
problems on the ground rather than hardware problems on the satellite.
Firing of Clementine's solid-rocket motor for boost into lunar-intercept
orbit is imminent.
 
First H-2 launch imminent at Tanegashima.  Payload is the VEP, Vehicle
Evaluation Package, which will end up in GTO where it will be tracked
for a few days (partly to verify injection accuracy and partly to check
out tracking facilities), plus OREX, the Orbital Reentry Experiment,
which will be deployed in low orbit between the first and second burns
of the second stage, and will make a deorbit burn an hour and a half
later to come down near Christmas Island.  The primary emphasis of
this flight, however, will be the first-stage burn, the LE-7 engine
being the reason why this flight is two years late.
 
Now that the H-2, with payload roughly in the mid-Ariane-4 range (ten
tons to LEO), is ready for flight, NASDA is talking about derivatives.  
Using six SRBs instead of two would boost payload 50%.  A slight
further increase could be had by dispensing with the SRBs in favor of
a pair of LH2/LOX LRBs, or payload could be nearly doubled by replacing
them with a pair of kerosene/LOX LRBs using four modified LE-7s each.
 
Rocket Systems Corp is facing an uncertain future in trying to market
the H-2 commercially.  NASDA will retain responsibility for launches
with R&D payloads, which will dominate the H-2 manifest for a while.
Worse, high manpower costs and the soaring yen make the H-2 rather
uncompetitive internationally.  RSC wants to simplify the launcher for
cheaper production... but will have a delicate balance to maintain, as
the H-2's current selling point is NASDA's reputation for building
highly reliable launchers.  A further complication is the restriction
of Tanegashima launches to two 45-day periods per year by the powerful
fishermen's union.  A second mobile launch platform is being built, and
will make it possible to do two launches per 45-day window, but it is
not clear whether there will be enough demand even for that.
 
NASDA still does not have clearance for full development of its HOPE
unmanned spaceplane, and probably will not get it until the end of
the decade.  Right now, all that is authorized is one demonstration
flight in 1999.  The government appears to have decided on a "go slow"
policy until the shape of Japan's future space activities (notably, the
fate of Space Station Fredovitch) is clearer.
 
Discovery launch imminent, carrying Spacehab, the Wake Shield Facility...
and mission specialist Sergei Krikalev, who tends to get more publicity
than the payloads.  WSF is the first attempt to exploit the high vacuum
attainable in orbit, with a predicted pressure of 10e-14 torr and "semi-
infinite" pumping speed because molecules that leave don't come back.
One of the principal investigators for WSF, Ron Sega, joined the astronaut
corps while development of his experiment was underway, and ended up as
one of the mission specialists for this flight.  The plan [not carried
out, in the end] is to deploy WSF as a free-flier and then fly Discovery
in a gravity-gradient attitude to absolutely minimize thruster firings.
"WSF is probably the most contamination-sensitive payload we have ever
flown.  It makes Hubble look very tolerant."  Toward the end of the free-
flight period, Discovery will close in and do several thruster firings
for evaluation by WSF's instruments.  WSF was built by Space Industries
on a commercial basis, with costs estimated at 1/6th of what a normal
NASA procurement would have cost.  Three more WSF flights are planned.
 
Also along on Discovery are Oderacs (which will eject a set of aluminum
spheres for space-debris radar calibration) (it flew on a previous
flight but didn't work) and Bremsat (a small satellite, built by the
University of Bremen, to be ejected during the flight).
 
Krikalev is the first Russian to fly on a US spacecraft, and notably is
flying as a mission specialist, not a payload specialist.  It would have
been difficult to relegate him to the more usual rank for "guest
astronauts", since he has more experience in space than the rest of the
crew combined -- 15 months in orbit, seven spacewalks.  (More widely
known, although less consequential, is that he was the cosmonaut who
watched his country break up below him -- the one who the media
incorrectly reported as being "stranded" when his stay was lengthened
to permit a Kazakh engineer to fly as a political gesture.)  Discovery's
orbital inclination was changed to 57deg when he was added to the crew,
giving it some time over Russia and greatly increasing the overlap between
the territory it will overfly and that of the usual Russian flights, one
objective of the mission being a systematic comparison between US and
Russian techniques of Earth observation.
 
Krikalev says the differences in training are unsurprising, given the
different nature of the missions.  Mir cosmonauts have more control of
their flight but also run into more surprises, as plans change during
the long flights.  The larger US crews can specialize while cosmonauts
must learn to do everything, but on the other hand the cosmonauts have
more say in their training schedules.  He says that on the whole, he
was surprised at how similar the training is, and for that matter how
similar a lot of the equipment is, given that they were developed
quite independently.
 
Krikalev's backup, Vladimir Titov, will fly on a shuttle in about a
year.  He'd like to do a spacewalk.  On the other side of the coin,
Norman Thagard has been picked as the first US astronaut to fly in
a Soyuz, in March next year, to stay 2-3 months on Mir and return
with Atlantis when it visits Mir.  Bonnie Dunbar is his backup.
 
Boeing to fly another crystal-growth experiment on Mir, following a
successful test mission late last year.  Boeing project manager Harvey
Willenberg:  "I couldn't have been more impressed with their willingness
to do whatever it took to meet the schedule and commitments... all of
the contractual elements were met -- on time."  The experiment went up
on a Progress and came back down in a Raduga reentry capsule a month
later.  The capsule was located by helicopter within an hour of landing,
and the experiment was removed and flown to Moscow, where a Boeing crew
was waiting.  "Even though the Raduga landing was on a Sunday and the
temperatures were -27C, the hardware was in our hands within 8 hours...
I can't think of doing the same thing here."  One notable change from
early Raduga flights is that this one came down in Russia, abandoning the
former landing area in Kazakhstan to simplify the politics.
 
Editorial saying that DoD's agreement to share management of GPS with
DoT is a good first step... and the next step should be US leadership
in putting together a plan to move GPS to international management,
a step it calls "inevitable in the long run and... advantageous for
all".  There are some problems to be resolved, notably the fact that
an international management would have to start paying for maintaining
and upgrading the satellite constellation, and the money would have to
come from somewhere.  A further complication would be guaranteeing that
the system will remain usable to its current supporters, notably military
aviation, as they become a minority in its management.
-- 
Critics have long said "NASA specializes| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
in pork"; now that's White House policy.|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	VERGA::US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Brian Haas 18-Apr-1994 
        1131" 18-APR-1994 11:32:29.90 
To:	distribution:;@us4rmc.pko.dec.com 
CC:	
Subj:	 April 1994

==================================================================
|                                                                |
|                       AEROSPACE RESOURCE                       |
|     ... of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area       |
|                                                                |
|                       Volume II, Number 6                      |
|                           April, 1994                          |
==================================================================

AIAA AEROSPACE RESOURCE
PO Box 1548, Mountain View, CA 94042-1548

Editors:                                     Contributors:
Dr. Brian L. Haas   (415) 604-1145           Dr. Norman Bergrun
Dr. Gregory Wilson  (415) 604-3472           Mr. Brad Schrick

Published monthly by the San Francisco Section of the American Institute of 
Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) to inform government, membership, and the 
general public of developments in the aerospace field with direct impact upon 
Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area.  All material is 
excerpted directly from established publications.  AIAA is the non-profit 
professional society of aerospace engineers, scientists, and managers with 
1,800 members locally. 

EMAIL inquiries or to be on mailing list:  [email protected]
=============================================================================

Executives Discuss Aerospace and Defense Technology Commercialization

A public forum on commercializing aerospace and defense technology was held 
at Stanford University on March 25 to discuss how the defense industry can 
diversify into commercial markets in response to defense cutbacks.  
Executives from twenty defense companies discussed diversification, how it 
can be financed or facilitated by partnering, and the role Government can 
play in the process.  Panelists included Joint Venture: Silicon Valley CEO 
Rebecca Morgan; Stanford Dean of Engineering James Gibbons; California Trade 
& Commerce Director Kathleen Shanahan; NASA Ames Director Dr. Ken Munechika; 
and presidents Dr. Robert Beyster of SAIC, Jon Kutler of Quarterdeck (just 
named Chairman, White House Task Force on Defense Conversion), Mr. Arthur 
Money of ESL, Dr. William Sommers of SRI, and Dr. James Spilker of Stanford 
Telecommunications.  Delivering keynote addresses were Mr. Frank Kendall, 
Director of Tactical Systems for the Undersecretary of Defense for 
Acquisition and Technology, who spoke on diversification and procurement 
reform; Dr. Noah Rifkin of the Department of Transportation, who reviewed the 
opportunities to apply defense technology to transportation; and U.S. 
Representative Anna Eshoo, who voiced her support for new industries and new 
jobs.  The forum was sponsored by three professional technical organizations 
(AIAA, AOC, AFCEA) in company with Space Systems/Loral (Palo Alto, CA) and 
the Stanford University School of Engineering, and in affiliation with the 
Silicon Valley Defense/Space Consortium and 12 other professional and 
business organizations.  
SOURCE: DefTechCom'94 Press Release, March 28, 1994. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Globalstar Team Unveils Partners

Loral Corp. announced last week that eight companies in the U.S., Europe, and 
Asia have agreed to invest $275 million cash in the $1.8 billion Globalstar 
venture. The goal of the move was to prove the solvency of Globalstar to the 
U.S. Federal Communication Commission (FCC), which is expected to issue 
licenses for mobile satellite services late this year of early in 1995.  The 
FCC has received six license requests for low earth orbit satellite 
constellations, including Globalstar.  An FCC official has said it is 
probable that it cannot give licenses to all six.  One of the criteria for an 
acceptable request is proof of adequate financial backing.  Partners in the 
Globalstar project include Space Systems/Loral (Palo Alto, CA)  who will 
build the satellite platforms and AirTouch Communications (San Francisco, CA) 
who will be the exclusive Globalstar service provider for the United States.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 13 , March 28-April 4, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lockheed Researches Diamond Synthesis

Lockheed's Research Laboratory (Palo Alto, CA) is trying to transfer its 
diamond synthesis technology to the commercial sector.  The flame synthesis 
process, five to ten times more productive than other chemical deposition 
techniques, can produce thin diamond slabs, or windows, roughly 500 microns 
thick over several square inches.  Potential applications include thermal 
management in electronic circuit boards, as diamond is an electrical 
insulator as well as a thermal conductor.  Diamond is also a semiconductor, 
and diamond circuit boards could potentially operate at temperatures of up to 
600!C (1,100!F).  Applications could include serving as jet engine exhaust 
sensors.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 14, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spy Satellite Technology Sales OK'd

The Clinton administration announced that it would allow companies to market 
spy-quality, satellite imaging systems to commercial customers around the 
world.  Under the policy, U.S. companies would be allowed to market for-
profit space systems without any resolution restrictions.  Systems capable of 
depicting ground objects of one square yard are expected initially.  While 
some warned that the decision would compromise national security by letting 
hostile countries obtain detailed images of military targets around the 
world, others say the technology is already becoming available in other 
countries.  Three U.S. companies have sought permission to provide high-
resolution satellite imaging services.  They are Lockheed Missiles and Space 
Co. (Sunnyvale, CA), Orbital Sciences Corp. (Dulles, Va), and World View, 
Inc. (a start-up in Livermore, CA).  Potential customers include oil and 
mining companies, farmers, and environmental researchers.  The Commerce 
Department says remote sensing services currently make up a $400 million 
market worldwide and are expected to grow to approximately $2 billion by the 
year 2000.
SOURCES:  San Jose Mercury News, March 11, 1994
          Space News Vol.5 No.11, March 14-20, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two New Wind Tunnels Being Considered

NASA is saying that two new wind tunnels capable of supporting future 
commercial aircraft development will have to be financed and operated though 
a joint public-private cost-sharing venture.  The nation needs to build the 
two new wind tunnels--one subsonic and one transonic--and have them operating 
shortly after the year 2000, Lawrence J. Ross, NASA's director of the Wind 
Tunnel Program Office, said.  The new high-Reynolds-number facilities would 
cost about $2.5 billion and give U.S. aircraft manufactures the tools to 
compete for the next generation of large commercial transports.  Slim federal 
budgets and the Clinton Administration's push for more public/private 
partnerships have prompted discussions between NASA and industry leaders over 
how to finance and operate any new tunnels.  Sites for the new tunnels have 
not been picked.  This is an issue of obvious interest to representatives 
from California and Virginia, where NASA Ames and Langley Research Centers 
are located.  Both  centers are potential locations for the tunnels.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 28, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Loral Urges DOD Use of Commercial Satellites

Officials at Space Systems/Loral (Palo Alto, CA) are urging the Pentagon to 
use the company's planned direct broadcast satellites to transmit high 
resolution imagery, logistics data, and other information.  Loral wants the 
DOD to use the same satellites that will beam news, sports, and movies into 
U.S. homes for transmitting maps, high quality photographs, and medical 
imagery to troops and commanders in the field.  Reportedly, the Defense 
Department is looking at the emerging direct broadcast satellite industry for 
ways to reduce the crowded military airwaves for routine material such as 
weather reports, logistics data, and entertainment for troops at sea.  The 
Army could save millions by buying fewer Milstar terminals for $1 million 
each, and instead buying more direct broadcast terminals for $700 apiece.  
One difficulty, however, is global coverage since civilian-owned direct 
broadcast satellites will be positioned in orbits to serve civilian customers 
in the U.S. and Asia.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 10, March 7-13, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Morris Air to Leave San Jose

Ending its three-year tenure at San Jose International Airport, Morris Air 
announced that it will shut down local operations effective May 2.  Morris 
Air was recently acquired by Southwest Airlines which plans to use some of 
Morris' Boeing 737-300 jet aircraft to boost its system.  Based in Salt Lake 
City, Utah, Morris grew from a charter service to a cut-rate yet growing 
scheduled airline.  Morris Air will alter some of its flights at Oakland 
airport, but has no plans to cease operations there.
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, March 3, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

ESL Diversifying to Nondefense Markets

Electromagnetic Systems Laboratories, better known as ESL, Inc. (Sunnyvale, 
CA), was founded by now Defense Secretary William Perry and four others in 
the 1960s and has prospered in developing advanced military reconnaissance 
systems.  Now a subsidiary of TRW, Inc., the company is unveiling a host of 
new commercial products it hopes will boost the nondefense share of its sales 
to 10% this year, twenty times that for 1993, with a goal of being 25% 
nondefense by the year 2000.  ESL has launched three products including TRW 
PhonePrint, a system which utilizes ESL's competency in radio frequency 
fingerprinting to block fraudulent cellular phone calls and is the only 
product of its kind on the market.  TravInfo, a second product, is an 
advanced traveler information system developed under contract for the San 
Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Commission.  Finally, the Digital 
Imagery Video Analysis Tool, a video software system that has both defense 
and commercial applications, allows fast and accurate analysis of video 
imagery on a portable workstation for applications such as battle damage 
assessment and law enforcement.  

ESL's new ventures stem from the "2020" program established by President 
Arthur Money in early 1992 to bring commercial culture to a defense-oriented 
firm and employs "incubator" teams of 10-15 people.  In recent testimony 
before a field hearing of the House and Senate Joint Economic Committee in 
Los Angeles, ESL outlined three recommendations for the government's role in 
defense conversion:  1) pass legislation to reform and streamline government 
acquisition and procurement to be compatible with commercial practices; 2) 
create "conversion tax credits"; and 3) establish government-sponsored 
retraining in commercial business skills fore defense workers.  
SOURCE: Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 28, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Senate Authorizes High-Tech Funds

The National Competitiveness Act passed the Senate by a vote of 59-40 on 
March 16th and was sent to a House-Senate conference committee to work out 
differences with similar House legislation approved last May.  The bill, 
supported strongly by the Clinton Administration, would authorize $1.9 
billion in fiscal years 1995 and 1996 for advanced technologies including 
work on the national "information superhighway".  Signaling a shift away from 
reliance on the Pentagon as the source of funds for technology development, 
the government will distribute the new funds primarily through the Commerce 
Department.  
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, March 17, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Electricar Acquires Livermore Lab Spinoff

Livermore Research and Engineering Co., a consulting firm which helped 
develop the DYNA3D crash-worthiness software while working at Lawrence 
Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, CA), will be acquired by U.S. 
Electricar of Sebastopol.  Electricar, the largest producer of electric 
vehicles in the United States, expects to be the first company whose electric 
cars will be certified as compliant with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety 
Standards.  
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, March 3, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Proton Venture Nears Sellout

A U.S.-Russian team marketing the Russian Proton launch vehicle to commercial 
customers has nearly reached the quota established by an international trade 
agreement which limits the joint venture to the sale of eight boosters 
through the year 2000.  Charles Lloyd, president of Lockheed-Khrunichev-
Energia International (LKEI) said Space Systems/Loral (Palo Alto, CA) has 
placed five firm orders for Proton rockets.  The Societe Europeenne des 
Satellites of Luxembourg is said to have placed the remaining current orders.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 12, March 21-27, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

DOE Labs in Semiconductor Design

Starting this June, a $100 million public-private venture, coordinated 
through the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, will begin to 
develop powerful computer software that will give silicon chip engineers the 
ability to design and "test drive" advanced new chips and to perfect new 
manufacturing processes, solely through computer modeling and simulation.  
The new software will incorporate the most advanced understanding of atomic 
physics and solid state physics ever employed for semiconductor research and 
development.  A Department of Energy cooperative research agreement will be 
signed between Los Alamos Lab and the Semiconductor Research Association, a 
subsidiary of the Semiconductor Industry Association (San Jose, CA).  The 
project will involve 100 researchers at Los Alamos and Sandia Labs, the Oak 
Ridge Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Lab (Livermore, CA).  
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, March 5, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

War Satellite Loses Power

A military satellite built primarily to continue operation during a nuclear 
war and launched last month at a cost of $1.3 billion experienced a power 
failure last month, the Pentagon announced Friday.  The satellite, called 
Milstar, is the first of six and has been under intense fire because of its 
high cost.  Senior Pentagon officials described the problem as minor.  A 
backup power supply unit was activated and the spacecraft continues to 
operate normally.  Pentagon and congressional officials said information on 
the implications of the failure are classified as secret.  
SOURCES: San Jose Mercury News, March 5, 1994.
         Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 14, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

High-Speed Rail vs. Airlines in California

According to initial research by the University of California at Berkeley's 
Institute of Transportation Studies, high-speed commuter rail systems similar 
to France's TGV or Japan's Shinkansen "Bullet Train" cannot compete viably 
with the quick, inexpensive, and frequent air service now being offered 
between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  However, high-speed rail is naturally 
suited to 200-mile or less runs to California's secondary cities.  Currently, 
Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, and Bakersfield are poorly served by 
commuter airlines.  
SOURCE: Aviation Week and Space Technology, March 21, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contractors to Require NADCAP Compliance

Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. (Sunnyvale, CA) and Textron Lycoming Turbine 
Division announced that they will require that their suppliers be audited 
under the Performance Review Institute's National Aerospace and Defense 
Contractors Accreditation Program (NADCAP).  The Missile Systems Div. of 
Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. is mandating the third-party accreditation 
for suppliers of heat treating processes by Oct. 1, 1994.  PRI of Warrendale, 
Pennsylvania, says suppliers avoid redundant audits by subscribing to NADCAP.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 28 1994.

=================================== END =====================================

% ====== Internet headers and postmarks (see DECWRL::GATEWAY.DOC) ======
% Date: Mon, 18 Apr 1994 08:22:44 -0700
% From: [email protected] (Brian Haas)

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer"  1-MAY-1994 01:42:22.01
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Feb 21 AW&ST

Letter from LtCol Freer of USAF Space Ops, acknowledging that the signal
problem with GPS bird PRN 19 went unnoticed by the GPS monitoring system,
and was found and isolated in cooperation with Trimble and U of Leeds.
It was corrected 4 Jan; the exact cause of the problem is not yet understood.

NASA budget gives Magellan a six-month reprieve, allowing completion of the
low-orbit gravity-mapping effort and possibly some other experiments (notably
bistatic radar tests, but no more "normal" radar work).

MSTI-2, second BMDO LEO sensor-test bird, being prepared for late-March
launch (by Scout from Vandenberg).

Columbia launch set for 3 March, carrying USMP-2 (microgravity materials)
and OSTA-2 (space-environment tests).

McDonnell-Douglas reschedules Cape Delta launch of Galaxy 1R to 18 Feb,
after pinning the 9 Feb pad abort on a failed pressure switch in a vernier
engine.

Norman Thagard and Bonnie Dunbar leave for Russia to start training for
a Mir mission.  [Reportedly, Thagard was chosen because he's the only
active astronaut who speaks Russian at all well.]

FAA declares GPS operational for US civil aviation 17 Feb.

Mission To Planet Earth is having money woes.  EOS-AM1, the first EOS bird,
is on track for 1998 launch... but FY95 funding for EOS is not adequate
to keep EOS-PM1, the next, on schedule for 2000.  NASA is looking at the
possibility of shrinking PM1 to fit on a Delta instead of an Atlas 2AS to
save money; the same idea is being discussed for AM2.  The first Earth
Probe smallsat, this one carrying a TOMS ozone mapper, is set for May
launch on Pegasus... but program funding is not adequate to start work
on the second.  There has been extensive bickering over who was going
to pay for Landsat 7, resolved this week by the White House assigning
it to NASA (which is not entirely happy about this development, despite
some transfer of DoD money accompanying the transfer of responsibility).

NRC panel criticizes the design of EOSDIS, the ground end of EOS, for
being too centralized and not coherent enough.  NASA says changes are
being made.

JPL RFP for first Mars Observer replacement imminent.  It will call for
an all-new design, substantially smaller (1t vs. 2.6t) to make it fit
on a Delta, for launch in 1996.  It will carry copies of five (out of
seven) of the MO instruments.  (The last two -- the gamma-ray spectrometer
and the pressure-modulated infrared radiometer -- plus a lander data-relay
package will be aboard a second, even smaller, orbiter that will go up
in 1998.)  The five instruments were chosen with an eye on early data
return for selection of lander sites, plus mass and cost.  The orbiter
will be rocket-braked into an elliptical capture orbit, after which it
will aerobrake over a four-month period to reach a 2hr circular mapping
orbit.  The nominal mapping mission will start in Jan 1998 and run for
two years, with a possible extended mission as a data relay for landers
lasting another three.

The one MO instrument that looks like a problem is the magnetometer.
The instrument itself is fine, but the designers would like to eliminate
the boom that held it away from MO's body.  This would simplify the
spacecraft, and might be necessary for the aerobraking operation.

Clementine approaches the Moon.  The spacecraft is working well.  Its
nickel-hydrogen battery passed an inadvertently-severe test when a
communications foulup on the ground discharged it rather more deeply
than intended.  Image of Earth from 300,000km, taken by Clementine's
500g UV/vis camera.  [Not much showing, mostly the night side.]  Another
image, taken from 200,000km by one of Clementine's star trackers [!],
showing lights of Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Albuquerque.

Discovery lands at KSC 11 Feb.

Article talking about micro-sensor technology for small spacecraft.
JPL has developed an electron-tunneling transducer [sounds like the
same technology as the scanning tunnelling microscope] that can measure
very small mechanical displacements.  This has been used to build
several sensors.  A thermal-IR detector about 1mm on a side measures
the thermal expansion of a trapped gas; it's not yet as good as more
orthodox IR detectors, but it's within a factor of five... and it does
not require a heavy, vibrating, power-hungry cooling system.  Microphones
and accelerometers are trivial.  A magnetometer -- with rights for
commercial applications already licensed by Eaton Corp. -- measures
motion of a magnetic coil.  Others are possible.  Also of note is the
Mesur Pathfinder seismometer, not using this technology but impressive
in its own right:  it will fit on your palm, but at JPL it can detect
ocean waves on the beach 50km away.  Drawing of Cassini, Pluto Fast
Flyby [looking like a part fallen off Cassini], and a hypothetical
"second generation microspacecraft" weighing 5kg.  For PFF, JPL wants
an instrument set weighing at most 7kg -- vastly smaller than the MO
instruments, although broadly comparable to Clementine's.

Article on "hyperspectrometry", which seems to be the new buzzword for
imaging spectrometers (which return a detailed spectrum, not just
total intensities over a few broad bands, for each pixel in an image).
Multispectral image, combining Landsat images from 1975, 1986, and 1992,
showing massive deforestation in the Chiapas region of Mexico.
-- 
"...the Russians are coming, and the    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
launch cartel is worried." - P.Fuhrman  |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Brian Haas" 20-MAY-1994 10:49:05.34
To:	distribution:;@us4rmc.pko.dec.com 
CC:	
Subj:	AIAA Aerospace Resource, Vol.2, No.7, May 1994

==========================================================================
|                                                                        |
|                           AEROSPACE RESOURCE                           |
|         ... of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area           |
|                                                                        |
|                           Volume II, Number 7                          |
|                                May, 1994                               |
==========================================================================

AEROSPACE RESOURCE
AIAA San Francisco Section
PO Box 1548, Mountain View, CA 94042-1548

Editors:                                     Contributors:
Dr. Brian L. Haas   (415) 604-1145           Dr. Norman Bergrun
Dr. Gregory Wilson  (415) 604-3472           

Published monthly by the San Francisco Section of the American Institute of 
Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) to inform government, membership, and the 
general public of developments in the aerospace field with direct impact upon 
Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area.  All material is 
excerpted from established publications.  AIAA is the non-profit 
professional society of aerospace engineers, scientists, and managers with 
1,800 members locally. 

EMAIL inquiries or to be on mailing list:  [email protected]
=============================================================================

Lab, Company Develop Microactuators

Powerful microactuators as small as the head of a thumbtack will be developed 
under a three-year, $7 million Cooperative Research and Development Agreement 
between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Redwood Microsystems, 
Menlo Park, Calif.  The small actuators, essentially a silicon diaphragm 
making up one side of a sealed, liquid-filled chamber, capitalize on the 
nature of fluids to uniformly expand when heated.  An array of 12 0.25 in.-
wide actuators is strong enough to lift a person, exerting up to 3000 psi.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, April 11, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Onizuka AFB, GTE Handling TAOS Satellite

The Air Force's $56 million satellite, the Technology for Autonomous 
Operations in Space (TAOS) spacecraft, has shut itself down twice since 
reaching orbit, but now appears ready and able to complete its mission.  
Launched March 13, the satellite shut down once after TRW engineers tried to 
fix an attitude control thruster.  The second shutdown occurred shortly after 
satellite operators at Onizuka AFB (Sunnyvale, CA) tried to switch it back 
on.  Nonetheless, the TAOS is now operational and is to begin autonomous 
navigation experiments soon.  If successful, such technology would decrease 
the number of people on the ground needed to track U.S. spacecraft, saving 
millions of dollars in operation costs.  GTE Strategic Electronic Defense 
Division (Mountain View, CA)  integrated the system on the Air Force's first 
Space Test Experiment Platform, built by TRW Space & Electronics Group 
(Redondo Beach, CA).  The TAOS navigation system, built by Microcosm 
(Torrance, CA) will use the sun, Earth, and moon to identify the spacecraft's 
position in space, possibly to within 100 meters.  
SOURCES: Space News, Vol. 5, Nos. 14-15, April 4-17, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Composite Technique for Aircraft

BP Chemical's Aerospace Composites Div. (Stockton, CA) is using a new process 
to build stronger composite thrust reverser door back structures for the 
Boeing 777.  The procedure places dry graphite woven cloth into "preforms" at 
a set fiber orientation.  The preforms are then placed in the mold tool 
together with any inserts to be incorporated in the part.  Once loaded, the 
mold is evacuated, heated and injected.  When filled, the tool is elevated to 
a higher temperature to trigger resin curing.  The process, called Resin 
Transfer Molding, produces complex, highly repeatable parts with integral 
metallic inserts such as fittings or bushings.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, April 4 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

SR-71 May Launch Missile Defense Tests

High speed target vehicles air launched from NASA-operated SR-71 Blackbirds 
may provide new options for conducting realistic tests of next-generation 
theater missile interceptor systems.  Preliminary studies by NASA indicate 
that the SR-71 could essentially function as a relatively inexpensive first 
stage of the target vehicle.  A Minuteman 1 third-stage booster and a Coleman 
Research HERA Target system would be mated to the blackbird and launched at 
approximately 80,000 ft and Mach 3.   Aerotherm Corp. (Mountain View, CA) is 
the subcontractor responsible for the Hera reentry vehicle.  In addition to 
lower cost, the air launch option would avoid some of the flight profile 
limitations experienced with ground-launch sites.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 21, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rocket Motor Cleanup

The five major U.S manufacturers of solid rocket motors and their 
subcontractors are evaluating new ideas for reducing hazardous materials 
following a unique conference on environmental issues in Ogden, Utah.  The 
conference was sponsored by Phillips Laboratory at Kirkland AFB, New Mexico, 
and included representatives from each military service, NASA, and industry.  
United Technologies Chemical Systems Div. (San Jose, CA) and Aerojet 
Propulsion (Sacramento, CA) were two of the companies present.  One focus of 
the conference was to avoid the handling dangers and costs of hazardous waste 
by reducing the amount of hazardous material generated in the first place.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 16, April 18-24, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lockheed Announces More Workforce Cuts

Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. (Sunnyvale, CA), once the largest local 
employer with 24,800 workers in 1986, announced that it will eliminate 
another 2,900 jobs by the end of the year.  This number more than doubles the 
1,200 jobs the company had planned six months ago to cut during this year.  
By 1995, the company will have 11,500 employees in the South Bay Area after 
half of the reduction is achieved through retirements and attrition, while 
the rest will be laid off.  Lockheed is just one of several companies 
suffering under reductions in Defense spending in the South Bay Area where 
58,000 defense jobs have been lost since 1987 (41% of workforce).  
Interestingly, of the 2,200 Lockheed workers who have used the company's job 
placement office since August 1992, 644 are known to have found new jobs, 500 
are in school or out of the job market, and the rest remain unemployed and 
looking for work.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 15, April 11-17, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

USGS Studies Local Urban Development

A graphic history of how people have changed the landscape of the San 
Francisco Bay area since the gold rush days 140 years ago has been compressed 
into an experimental minute-and-a-half video by the U.S. Geological Survey 
(USGS) of the Dept. of the Interior.  The video was produced using tools from 
historical maps to satellite imagery.  A digital data set is also being 
assembled to identify relationships among elevation, climate, vegetation, and 
population in the Bay area.  All of this information may eventually allow 
planners to do a better job of predicting the environmental effects of 
development.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 16, April 18-24, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Juneau Airport to Use GPS

Trimble Navigation, Ltd. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) will install satellite-based 
position location equipment at the Juneau International Airport in Alaska.  
The two-phase $301,000 project is begin funded by the Federal Aviation 
Administration.  The terrain near the Juneau airport precludes the use of 
conventional approach and landing aids.  The new equipment will make it 
possible to land under more severe weather conditions.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 16, April 18-24, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Shuttle Tile Developed at NASA Ames 

NASA is testing an improved version of the shuttle's thermal protection 
tiles.  The composite material developed at Ames Research Center (Moffett 
Field, CA) promises to have several times the damage resistance of tiles 
currently used to protect the shuttle orbiters from the extreme heat 
associated with atmospheric entry.  While current tiles tend to crack like 
glass, the new tiles have pores which prevent crack propagation.  NASA is 
flying a few of the tiles on the next Endeavour mission, and if successful, 
will install the tiles on limited areas of the orbiter which are susceptible 
to impact damage.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 15, April 11-17, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Atlas Orbits GOES

A new Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, or GOES-8 for short, 
was activated by NASA ground controllers after its recent launch atop an 
Atlas 1 rocket.  The satellite, built by Space Systems/Loral (Palo Alto, CA) 
will provide weather data for the United States.  Engineers will spend about 
five weeks assessing the health of the new satellite and another several 
months are planned to fine tune the spacecraft's instruments.  The proper 
operation of the satellite is crucial to the over-budget four satellite 
program.  The second spacecraft in the new series is scheduled for launch 
next spring.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 16, April 18-24, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iridium Chooses Launchers

Iridium Inc. of Washington has signed contracts with three companies to 
launch a total of 73 satellites for its global wireless telephone network.  
McDonnell Douglas won a contract worth more that $400 million for launching 
40 of the satellites on 8 Delta 2 rockets.  Khrunichev Enterprise of Moscow 
and China Great Wall Industries of Beijing won the remaining launch 
contracts.  The first satellites launched will be by China Great Wall in the 
second half of 1996 with the first Delta launch set for three months later.  
Several companies are developing smaller rockets that would be ideal for 
replenishing the Iridium constellation.  The satellites will need to be 
replaced one or two at a time because the first generation are predicted to 
have varying lifetimes.  Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. (Sunnyvale, CA) hopes 
to use its new small rocket for this purpose.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 16, April 18-24, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moffett Transition Process

The transition of Moffett Field from the Navy to NASA is continuing with the 
official closing date July 1st.  The base will remain a closed federal 
facility for reserve military unit training, technology research, rescue 
missions and other activities.  At its peak, Moffett had about 6,500 regular 
Nay personnel and civilians.  There are now 850.  After those leave, 
approximately 2,500 reserves and civilians will move in.  The new resident 
agencies include a Marine Reserve unit from Alameda Naval Air Station, 
several Army Reserve units from the Presidio and the Army's 87th Explosive 
Ordnance Disposal unit.  The number of flights at Moffett field is expected 
to hold steady at 51,000 a year but with a different mix a aircraft including 
more helicopters.  Furthermore, most existing facilities will continue to 
operate under different management.  Some Mountain View and Sunnyvale 
residents are not happy with the transition process saying that there has 
been little public involvement in the transition.  Many residents supported 
NASA taking over Moffett Field, as needed to continue crucial NASA research, 
while others question how the government will save money from the base 
closure with the current plan.
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, April 24, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aerojet Diversifying to Commercial Ventures

During the last 22 months, Aerojet (Sacramento, CA) has poured millions of 
dollars and the energies of 22 employees at its Sacramento headquarters and 
Electronic Systems Division (Azusa, CA) into its campaign to launch 
commercial business ventures.  Aerojet will soon receive its first commercial 
contract to build natural gas storage modules for Pacific Gas & Electric 
(PG&E) to serve companies operating fleets of vehicles powered by natural 
gas.   The storage tanks are made of composite materials similar to the ones 
Aerojet uses to build rocket motor cases, fuel tanks, and spacecraft pressure 
vessels.  This is one of roughly two dozen commercial ventures at Aerojet.  A 
second involves finding markets for Aerogel, an extremely lightweight, 
transparent, insulation material developed originally at Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory (Livermore, CA).  Another venture involves the transfer 
of technology designed to cool satellite sensors to new markets for solid 
state air conditioners, perhaps useful in cooling light-rail cars as well as 
commercial and industrial facilities.
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 14, April 4-10, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seventh Grader Joins Stanford Mars Group

A 7th grader from Aptos, CA, is now a member of the Stanford University 
International Mars Mission Study Group.  This unusual distinction is in 
recognition of experiments M. Scott Weaver, 13, performed into management of 
fluids in the low gravity environments of the moon and Mars while flying 
aboard a research jet owned by Weaver Aerospace Company (Aptos, CA) during 
parabolic flights for scientists, engineers, and thrill seekers.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 14, April 4-10, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clementine 1 Lunar Mapping

Clementine 1 has entered the second phase of its lunar mapping mission after 
transmitting an estimated 1 million images of the moon's surface obtained 
from its lightweight sensors.  The spacecraft is a joint Ballistic Missile 
Defense Organization /NASA effort to test lightweight sensors and electronics 
for military and civil application.  One of the instruments that has been 
working very well is a 500-gram ultraviolet/visible  camera developed by the 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (Livermore, CA).  
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, April 4, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lockheed Completes Milstar Vacuum Test

The second U.S. Milstar spacecraft, built by Lockheed Missiles and Space Co 
(Sunnyvale, CA) successfully completed its thermal vacuum tests March 18.  
The satellite space more than three months in Lockheed's vacuum chamber to 
simulate the harsh environment of space.  The spacecraft must undergo a final 
round of tests to ensure that it was not damaged during the environmental 
tests.  The Milstar satellite will be ready for launch by August, although 
the Air Force has not yet set a date. 
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 15, April 11-17, 1994.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

NASA Offers Teacher Resource Centers

NASA is bringing space into the classroom with special programs, speakers, 
internships, and free educational materials designed to inspire students into 
pursuing science, mathematics, and aerospace careers.  NASA-funded Teacher 
Resource Centers can be found at all NASA field centers nationwide, including 
Ames Research Center (Moffett Field, CA).  The Teacher Resource Centers, 
usually about the size of a classroom, have reference books, slides, pictures 
and product cards, audio and video tapes, workbooks, lesson plans, and other 
materials for the elementary and high school classroom.  The latest listing 
of all such centers and other education programs is published in the 
September 1993 pamphlet, "NASA's Education Program."  Teachers can request a 
free subscription to NASA's "Education Horizons" newsletter, published three 
times per year with up-to-date information on the latest education events, 
scientific news, and learning opportunities.  Educators and students can also 
link up by computer modem to NASA's Spacelink, the electronic information 
clearinghouse for NASA news and educational events.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 16, April 18-24, 1994.

=================================== END =====================================

% ====== Internet headers and postmarks (see DECWRL::GATEWAY.DOC) ======
% Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 07:31:46 -0700
% From: [email protected] (Brian Haas)
% Message-Id: <[email protected]>
% To: distribution:;@us4rmc.pko.dec.com 
% Subject: AIAA Aerospace Resource, Vol.2, No.7, May 1994

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 21-JUN-1994 15:55:41.07
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from Feb 28 AW&ST

[My, I've gotten a bit behind...  I'm going back into quick-and-short
mode until I'm caught up some.]

Researchers at the Technological University of Nagaoka develop a
magnesium-lithium alloy (57%Mg, 38%Li, the rest Al or Zn) so light
that it would float, and capable of being molded or rolled at room
temperature.  It corrodes quickly in air, but might be of use for
in-space fabrication of space structures.

ESA Council confirms funding for manned spaceflight, including Columbus,
capsule studies, the ATV (an Ariane OMV that might form part of a manned
capsule system), and cooperative flights with the US and Russia.  These
programs will be placed under a "unified" management.

Minor kickback and bribery charges result from an extensive "sting"
operation by federal investigators at JSC.

Hughes announces that its second broadcastsat has been moved from Ariane
to Atlas, in the wake of the January Ariane launch failure.  GD is promising
July launch, while Arianespace was struggling to make late Sept.  Mind you,
Arianespace says it has a firm, binding contract for the launch...

Arianespace defines Ariane third-stage changes, with late May the target
for launch resumption.  Investigators confirm that the failure resulted
from overheating of the LOX-side bearing in the third-stage turbopump,
but could not identify a single cause.

As the White House dithers over launcher policy, Goldin speaks his mind:
he wants a leapfrog approach, rather than an expensive effort that would
only match what others already have.  "We should be bold and go for the
long haul..."  His preferred approach is "building and launching things
every few years".

Congress fretting about the space station, as schedules slip and savings
from using Russian hardware shrink.  Current plans call for 16 shuttle
missions (using the AlLi external tank) versus a previous count of 14.
The launch window into the 51.6deg orbit would be only about 5min long,
and Goldin has ordered investigation of operational changes to increase
the probability of launching on time (e.g., delaying upload of wind data
closer to launch and raising crosswind limits for emergency landings).

John Manley, industry minister in the new Canadian government, confirms
Canadian station participation will be cut substantially from old plans.
Goldin indicates willingness to adjust plans to keep Canada involved.

NPO Energia attracts unidentified US investor for its Signal LEO-comsat
system, which will provide mobile-phone connections, low-rate data
communications, and low-precision position fixing within the CIS.  The
L-band system will eventually comprise 48 satellites (24 operational, plus
full on-orbit redundancy), each 310kg in 1500-1700km orbits.  The satellite
bus is based on a Soviet military design.  Two will be launched late this
year for testing and validation.  The mobile phones, weighing 2-2.5kg,
will be built in Russia and the CIS -- they won't be as good as Iridium
etc., but they'll be better than what the CIS has now.  The satellites
will be silent when passing over North America, to avoid the "legal morass"
of US regulatory authorities.

NPO Energia also joins US consortium investigating power systems for very
large comsats, under US DOE contract.

Norman Thagard and Bonnie Dunbar go to Moscow to start training for Mir
missions, specifically Thagard's 90-day mission to start March 1995.
Thagard's mission will be primarily biomedical, emphasizing long-duration
effects, using NASA equipment.  He will go up on a Soyuz, and will return
aboard Atlantis on the June Spacelab/Mir shuttle mission.  Dunbar, his
backup, will probably fly on a later shuttle-Mir mission.  Details of the
training are still being sorted out, including whether they will train
for EVA (awkward because of their limited Russian).

Imminent Columbia flight -- the longest non-Spacelab extended-duration
mission currently planned -- to run a variety of experiments, including
testing the Dextrous End Effector (a magnetic "hand" for the arm, which
could latch onto a smaller, lighter "handgrip" than the current standard
grapple fixture).

Taurus cleared for March 4 launch after final rehearsal successful.  The
same rehearsal in January uncovered problems in electronics assembly and
engineering documentation, causing a six-week slip in the launch
schedule.  The original launch target was late 1992, but OSC found that
ground launch involved unexpected problems with vibration etc., and
the payloads (USAF STEP-0 and a classified ARPA satellite) also ran
behind schedule.  Perhaps because of the payload delays, OSC has not
been asked to pay a penalty for the schedule slip.  ARPA has also
waived the rapid-response requirement (set up and launch in 8 days)
for the first launch, given that it was demonstrated successfully in
the rehearsals.

CTA Inc. buys first launch of the Lockheed Launch Vehicle, for a
250lb satellite launched into polar orbit this Nov.  CTA chose the LLV
because "we were in a hurry" and Lockheed had already scheduled a demo
launch then.  Nature of payload not revealed; demo comsat?  CTA is
planning its own Orbex launcher, but it won't be ready that soon.

Lockheed has a "firm agreement" to launch Ball's Geosat Follow-On in
1996, and is talking to a possible 1995 customer.  They think the lead
time for smallsat construction is about two years, so they expect business
to be light for the first couple of years after the first successful launch.
LLV mockup work is well underway, and some metal is being bent on flight
hardware.  The launch pad will be an adapter fitted onto one of the SRB
mounts of the abandoned Vandenberg shuttle pad.
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 21-JUN-1994 22:03:51.91
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from March 7 AW&ST

AT&T confirms that the Olin Aerospace arcjet thrusters on Telstar 401
are roughly doubling stationkeeping fuel efficiency.

Discovery to be the second shuttle fitted with a Mir docking module.

Galileo data indicates that asteroid Ida has a moon.

Clementine begins lunar mapping!  Everything is working fine.

Meanwhile, the White House is doing its best to ignore Clementine,
eliminating funding for Clementine 2 and dragging its feet on even
authorizing press conferences about the current mission.  Apparently
the Clinton administration considers Clementine tainted because of its
SDIO origins.  Clementine is being moved to the Naval Research Lab, but 
without any funding beyond what's needed to finish the primary mission.

NASA unhappy about electronics problems in Wind and Polar, solar-
terrestrial-physics satellites whose launches have already slipped
from spring to autumn this year.  Workmanship at Martin Marietta
(ex-RCA) Astro Space is a concern, as are some arguably-poor design
decisions.  Fixes are straightforward but lengthy.

NASA gives Martin Marietta $172.5M for development of the new lightweight
aluminum-lithium external tank.

"Forum" piece by John Logsdon (George Washington U) and Alain Dupas (CNES),
pointing out that ten years after Reagan said "do a space station within
ten years", we're not much closer to having one.  They note a comment by
James Webb (NASA administrator for most of Apollo), comparing large
programs to airplanes, which should not be cleared for takeoff unless
they have the performance margins needed to reach cruising altitude and
the destination.  They comment that the space station, like ESA's defunct
Hermes, lacks Webb's "working consensus" -- agreement among technical
and political leaders that it is worth pursuing.  "...in hindsight,
neither the station program nor Europe's aspirations for autonomy were
ready for takeoff a decade ago."  They cite lessons of the last decade:

- A major program must have a clear goal that dominates the program and
can show initial results within five years or so.  If the technology is
not ready for that timescale, fund the technology, not the program, even
if funding programs is easier.

- A major program must be feasible without significantly higher budgets,
and must keep its promises on schedule and spending.

- Manned spaceflight must be justified in terms of a long-term commitment
to manned exploration of the solar system.  Foreign-policy issues (the
Cold War, aid to Russia) are short-term justifications only.  "The station
program was begun without a link to human exploration, and the attempt to
add that link after the fact did not work."

- Major programs must be true partnerships, not dominated by a single
nation; autonomy is unaffordable.  Making the station a real multilateral
partnership is the first step.

Editorial urging the administration to stifle its "not invented here"
reaction to Clementine.  Both Pentagon and NASA management have given
it lukewarm support at best, and it deserves better.  At the very least,
Goldin should accept BMDO's offer to tour the Clementine operations
center -- which is only a few minutes from his office -- to see how a
bare-bones mission is done.  Then JPL should be asked how it would
staff a comparable mission.
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 22-JUN-1994 14:12:20.61
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from March 14 AW&ST

Letter from Bruce French, criticizing NASA proposals to launch Cassini
by in-orbit assembly of a three-stage IUS stack using two shuttle missions.
"Does anybody really believe this will be cheaper than buying one Titan 4?"

Russian GALS comsat to test plasma thrusters (Isp > 1500) for stationkeeping.
SEP and Loral engineers are interested observers.

Delta launches the 24th operational Navstar 9 March; once this one is checked
out, GPS will officially be operational... except that it's had three
satellite failures recently.

Milstar 1 has a power-supply failure; a backup supply has been turned on.

ISRO decides to launch Insat 2C and 2D (1995-6) on Ariane.

Commerce Dept licensing of 1m-resolution commercial imaging satellites
said to be imminent.

Columbia launched 4 March, after a one-day slip due to high winds.
Military and Coast Guard aircraft helped track the floating SRBs, since
the same high winds prevented pre-positioning NASA's recovery ships.

NASA "Access To Space" study backs development of a reusable SSTO launcher
as a replacement for the shuttle and expendables, saying that the long-term
cost reductions amply justify the development effort.  The study's baseline
SSTO is a 2Mlb 150ft winged VTHL with a 25klb payload into a 220nmi 51.6deg
orbit.  (A somewhat larger vehicle would be needed if full-size Titan IV
payloads were to be accommodated.)  The preferred engine choice is the RD-704
tripropellant engine, burning LOX, LH2, and kerosene.  TSTO and airbreather
concepts were found to be more expensive and of little benefit.

Hughes agrees to remove a decryption chip from the Optus B3 comsat, clearing
the way for its shipment to China for launch this summer.  The chip is not
considered vital, and Aussat says it had not been informed that the chip's
presence was a significant problem.  [Personally, I'd say this sounds like
a face-saving move for bureaucrats who've been ordered to reverse a previous
decision:  ask Hughes to make an insignificant but plausible-sounding change,
and then claim that it was the whole problem.]  The chip would have been
essentially impossible for Chinese technicians to reach in any case.  It
was intended to improve security for satellite control, but Aussat's existing
birds do not have it and Aussat does not consider its absence a problem.

Yeltsin signs long-awaited order authorizing sale of 49% of NPO Energia
to private investors.

Rep. George Brown threatens to oppose space station if continued decline
of NASA budgets threatens other programs.  The Congressional Budget Office's
traditional list of possible cuts will not include much for NASA this year,
because there is not much left to cut unless you kill the station or
the shuttle.

Russians begin to question US ability to pursue the space station.  "We
often hear American politicians asking whether the US can rely on Russia
for the station.  What they don't seem to understand is that similar
questions are being asked in my country, and I think for very good reason."

US commercial use of Mir grows, but some customers are concerned that
Russian prices are rising.  NPO Energia says this is normal as a market
economy takes over.

Imaging from Mir is starting to attract interest, mostly because the Mir
crew can provide real-time control of the imaging, while the existing
unmanned imaging satellites run on preprogrammed schedules with no
provision for user interaction.  "...potential customers [ask] how much
cloud cover is in our pictures -- which is a concern when you try to
get images from an unmanned satellite... if there's cloud cover over
the area of interest, the cosmonauts simply won't take the picture..."

People are also starting to look at Russian ground equipment; OHB System
bought Russian hardware for the ground station for its Safir project.
"If you are not worried how nice it looks or how much it weighs, the
Russians can provide hardware at a great bargain... their equipment
may not be as sophisticated as in the West, [but] it is rugged, reliable,
and capable..."  They paid the Moskovsky Energeticheskiy Institute about
1/5 what a Western supplier would have wanted.

First two Orbcomm satellites now in final assembly, after delays due to
problems with the antenna design, for launch this summer.  The Orbcomm
ground facilities are almost complete.

OSC is now offering Picolab, a very small satellite bus based on the tiny
Orbcomm test satellite.

Launch of SeaStar (OSC's private remote-sensing bird, built to provide
ocean-image data to (mostly) NASA) has slipped about nine months overall,
due to changes in instrument specs requested by the customers.  The
changes have been made (by OSC and Hughes) without raising data prices.
Launch now set for third quarter this year.
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 22-JUN-1994 15:00:02.44
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from March 21 AW&ST

NASA abandons plans to move orbiter overhauls from Palmdale to KSC, due
to political pressure over loss of jobs in California.

US industry offers a grab-bag of improved expendable-launcher designs, in
hopes that the White House will prefer to stall plans for more ambitious
new launchers.  Hercules proposes Low Cost Launch System, a family of
expendables based on its SRMU (new Titan SRB) and existing upper stages,
to replace Delta, Atlas, and Titan.  Hercules thinks the mid-size member
of the family could fly in 3.5yr for $200M development, and is proposing
that the US government support development by ordering an initial batch of
launches rather than by providing direct funding.  Martin Marietta is
proposing a new two-stage liquid-fuel booster, using a Russian first-stage
engine system, probably the RD-180 (a two-engine derivative of the four-engine
cluster used in Zenit and Energia).  General Dynamics is also interested
in the RD-180 as a bigger replacement for the Rocketdyne engines currently
used on Atlas.

First flight-ready set of Titan SRMUs ships to Vandenberg.

First Taurus launch successful 13 March.  Both payloads are doing fine.
The 291x302nmi orbit was slightly higher than the planned 290nmi, but
within the +-30nmi specs.  Launch acoustics -- a major worry that delayed
the launch a year -- were well below predictions.  Taurus needs to fly
a few more times to verify its fast-reaction specs -- nominally 8 days
from request to launch -- but the upper three stages were stacked only
4 days before the original 4 March launch date, and the delays from the
4th to the 13th were mostly weather and range conflicts.

Taurus does not yet have firm customers for any more launches, although
ARPA and BMDO between them hold eight options.  Clementine 2 was a firm
customer but is no longer funded.  However, OSC points out that it had
no firm second-launch customer for Pegasus until after the first launch,
and Pegasus backlog is now 18 launches and 52 options.  They do expect
Taurus growth to be slower, partly because it's a new payload mass range
(Pegasus attracted some ex-Scout payloads) and partly because there is
competition from Lockheed and EER.

France approves a new space budget, including starts for Spot 5 and a
new communications-technology mission.

SES orders four Proton launches from Lockheed-Khrunichev-Energia, the
first to be late next year.  Proton probably won because Ariane and Atlas
are fully booked.  This order, plus the previous one from Loral (which is
now for five launches, all four options having been converted), remains
within the restraint-of-trade agreement limiting Proton commercial sales.
LKE is starting to drop hints that demand is higher than expected and the
agreement should be renegotiated.

Russia and Kazakhstan agree in principle on terms for lease of Baikonur,
with some details yet to be ironed out.

Successful test of the SEDS-2 small tether system on the second stage
of the 9 March Navstar Delta.  The 20km tether deployed fine, and its
dynamics will be observed for a month.  Paperwork is now underway to
qualify the system for a shuttle flight in 1996, on which it will
deploy U of Alabama's SEDSat 1 satellite to a higher orbit.

Russia backpedals somewhat on sharing of information on advanced optics
for space-debris tracking -- an area where the Russians are ahead --
citing concerns over military value.  The new concerns may reflect the
strong showing of nationalists in the recent Russian elections.

NASA studying use of one of its SR-71s to lob a MESUR Pathfinder reentry
test into a simulated Mars-entry trajectory.  Also being looked at (among
various non-space projects) is the possibility of flight-testing an
aerospike rocket engine over Mach 0.8-3.0.

Intelsat buys another Long March launch, another Intelsat 8A, and a
Russian "Express" comsat.
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 23-JUN-1994 13:58:16.27
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from March 28 AW&ST

Goddard hoping to get 30% more data from Compton now that the Tidbinbilla
relay station is running and TDRS-1 is repositioned to work with it.
(Compton's tape recorders are dead and real-time relay is necessary, but
the operational TDRS network has a blind area on the other side of the
Earth from White Sands.)

ESA and CNES expected to approve a proposal to do a commercial comsat
launch on the second test of Ariane 5, at a substantial discount given
the experimental nature of the flight.

USAF trying to figure out what to do about its aging missile-warning
satellite network.  Four of the five operational birds have problems
of one kind or another, limiting what can be done with them, and while
replacement birds are available, Titan IV's problems have stalled them.
One replacement is scheduled for Titan IV launch this autumn, and the
USAF is talking to NASA about a mid-1995 shuttle launch for another.
There is massive confusion and political warfare over the question of
building more of the existing design (there are six in storage and a
seventh underway, but a contract for two more was cancelled), upgrading
it, or building something new (which currently is proposed as a set
of smaller birds that could go up on Atlas).  In particular, there is
a proposal to add a narrow-angle multispectral sensor to the existing
design to improve its tactical capabilities -- the satellites have a
suitable mounting location already, because a planned intersatellite
laser-link system was cancelled due to budget overruns -- but the USAF
strongly prefers an all-new system.

Space-station design review, involving all partners, turns up no major
show-stoppers but some not-yet-solved problems in integration of the
Russian hardware.  Particular issues are where to put an optical-quality
window for Earth viewing (the cupola is the obvious place, but it's
poorly located for Earth observation) and whether the Soyuz-based lifeboat
and the Soyuzes that the Russians will use for transportation should be
the same design.  The program claims to be ahead of schedule.

Newly-formed Teledesic Corp (partly owned by Bill Gates) proposes a new
LEO-comsat system, using 924 [!!!] satellites, 40 birds plus 4 spares in
each of 21 Sun-synchronous orbital planes at 700km.  The large number of
satellites is due to the choice of frequency -- 20/30GHz -- which puts a
premium on having the satellite high in the sky to minimize water-vapor
absorption of the signal.  Teledesic has decided to work only at >40deg
satellite elevations, which means a satellite's footprint is only about
700km wide, demanding many satellites.  There will be intersatellite
links, with each bird connected to its four nearest neighbors in its
own plane plus one apiece in the nearest four planes.  The satellites
are planned to be about 700kg and to use a large deployable phased-array
antenna.

US congressional delegation says Baikonur remains functional, but the
surrounding infrastructure badly needs upgrading -- "as a minimum,
restoration of utilties, municipal services, and food distribution to
levels of two years ago would seem necessary" -- if the space-station
program is to be dependent on it.

Meanwhile, Russia is examining the possibility of a new launch site,
perhaps at the Svobodny missile base in eastern Siberia.  Svobodny
currently houses several dozen ICBM silos, at 50deg latitude, 250mi
from the Sea of Japan and only about 50mi from the Chinese border.
The idea would be to have an initial launch capability in about two
years, and eventual support for uprated versions of Proton.  Whether
this will actually happen or not is unclear; the study is widely
believed to be intended partly as a political maneuver, making it
clear to Kazakhstan that there are alternatives to Baikonur.

NASP to be renamed HySTP (Hypersonic System Technology Program) in the
new fiscal year, signalling final abandonment of the X-30 effort in
favor of a more modest effort focussed on scramjet propulsion issues.
HySTP plans four scramjet tests using surplus Minuteman or MX missiles
as boosters, to start in 1997.  [I'm largely discontinuing coverage of
the tail end of NASP, now that its relevance to spaceflight has mostly
disappeared.]

Sure enough, Galileo has found a moon orbiting Ida.  It's about 1.5km
across and has been temporarily dubbed Ida-2.  The imaging team, looking
at image strips to select data for return to Earth, found it Feb 17, and
the infrared-spectrometer people saw it in their data Feb 23.  The IR
data was taken a few minutes after the image, permitting triangulation
of Ida-2's position:  it was about 100km from Ida.  More data is trickling
back, and it should give better pictures of Ida-2 and at least a rough
idea of the orbit.  A search will also be made for other satellites.
It is just possible that Hubble might be able to see Ida-2.

The origins of Ida-2 are somewhat unclear.  It's unlikely to be either
ejecta from cratering on Ida or an independent body captured by Ida,
because it is too difficult to get a stable orbit either way.  The
leading theory is that Ida-2 was formed at the same time as Ida, in
the breakup of a larger asteroid.  Later infrared data from Galileo
should permit a guess as to whether Ida and Ida-2 have the same surface
composition; all that's known now is that they're not grossly different.
[Note that this is as of late March.]  Some tearing of hair over the
age of Ida and Ida-2:  pre-Galileo data indicated that Ida was probably
fairly young, but Galileo images show enough cratering to suggest a much
longer history... but Ida-2 is too weakly bound to stay in orbit that
long, and too small to survive a similar long bombardment.

"Viewpoint" editorial (by Jeffrey Manber of NPO Energia's US operations)
saying that at last the US has a coherent space policy again... even if
its objectives are boosting high-tech manufacturing, demonstrating more
efficient government agencies, and supporting Russian reform, with nary
a mention of objectives in *space*.  It does, at least, recognize that
this White House has zero interest in space exploration, and it is, at
least, coherent enough to set priorities from (unlike what passed for
space policy under Bush).
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 27-JUN-1994 01:02:22.58
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from April 4 AW&ST

Space-station managers struggling with backup options in case Russia drops
out [one would think it's pretty clear by now that the US is the unreliable
partner, but...], most notably various combinations of commercially-bought
Salyut FGBs, Lockheed Bus-1s, or revived Freedom propulsion modules for
stationkeeping.

USAF is hurrying Talon Shield, originally an experimental program to combine
data from multiple missile-warning satellites, toward limited operational
status.  Existing data-combination facilities are quite primitive.

US to deploy a mobile missile-warning-satellite ground station to Korea.

Bickering over a follow-on missile-warning program continues, including
allegations that studies favoring upgrading the existing system were
suppressed by the USAF.

USAF investigation of the Gulf-War Scud attack that killed 28 US troops
reports that all three of the DSP warning satellites saw the missile,
but the primary satellite saw it nose-on and didn't see enough motion
to generate an alert, the second got only a limited look at it (but did
get enough to trigger an air-raid warning), and the third was officially
a spare -- even though it actually had the best view -- and was not
being monitored.  The second satellite was being run from Germany and
Colorado, while the other two were being run from Australia.  "If data
from all satellites had been fused at a common processing center, this
launch would have been easily detected."  The lack of a full warning,
plus various other problems, prevented any attempt at interception.

Plans to use the Salyut FGB tug for station reboost hit a snag:  quite
a bit of fuel will be needed, and the Progress tankers are too small.
NASA is looking at an enlarged Progress, and has asked ESA to study
using its proposed ATV for refuelling; doing it with the shuttle would
be costly.

NASA is also formally proposing that a single Soyuz configuration be
developed for both routine transport and lifeboat operations.

ESA is now pushing the idea of using Ariane 5 for station support,
including use to launch the Columbus module.

Another idea that has come up is using Comet for small deliveries to
the station and small-payload return.

Joe Allen of Space Industries points out that the practical operations
experience that the US is now leaning on the Russians for could have
been had with the ISF project, had NASA funded it.

Ariane 5 development is running a bit late, and speculation has the
Oct 1995 first launch slipping a couple of months.  Arianespace managers
are becoming nervous about competition from Proton, Long March, and
possible cheaper US launchers.  The target for A5 was to be 10% cheaper
than A44L, and Arianespace would like to see 20% to meet the new competition,
but the current projection is only 3%.  The contractors are looking at the
problem, but that's a big gap.

The test Ariane 5 SRB with the bubbles in its fuel has been put in storage
for shelf-life evaluation, and might possibly be fired later.  The problem
has been traced to the European ammonium perchlorate used, which has a
slightly different structure, affecting fuel viscosity and the pouring
process.  Work is underway to fix this, and the next four test SRBs will
be built with US-supplied a.p. (which will probably be retained as a
second source even after the European stuff is cleared for use).

NASDA now believes that man-rating the H-2 would require a major redesign
at major expense.  It won't happen soon.

Lots of confusion in the LEO-comsat market.  The well-known players are
all aiming at expanding their mobile-applications market by providing
fixed-site service in remote areas... but Teledesic has staked that out
as its turf, and is ignoring the mobile market.  Inmarsat has deferred
any entry into the market, citing market uncertainties and financing
problems (notably, Comsat would be reluctant to pay its full share because
it's not sure the FCC will authorize the service in the US, while countries
like Canada and Brazil might want to contribute more... which would require
an amendment to Inmarsat's charter, an inordinately slow process).

Clementine completes the first half of its lunar-mapping mission.  Minor
rocket burns March 25-26 shift its perilune from the southern hemisphere
to the northern hemisphere for the second half.  No serious problems to
date.  Science team "ecstatic".  Picture taken looking over the lunar
north pole at the Earth.

USAF experimenting with using Inmarsat data links to report GPS-measured
positions of transport aircraft, in an attempt to see what can be done
with off-the-shelf commercial equipment.  Works well.

Spot Image will design and develop the ground system for Spot 5 itself,
in the belief that this will yield a system much more responsive to
customer needs than the current ones, which were originally developed
by CNES.

Senior Russian council recommends slipping Mars 96 to 1998, and it is
expected that this will be done.  The effort to keep Mars 94 on track
has limited funding for Mars 96.  The 1998 launch opportunity is not
as favorable, and the spacecraft will have to be lightened; details
have not yet been decided.  Mars 94 is on track but the schedule is
very tight; around the start of May, a major review will decide what
will be done.

Russian Mars rover runs a set of telepresence tests in the Mojave, trying
out a McDonnell Douglas arm (not currently part of the Mars 96 mission,
but since the mission has slipped to 1998, things could change...) and
a more powerful onboard computer.

Mir's electron gun fired at the Swedish Freja fields-and-particles
satellite, in hopes that Freja could detect it.  Freja data was being
recorded by the Canadian ground station at Prince Albert, and data
tapes may need to be flown from there to Sweden for analysis to confirm
success.  Scientists from Germany and the US are also involved.

New Russia-Kazakhstan agreement on Baikonur signed, including clauses
calling for phasing out of military launch operations from Baikonur
(presumably moving them to Plesetsk) and transition from military to
civilian launch crews.  (Despite the existence of Plesetsk, there is
still a fair bit of Russian military launch activity at Baikonur.)  A
stickier problem is that the Kazakhs want Proton launches restricted
to 5-6 a year and to civilian payloads only, where Russia wants the
right to fly 12-14 to support Clarke-orbit satellite constellations
and manned space operations (the historical maximum is 13).  Russia
and Kazakhstan agreed to negotiate the Proton issue separately, to
permit signing of the main agreement.

NOAA prays for a successful launch of Goes 8, scheduled for April 12
at the Cape.  The Goes-Next series, of which Goes 8 is the first, is
three years behind schedule and massively over budget.  Goes 7 is seven
years past its design life and almost out of fuel, and NOAA has been
surviving by borrowing Meteosat 3 from the Europeans.  The new birds
will have better instruments, which have been responsible for much of
the delay.  Goes 9 is under construction for launch next April.  NOAA
is also looking at the need to get a successor program going, since
they will have to be ready to launch the next generation circa 2002.

Editorial chiding the White House for its lukewarm support of the
space program, including the first NASA budget drop in two decades,
and saying that strong White House support will be needed urgently
to keep the space station alive this spring.
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 27-JUN-1994 20:10:06.35
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from April 11 AW&ST

Letter from Bob Staehle [somewhat edited down; Ron Baalke posted the
full text recently] of Pluto Fast Flyby, noting that they are already
talking to the Clementine people about both hardware and mission
operations for small, cheap missions.  "Our planned Pluto operations
team size is [under] 30 people during cruise, including project
manager and secretary.  Clementine is helping to validate our
assertion that such a size would be adequate..." 

GD signs deal with NPO Energia for development of the RD-180 (two-engine
version of the RD-170 four-engine cluster used on Zenit and Energia) for
use in the Atlas first stage.

The SEDS-2 tether appears to have broken, probably as the result of a
debris hit.  Meanwhile, NASA announces that the NASA/ASI Tethered
Satellite System (which failed on its first flight in 1992) will be
reflown.

TRW gets contract to build a small scientific satellite, ROCSAT-1, for
Taiwan.

CIA believes Russia is planning to market 0.75m satellite images.

Goldin is spending considerable time talking one-on-one to undecided
Congressmen regarding the space station.

Spot 2 image of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility, showing extensive
new construction and substantial air defences.

US and Russia working on plans to share missile-warning-satellite data,
possibly to be extended later to other nations.  The sharing would be
of processed data -- actual missile warnings -- not of raw imagery.
France is also talking to the US about collaboration on antimissile
systems, including data sharing, and is interested in a European warning
system that would be interoperable with the US one:  "It would not be
acceptable to simply become 'subscribers' to a US system."

Clementine 1 image of the lunar south pole, some of it never seen before.
The spacecraft is working well.  Two small data gaps in the first half
of the mapping mission (now being filled in during the second half)
resulted from uncommanded resets of the data handling unit; the problem
is not yet understood because it has happened so infrequently, but is
not considered a serious threat to the mission.  Fuel reserves are ample
and the possibility of extending the mission to a second asteroid flyby
next year is being considered.  [Well, scratch that...]  Bistatic radar
observations of the lunar poles are being planned, using Clementine's
transmitter to illuminate the poles for DSN receivers.  An early attempt,
in late March, failed because of hasty setup and minor electronics
problems on the ground.  The bistatic-radar work is a late addition to
the mission, originating in a suggestion by Stewart Nozette, the deputy
project manager.

Clementine supporters pushing for a Clementine 2 mission to do further
technology testing.  Various ideas are being proposed, but the idea of
an asteroid flyby seems to be fading in favor of using BMDO's LEAP
interceptors as lunar landers, delivering small rovers to the lunar
surface.  There seems to be considerable Congressional support for the
notion.  As yet unresolved is who will run it:  Clementine itself has
been transferred from BMDO to the Naval Research Lab, but no money
went with it, and the Navy's not sure about funding more work.  The
USAF is now showing interest in Clementine 2.  There is also some
possibility of foreign participation, notably by CNES, which supplied
minor bits of hardware for Clementine 1.

White House happy with the revised space station, although Congress is
less pleased and is agitating for less reliance on the Salyut FGB tug
in particular.  The old international partners are cautiously in favor,
although all have budget worries and Canada is talking seriously about
reducing its role somewhat.  (Both NASDA and ESA say that the job would
be "easier if there were no more doubts about the objectives and political
will" of the US.)  Other reviewers, including the Vest panel, also say the
design and management have improved sharply.

Endeavour radar mission delayed a day (to April 8) to permit checking
the main-engine pumps for substandard guide vanes (such as those recently
found in a pump at Rocketdyne).  The mission, the first US/German/Italian
Space Radar Lab flight, will involve extensive maneuvering to point the
radars in desired directions.  This is considered a development and
calibration flight for the SRL hardware, although the mission will
nevertheless try to get as much data as possible.  A second flight in
August will observe the same areas at a different time of the year, and
extensive photography of the targets is also planned.  Selected "super
sites" will also have data taken by surface teams at the same time.

NASA is reviewing testing and manufacturing approaches in the wake of
the discovery of the bad pump vanes, some of which flew on the first
four shuttle missions.  Endeavour was cleared for flight after analysis
and tests indicated that the original specs were unnecessarily tight,
but NASA is not happy that a process thought to consistently meet specs
had been producing widely-varying substandard parts for two decades...
especially since Marshall ran an extensive review of Rocketdyne's
production processes last year, and didn't find this.
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 30-JUN-1994 23:46:41.96
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from April 18 AW&ST

Iridium signs for eight Delta launches, carrying five birds each.  Largest
commercial Delta deal in history.

Vulcain engine (for Ariane 5) fails during an April 11 firing test -- fire
in the LOX pump.  Impact as yet undetermined.

Titan IV launch possibly imminent at the Cape -- high activity at pad 41.

Interview with Kent Black, executive VP at Rockwell, asks him whether he
thinks major shuttle upgrades or an SSTO is the best way to go.  Answer:
Rockwell thinks SSTO is feasible, although it might have to be larger than
their original concepts, but the Congressional support for a new launcher
just isn't there.

Argument in progress over the preferred data link for sending differential-
GPS corrections to aircraft and receiving automatic position reports from
them, focussing on issues of cost, use of existing aircraft equipment, and
reliability in dense traffic.

Another argument in progress over whether Inmarsat should be allowed to
broadcast wide-area differential-GPS corrections by satellite.  DoD does
not like the idea, since it amounts to an end run around their ability
to degrade GPS accuracy.

Launch of a Resurs Earth-resources satellite, carrying the German Safir-R
data-relay package piggyback, set for late May after being delayed due to
arguments between Russia and the Ukraine over the price of its Zenit booster.

Kawasaki designing several different H-2 payload fairings [seems like
nearly one per launch for the first half-dozen launches -- one would think
that standardization might be helpful].

Endeavour launched April 9 on Space Radar Lab 1 mission.  Going well so far.

Atlas 1 launch of Goes 8 successful 12 April.  NOAA greatly relieved.
Spacecraft checkout to occupy most of May, at the end of which NOAA will
take over operations and begin calibration, with operational use set for Oct.

White House and NASA both concerned over rising cost estimates for the
space station, also dwindling estimates of savings from Russian participation.
The latest headache is that the initial Russian proposal for the 1994-7
shuttle/Mir preparatory activities came in at $650M rather than $400M, and
was summarily rejected by NASA as not conforming to the contract signed
by the two nations in Dec.

[A light week.]
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 30-JUN-1994 23:46:35.72
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from April 25 AW&ST

The Hubble servicing mission having been a great success, NASA is now
talking about postponing the next visit from 1997 to 1999, which means
a two-year delay in installing the improved instruments under development
for that visit.  Feasibility of this depends on how soon Hubble needs a
reboost, which in turn depends on solar activity.

Geos 8, en route to Clarke orbit, is having attitude-control problems
which seem likely to delay its arrival at its operating position:  NASA
has postponed the remaining apogee-motor firings until the problems are
better understood.

Endeavour lands at Edwards after a one-day mission extension in hopes of
better weather at the Cape.  Radar observations were continued.  Data
processing will take quite a while, but preliminary results are good.
Particularly interesting are *color* (well, false color) images, made
possible by the SRL radar system doing simultaneous imaging at three
different wavelengths.

Planned April 21 Titan IV launch slips at least two days after a procedural
error in preparations cuts power to the Titan's guidance system.  Nature
of the payload is still undisclosed, although the use of a Centaur and a
high-inclination orbit (the Cape having warned Canada about an up-the-
Eastern-Seaboard launch trajectory) suggests that it is the eavesdropping
satellite that reportedly has been sitting in a Cape hangar for three years
awaiting launch.

NASA releases new launch schedule, calling for eight shuttle missions next
year and nine per year in 1996 and 1997, plus assorted expendables.  The
next expendable launch is the very last Scout, set to launch DoD's MSTI-2
from Vandenberg May 16.

New French defence plan includes authorization for the Helios 2 spysat.

[A light week.]
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 30-JUN-1994 23:47:08.16
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from May 2 AW&ST

NASA to fund half of the $22.4M cost of developing a sounding rocket using
a hybrid rocket engine, to be done by a consortium including Amroc.

Hercules fires a gimballing-nozzle variant of its GEM solid strap-on, meant
to replace Thiokol's Castor series in sounding rockets etc.

That Cape Titan IV launch slips again, to May 3, after an April 26 attempt
aborted at T-17s due to a battery problem.

Russia formally notifies the US that Mars 94's launch will slip to 1996.

Goes 8 executes its last apogee-motor firing.

NASA gets "lots of good proposals" for its Small Satellite Technology
Initiative, with two winners to be announced next month.  The objective
of the $108M program is two small satellites that push existing technology
in useful ways:  lower mass, greater payload fraction, more reuse of
software, design independent of precise launcher characteristics, use of
"smart" materials to replace pyrotechnics, lower power, lower cost, etc.
The actual missions to be carried out are up to the bidders.  NASA is also
trying to be innovative in its handling of the program:  heavy penalties
for failure (no payment at all if it doesn't work for a year in orbit),
substantial bonuses for success, a three-man project office, and a promise
(which not everybody has a lot of faith in) of no meddling after contract
signing.  There have been some claims that the program is aimed mostly at
traditional satellite suppliers, and that new small companies with actual
lightsat experience have been discouraged from bidding.

Clementine 1 lunar-mapping mission complete.  The primary mission formally
ended 22 April, followed by some fill-in imaging and stereo coverage of
interesting areas, plus some experiments.  One experiment was to try really
pushing Clementine's on-board autonomy, telling it what to map and leaving
the execution up to it.  It worked:  Clementine extrapolated its own orbit,
planned its own observations, powered up and calibrated the cameras, ran
the imaging sequences (including changes of exposure), recalibrated its
attitude-control system with a star sighting, and re-pointed its antenna
at Earth.  This autonomous-operations mode will be important for the
Geographos flyby.  Clementine will leave lunar orbit May 3.  Lt.Col. Pedro
Rustan, Clementine's program manager, says "Clementine 1 has shown the US
can get away from the syndrome of 'viewgraph managers and engineers', who
are always planning something but never build anything".

Clementine star-tracker image:  Moon (lit by Earthlight) in foreground,
solar corona showing at Moon's edge, and Venus off in the distance.

ESA Space Science Advisory Committee about to thin seven "medium mission"
proposals down to 4-5 missions for in-depth study, leading to development
start for one of them in early 1996.  Each would cost about $400M.  The
candidates are:  COBRAS (Big-Bang astrophysics mission, with much better
sensitivity and resolution than COBE), Intermarsnet (an ESA Mars orbiter
carrying four small landers from European nations, the US, and Russia),
STARS (stellar-seismology telescope, observing oscillations and variations
of nearby stars), MORO (lunar geophysical orbiter with multispectral
imaging, chemical-mapping instruments, and a subsatellite for gravity
measurements), STEP (gravitational-physics mission in LEO), a Mercury
orbiter including multispectral imaging, and Lisa (an array of four
spacecraft forming a laser interferometer for detecting gravity waves).
The last two will probably be rejected as too ambitious, but may be
recycled as candidates for the next "cornerstone" major mission.

Also on SSAC's agenda will be the preliminary design review of Huygens.
Major Huygens hardware, including the heatshield, is under construction.

Goldin tells ESA that he will recommend keeping Cassini/Huygens on a
Titan IV, rejecting the dual-shuttle-launch concept.

Eutelsat picks Atlas 2A rather than Ariane to launch its "Hot Bird Plus"
broadcastsat in 1996, citing fears that Arianespace might not be able
to deliver a mid-1996 launch.  (GD is also thought to have offered a
relatively low price.)

ESA accuses Alenia/MatraMarconi/DASA/BAe consortium of collusion and
"anticompetitive practices", including many violations of ESA rules,
in its bid for the X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite project.  ASI is also
implicated.  Alenia says "we deny everything".  The bidding process
has been extended and restarted by ESA.

Fatal explosion at Xichang April 2 destroys Fengyun-2 weather satellite
during fuel-loading test, and damages the only processing building
qualified to Western standards.  Great Wall says remaining Long March
launches this year will proceed on schedule.  Hughes team, sent to
Xichang at request of APT Satellite Co (whose Apstar 1 is set for Long
March launch this summer) says "Their safety procedures were fine, it
was just purely an accident" and says Hughes launches can proceed.

Booz Allen & Hamilton shows data-fusion technology which can combine
Landsat 30m multispectral images with Spot 10m panchromatic images
to give sharper color images.
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer"  1-JUL-1994 23:41:14.69
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from May 9 AW&ST

CTA to build Indostar satellite system for Indonesia.  Indostar 1, to be
launched in early 1996, will be the first direct-broadcast lightsat.  It
will be the first of four Indostars.

Boeing studying adapting a phased-array conformal antenna it did for
military applications to airliner reception of broadcastsat TV signals.

India's fourth ASLV launch is, for the first time, a complete success.
The May 4 launch from Sriharikota Shar put an astrophysics satellite
into low orbit.

Clinton space policy imminent.  [Speech at 11. :-)]  Disregarding mumbling,
it will say:

- DoD upgrades existing launchers
- NASA develops new technologies, e.g. SSTO
- FY97 decision on SSTO flight demonstrator [why postpone it that long?]
- surplus missiles to be destroyed or used for government payloads (if no
	competitive commercial launcher exists)
- no restrictions on use of foreign components or technologies in the
	upgrades, except the usual ones (national security, safety,
	foreign policy, legal) [okay, so I'm cynical tonight]
- government will not buy foreign launches if comparable US services
	exist, except for the usual reasons (national security, foreign
	policy), presidential approval required
- government will buy commercial launches whenever possible
- commercial access to government facilities on reimbursable basis
- commercial suppliers retain technical data rights to launcher technology,
	except for the usual exceptions (statutory requirements)
- Shuttle operations will continue, as will improvements
- but no new orbiters
- and the restriction to Shuttle-unique payloads will continue

DoD and NASA to respond in detail by July 1.

MM completes its acquisition of GD's space operations, after getting a
clean bill of health on antitrust *and* DoD approval for MM to hang onto
some of the savings to be had from merged launch operations.

DoD *finally* coughs up the $5M Congress gave it for finishing DC-X
flight tests.  DoD says "that's the end of our involvement".  [Oh, and
what about that $40M Congress ordered you to spend on starting SX-2
development?]  NASA is interested in acquiring DC-X as a technology
testbed, after DoD is finished.  The DoD flight tests will resume in
June, and the funding covers to the end of August, which should allow
3-5 flights, including both the flip maneuver and a rapid-turnaround
demo.  New participants, too:  Dryden will help analyze the flip test,
Phillips Labs will nominally run the tests to prepare for possible
future military SSTO work, and Marshall will learn the ropes to take
over the vehicle for NASA.

That Cape Titan IV finally went up May 3, two years late.  [Ah, those
reliable expendables, always on time, not like that undependable shuttle.]
Apparently the payload had a share in the delays, mind you.  The nature
of the payload remains secret, although it seems to have gone into a
highly elliptical orbit (at least initially) at high inclination, which
suggests an eavesdropping bird.

Aerojet to fire a small Russian thruster at its US test range, not with
any great interest in selling it (too much competition in that size range)
but as a pathfinder for more ambitious collaboration with the Russians.

Clementine 1 boosts out of lunar orbit May 3.  It just escaped being
shut down early by DoD beancounters cutting budgets.  [Only to have its
attitude-control system screw up, sigh...]

Serious US-Russian discussions about Pluto cooperation.  Pluto Fast Flyby
can't fly on Titan IV, it's too expensive.  So what about Proton?  Trouble
is, NASA policy on international missions is "no money changes hands", and
the Russians aren't keen on swapping a Proton for 2kg of payload mass and
a sticker on the side.  IKI proposes adding a "drop Zond" probe to each
PFF bird, to impact on Pluto and Charon.

Also under consideration are joint solar missions, and possibly a joint
revival of the "Fire and Ice" concept [one bird to Pluto, one into the Sun].

Earth scientists uneasy about imminent reorganization at Ames that may
increase costs (and thus decrease flight hours) for NASA's science-support
aircraft.  For example, maintenance practices may get changed from normal
civil practice to mil-spec rules.  Trouble is, past cuts have squeezed
aircraft operations enough to eliminate slack, so any extra expense means
fewer flight hours.
-- 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer"  3-JUL-1994 02:11:18.75
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from May 16 AW&ST

First image from Goes 8 (sent May 9).

NASA orders work on Polar suspended until Wind is completed, launched,
and operating satisfactorily, and the agency re-evaluates costs.

MSTI-2 launched May 8 on NASA's last Scout.

STEP-2 launch aborted May 12 due to a battery problem in its Pegasus
launcher, found 45s before drop.

House funding situation for NASA looks cautiously favorable:  the relevant
subcommittee got a reasonably generous total allocation to divide up.

CIA, faced with steep budget and staff cuts, decides that assessment of
the space capabilities of other nations will henceforth be DoD's job.

NASA internal assessment of the agency's technology transfer efforts
concludes:

- NASA's good reputation in this area is largely undeserved, including
	credit for things it did not do
- NASA has been resting on its laurels and has done nothing systematic
	about technology transfer
- past tendency has been to require industry to adapt to government
	standard practices; this needs to be reversed
- efforts should be focussed on particularly promising industry areas
- NASA staff incentives and evaluations should reward tech transfer

USAF to start field trials, at Ramstein AFB in Germany, of the Eagle Vision
system that will receive and process Spot imagery directly, without the
three-week delay in the Pentagon.  France and other nations are interested.
Spot Image is also interested, because it could use a portable ground station
to receive from Spot 1, whose tape recorders are dead.  Eagle Vision funding
originally hit delays within DoD, but its proponents pointed out that during
that three-week lead time, there were nine Spot passes over Sarajevo, data
from which could have been available to aircrews had E.V. been available;
the funding was released quickly.

NASA says that payload accomodations aboard the space station will not be
greatly affected by the merger with Mir 2.  Resupply/reboost will dictate
a 92-day cycle, currently planned to incorporate two 30-day quiet periods
for microgravity work, separated by a 10-day maintenance period and ended
by rendezvous/resupply/reboost operations.  It will probably be possible
to rearrange the schedule to get a 60-day quiet run at least occasionally.

NASA is scrambling to sift through its current microgravity experiment
plans to identify experiments that could benefit from going aboard Mir
during the station-preparation phase.  "...we found that we have
experiments already under development which might benefit by being up
there longer..."  [Mind you, when Space Industries was pushing ISF,
NASA's official verdict was "nobody needs longer times than the shuttle
can provide".]

Malfunction, details as yet undetermined, causes computer foulup that
locks four of Clementine's attitude-control thrusters on... during a
period in which it was out of communication with the ground.  It is
spinning at high speed and its attitude-control fuel is gone.  (There
is still plenty of maneuvering fuel, but it's pretty useless with no
attitude control.)  Whether it was hardware or software is not yet
known.  The problem was in the rad-hardened flight-proven space-qualified
processor, not one of the experimental new-technology systems.  Clementine
is currently in a highly-elliptical Earth orbit, waiting for the right
moment to boost towards Geographos.  The Geographos encounter is pretty
definitely out of the question, although there is hope of regaining
enough control -- using the maneuvering engine and Clementine's little
reaction wheels -- to do some more technology work in Earth orbit, by
lowering the perigee enough to make regular passes through the Van Allen
belts for radiation-effect tests.

Patriot shipment to Korea tests use of GPS/Inmarsat combination to track
high-priority shipments.  (Such shipments, particularly in wartime, often
get done in haste and the paperwork isn't complete -- in Desert Storm,
2/3 of the containers shipped to Saudi Arabia had to be opened to confirm
what was in them.)

Clinton orders merger of the military and civilian weather-satellite systems,
with the goal of eventually having a single three-satellite system instead
of a pair of two-satellite systems.  It will probably be ten years or so
before satellites meeting joint requirements are launched, because there
is a considerable inventory of the old birds built or under contract.
ESA and Eumetsat have been officially invited to explore the possibility
of a wider merger including the European weather satellites.  All data
collected will be released openly, although in times of military crisis
some of it may be delayed.

White House also orders a change of plans for Landsat:  DoD is no longer
involved, and NASA is now fully in charge.

Editorial suggesting past experience as a guide to NASA's role:  in the
1930s, in the wake of a war and in a time of indecision and tight budgets,
the government did not fund large aeronautical projects, but concentrated
on basic research... which built up knowledge that later proved crucial
when major advances were needed.  Citing DC-X, AW&ST urges an emphasis on
flying demonstrators, to keep people honest and preserve practical skills
at relatively low cost.  "Large projects are not appropriate in times of
indecision.  They become sinkholes, absorbing money and producing paper.
Basic research and funding X-plane, 'Skunk Works' types of programs are
keys..."
-- 
SMASH!  "Sayy... I *liked* that window."| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"I enjoyed it too!"  "Hmph!  Some hero!"|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer"  3-JUL-1994 22:07:11.18
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from May 23 AW&ST

Russian officials propose converting Mars 94, now delayed to 1996, into
a double mission, possibly including more hardware from other countries.
The 1996 planetary alignment is not as good as 1994's, so Mars 94 would
have to shed about 200kg to fly as a single mission.  Splitting it and
using two Protons will preserve its payload and possibly allow a third
lander to be added.

Telesat Canada will lease Telstar 301 until Anik E2 is returned to service.
T301 has been maneuvered into AE2's orbital slot temporarily.

Clementine Geographos encounter formally cancelled due to the loss of
attitude control.  Burns in progress to bring Clementine's perigee down
into the Van Allen belts, for radiation-effects testing.

STEP-2 launched by Pegasus May 19.

Rep. Sensenbrenner unhappy about details of the space-station deal, notably
the fact that NASA does not plan to track where its payments to RKA go.  He
suggests that dollar customers undoubtedly have more leverage than ruble
customers, so the money should stay dollars until it reaches the people who
will actually do the work, e.g. Khrunichev.

Kiberso, the Moscow company selling 2.5m spacecraft imaging, says that so
far it has sold few of the maximum-resolution images, possibly because of
the long delays involved in the use of film-return spacecraft.

Lockheed's board approves spending $150M on its high-resolution imaging
project, about a third of total estimated cost.  Partners will be sought
over the next 6mo for the rest.  The intent is an operational system by
the end of 1997, with 1m resolution and 2-3m position accuracy.  Apart
from ground stations, the system will sell images, not equipment.

Eyeglass International gets DoC licence for its 1m system, planned with
similar capabilities and a similar schedule (and probably similar cost).

WorldView Imaging is still on track to launch two satellites for its 3m
system (approved several years ago) in late 1995.

Lockheed and WorldView, at least, feel that their satellite systems should
cut heavily into the market for aerial photography.  Others are less sure.

France is considered likely to commercialize its 1m Helios technology.
Japan has announced plans to fly Hiros, a 2.5m satellite.  South Africa's
Denel-Houwteq is reportedly still on track with its GreenSat prototype,
to offer 1.5m next year (with a Russian launch).  And speaking of the
Russians, reportedly there is a mirror image of the US's recent internal
debate now in progress in Moscow, over whether the Russian military 0.75m
system should be made commercially available.

Meanwhile, the USAF [!] is exploring the possibility of using Russian
high-resolution imaging.  Russian imagery was used to plan Gen. Doolittle's
funeral in Washington last fall.  One idea being discussed is having the
USAF simply buy 2-3 Russian film-return spacecraft missions per year, at
a cost much lower than a comparable US program.

Congressional battle over the station heats up, with Russian participation
still the major hot item.  RKA and NASA now both insist that the lead-in
phase will cost no more than the promised $400M, but RKA's abortive $650M
proposal has definitely muddied the waters.  The White House is reviewing
a revised proposal for Canadian involvement, lowering the CSA's costs and
reducing its access to the station.  Station officials are still trying
to increase available power in the early phases of station use, and to
reduce the EVA needed for assembly.  Goldin says that historical odds of
on-time shuttle launch, about 30%, can be improved to 50%+ with procedural
improvements.

Goldin says he sees no way to finish the station on time at less than $2.1G
a year.  Congressthings looking for other programs to cut are having a hard
time of it, since NASA has been hit hard in recent years and there is little
maneuvering room left.

Priroda announces plans to develop a new commercial remote-sensing system,
to have 5m resolution (comparable to that planned for Spot 5).  Whether
the Russians can compete well enough on price to beat out Spot's established
position in the market is unclear.  [Landsat wasn't even mentioned.]

Planned June 20 launch of a new Mir crew slips due to assembly delays,
reportedly due to delivery delays on subsystems.

Binariang, a new Malaysian company, signs with Hughes for an HS376 comsat
dubbed Measat, and an option on a second one.  Launch to be Ariane or Delta.
The underlying motive seems to be to provide Malaysian authorities with a
satellite-broadcasting system whose content they can control.  The beam
footprint (in Ku band) will be relatively narrow, although there will also
be some lower-power wider-footprint C-band service for regional service.

Inmarsat will start a spinoff company to develop Inmarsat-P, its Iridium
competitor.  Inmarsat and its signatories will own at least 70%, but the
rest will be commercially available.  This is basically intended to improve
the chances of attracting financing.

Russia joins Eutelsat.
-- 
SMASH!  "Sayy... I *liked* that window."| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"I enjoyed it too!"  "Hmph!  Some hero!"|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer"  4-JUL-1994 00:42:04.43
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from May 30 AW&ST

[Hurrah, I'm caught up!  For those viewers joining us late :-)... what with
postal delays and the need to read and then summarize, I consider one month
behind cover date to be "on time" for these summaries.]  [I will probably
continue with the slightly terser style I've been using for catch-up,
though, as I'm finding it rather easier to do.]

Vulcain failure investigation fingers LOX pump impeller rubbing on the
pump casing, and suggests that design changes made for other reasons would
prevent it from happening in a flight engine.  The pad-firing tests at
Kourou in July will use a flight-standard engine instead of one of the
earlier development ones as originally planned.

Surrey Satellite Technology gets contract from the Chilean Air Force to
build Chile's first satellite.  The construction team will include some
Chilean engineers, participating to help build up expertise.

Funding problems hit the planned US/French successor to Topex/Poseidon:
NASA can't find $120M for its share of the project, which was to include
the bus and final integration.  CNES says it's willing to build the bus
if the US will help with integration, which should save NASA $50-60M.

Hubble confirms the presence of a massive black hole in M87.  Earlier
Hubble observations had suggested its presence, and spectrographic
measurements of rotation velocities now appear to have confirmed it.
"If it's not a black hole, it's something stranger."

Also found:  a pair of glowing rings of gas surrounding Supernova 1987A,
well outside the smaller ring seen earlier.  The new rings are not
centered on the supernova, and their origin is most unclear.

Proton launch from Baikonur May 20 orbits Gorizont 42, one of the Russian
comsats leased to Rimsat.  Rimsat says the entire capacity is already
spoken for.  This is a big boost for Rimsat (which uses orbital positions
leased from Tonga), and also a boost to NPO-PM, the satellite builders,
who badly need the hard currency Rimsat is paying.  Rimsat says it is
happy with the Russian satellites and that they are meeting all their
specs, and that despite difficulties, it is happy doing business with
the Russians.

Russian managers say that problems are starting to appear in commercial
deals because most Russian companies now want 100% payment in advance
before delivery.  Rimsat is coping, but Intelsat's contract for an
Express satellite appears to have died -- Intelsat put down only a
small deposit, which wasn't enough to get results and is being returned.

STEP-2, launched by Pegasus May 19, is in a lower orbit than intended.
It was supposed to go into a 450nmi circular orbit, but ended up in a
325x443nmi elliptical orbit.  The apogee -- supplied by the Pegasus third
stage -- is within specs, but it looks like OSC's little fourth stage,
the HAPS, didn't do quite the full circularizing burn.  There was no
live telemetry coverage of the burn, and there is some concern about whether
some data recorded on board will be retrievable.  Impact to STEP-2 is still
being assessed, although there will be some degradation of its results.
STEP-2 itself appears healthy.  HAPS was used for the flight because the
payload was just a little too heavy for a standard Pegasus to lift into
that orbit.

HAPS has been used only once before, in the 1991 flight which also did not
achieve quite the desired orbit (although that time the problem was blamed
on first-stage separation anomalies).  There was live telemetry from that
flight, and HAPS appeared to have performed as planned.

Tracking data indicates that the spent HAPS is about 12mi from STEP-2,
which suggests that separation and a small separation maneuver by HAPS
were performed normally.  This indicates that HAPS was still sane and
still had fuel.  The low perigee represents a performance shortfall for
HAPS of 10-15%.  The investigation will not affect near-future Pegasus
launches, none of which is slated to use HAPS.

TRW prepares its fourth "Eagle" lightsat, carrying a NASA ozone mapper,
for July launch on a Pegasus XL.  Apart from ozone monitoring, the FAA
is also participating, since the ozone mapper can also detect sulfur
dioxide, and sulfur dioxide from volcanic eruptions is strongly correlated
with volcanic-ash plumes that are hazardous to aircraft.  Tracking the
ash plumes with weather-satellite images is difficult, but the sulfur
dioxide is very conspicuous in ozone-mapper images... although the FAA
would prefer 10km resolution rather than the 50km of the current mapper.
This satellite, TOMS-EP, is also being watched as a test case for single-
instrument missions.  Multi-instrument missions are cheaper per instrument,
and coordinated observations can be helpful, but a dedicated satellite
avoids the compromises in choice of orbit and management of power which
have limited operation of earlier ozone mappers.

UN sanctions-enforcement teams in what's left of Yugoslavia are using
satellite communications to send freight documents that smugglers often
alter.  Also in use are still video cameras hooked to Inmarsat C transceivers,
placed on barges to spot unauthorized stops.  Soon to be tried are "tag"
devices that record the route followed by a truck, using data from a GPS
receiver.

Editorial calling for ongoing research on the dynamics of large solid
rocket motors, citing recent failures and suggesting that some successful
Titan IV flights may have been on the edge of failure.  AW&ST specifically
suggests that it would be worth recovering a spent Titan SRB for analysis.
-- 
SMASH!  "Sayy... I *liked* that window."| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"I enjoyed it too!"  "Hmph!  Some hero!"|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 12-JUL-1994 18:34:58.93
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from June 6 AW&ST

[Lest we forget, in working up to the 25th anniversary of Apollo 11:  this
is also a sadder anniversary.  Today, 11 July, is the 15th anniversary of
the fall of Skylab.]

[Aviation Week & Space Technology subscription address is 1221 Ave. of
the Americas, New York NY 10020 USA.  Subscriber service (800)525-5003,
International (609)426-7070.  Rates depend on whether you're
"qualified" or not, which basically means whether you look at the ads
for cruise missiles out of genuine commercial or military interest, or
just out of curiosity.  Best ask for a "qualification card" and try to
get the cheap rate.  US rate is $82 qualified, higher for unqualified.
It's weekly, it's thicker than Time or Newsweek, and most of it has nothing
to do with space, so consider whether the price is worth it to you.]

Letter from John Lemay, inquiring why the USAF is spending a bundle on
the Titan SRB upgrade when the new SRBs cost twice as much, the old ones
are good enough for almost all Titan missions, and people are working hard
to get payloads off Titan altogether.

William H. Pickering, ex-director of JPL, gets the Japan Prize.

The Hubble-repair team gets the Collier Trophy.

Russian military eavesdropping satellite goes into the water after a
launch failure from Plesetsk.  Cosmos 2281 was originally listed as a
successful Cyclone launch, but was later admitted to have been a failure
due to third-stage problems.  The Kettering group identified it as an
eavesdropping satellite based on the orbital inclination indicated by
the impact area.

FAA cancels development work on the Microwave Landing System, in favor of
development of GPS-based precision approach technology.

Russians and JPL meet to consider joint Mars exploration, in the wake of
the official admission that Mars 94 and 96 will each slip two years.
Under consideration are a joint orbiter in 1998 (combining hardware from
the Russian Mars 96 orbiter and the US Mars Surveyor program) and fitting
the Russian 1998 rover with a McDonnell Douglas arm, a JPL mini-rover,
and German and Italian surface instruments.

Also being proposed is splitting Mars 94 into two missions, with some
international funding for the second.  The original Mars 94 orbiter was
to carry two landers and two penetrators, but the 1996 launch opportunity
is not as good and it won't all fit.  With two orbiters, it might be
possible to add a third lander, and to carry extra fuel to maneuver
one orbiter into an orbit better suited to data relay.

DoD and NASA examining using Clementine 2 to land a miniature lunar rover,
using BMDO's LEAP interceptor as a lander.  This appears to be politically
and technically better than using LEAP as an asteroid-impact probe, as
earlier proposed.  The USAF Phillips Lab recently flew a demonstration at
their National Hover Test Facility at Edwards, with a LEAP making a soft
landing and deploying a 1kg video-carrying rover on simulated lunar terrain.
[A videotape of this test was shown at the International Space Development
Conference last month.]  This mission would involve more NASA participation,
and more industrial contracting, than Clementine 1.  It would space-test
chlorine pentafluoride as a storable oxidizer, and would also test new
electronics and composite structures.

Clementine 2 supporters are pushing the idea to Congress and the White House
as an appropriate way to mark the 25th anniversary of Apollo 11.

Atlantis returns to KSC 29 May after its overhaul.  It will fly an extended-
duration Earth-sciences mission in Oct, followed by several flights to Mir.
(It was equipped to carry a Mir docking system, to be delivered by RKA later
this year.)

OSC reaches preliminary agreement to buy Fairchild Space & Defense Group
from Matra, nearly doubling OSC's size and greatly improving its satellite-
building capabilities.  Payment will be part cash and part OSC stock, making
Matra a major shareholder (and the largest foreign one) in OSC.  OSC is
particularly hoping that Fairchild's satellite-construction facilities
will make it easier to build 24 more Orbcomm satellites in the next year.

STEP-2 appears healthy despite its lower-than-intended orbit, and the USAF
is hoping to get the full planned data return.  Meanwhile, OSC is trying
to figure out why the Pegasus fourth stage didn't perform properly, not
helped by serious difficulties encountered in reading the downlinked data
from the on-board telemetry recorder.
-- 
SMASH!  "Sayy... I *liked* that window."| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"I enjoyed it too!"  "Hmph!  Some hero!"|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	DECPA::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 27-JUL-1994 12:57:51.07
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from June 13 AW&ST

[My, no sooner caught up than I fall behind again... oh well.]

Mayo Foundation researchers develop a 0.8cuin GPS receiver, weighing
under 0.5oz and consuming 1.3W of power, for specialized applications.
(That's without display, keyboard, antenna, or power pack.)  The work
was funded by ARPA and done partly by Motorola.  Accuracy is 100m, and
differential GPS could be used.  The design could be refined to reduce
power consumption further.

House Appropriations NASA budget is relatively generous, $14G, only
$240M of cuts and broad leeway given as to where (reduction of shuttle
flight rate suggested).  Station fully funded.

Senate Appropriations committee, on the other hand, is hinting strongly
that Dan Goldin should decide which one to drop:  AXAF or Cassini.
He's balking.

FAA abandons plans to deploy the Microwave Landing System, preferring to
pursue GPS development instead.  There is a small problem in that MLS
*is* the international standard replacement for the current ILS, and not
everyone thinks it should be bypassed.  The FAA wants to see DGPS endorsed
as an alternative to MLS... but one objective of the original MLS effort
was to have *one* standard system for all international airports.  Some
think the decision premature, given that the issue of wide-area DGPS
corrections is not yet resolved and DGPS does not yet meet the official
specs for severe-weather landing aids.  The British reaction, in particular,
reportedly is "not at our airports, where we're held responsible for safe
operations".

The FAA points out that if it does need MLS systems to meet international
obligations, it can buy them from suppliers in Britain, Canada, or Germany
without having to fund development.

A possible contributing factor in all this is that a large fraction of the
market for MLS systems has definitely been taken over by GPS already.
The big MLS market was not major international airports, but smaller ones,
especially in mountainous areas, where leveling of the approach-path
terrain for ILS was infeasible or too costly.  DGPS definitely does
everything those airports need -- approaches in poor (as opposed to truly
bad) weather -- at much lower cost.

FAA issues RFP for its Wide Area Augmentation System, to start operations
in 1997, providing GPS satellite-health data and (preferably) wide-area
DGPS corrections via comsats.  The FAA is also talking to aviation authorities
elsewhere about standardizing signal formats etc.  The FAA hopes to discontinue
operation of about 900 ILS systems now used for poor-weather approaches at
minor airports, freeing up ILS frequencies for more bad-weather approach
routes at major airports (in case improvements to DGPS cannot meet full
bad-weather specs).

NASA picks the winners in its smallsat competition:  CTA and TRW.  Each
will build and fly a small Earth-imaging satellite within two years, using
innovative technology.  Congress, however, is making unhappy noises about
the deletion of a requirement that industry supply some of the funding.
NASA says that industry was unwilling to share costs when results could
not be kept confidential, and notes that the companies are investing some
money in the technologies they're using; the Congressional reaction is
"[we] know what real cost sharing is and this doesn't appear to have much".

A more serious criticism, levelled particularly at the CTA bird, is that
the program is subsidizing specific companies in the commercial remote-sensing
market.  The CTA bird will fly a high-resolution imager identical to the
ones that will fly on two satellites CTA is building as a commercial venture.
CTA's response is that it will buy the satellite back from NASA after a year
in orbit.  [This idea got a chilly reception at NASA.]

Both the CTA and TRW birds will incorporate on-board image editing to remove
clouds and replace them with later data.  Both will also have a number of
new technologies, including GPS attitude determination and solid-state data
recorders.  The TRW bird will do 30m imaging in 384 spectral channels, plus
5m panchromatic imaging.  The CTA bird will do 3m panchromatic and 15m
multispectral imaging.  Both will have assorted secondary payloads and
minor technology experiments (e.g., non-pyrotechnic release devices on the
CTA bird).

OSC prepares for the first Pegasus XL launch.  The XL has a 24% stretch
of the first stage and a 30% stretch of the second, boosting payload 60%
(750lb instead of 470lb into a 400nmi equatorial orbit) at a small cost
increase.  This will also be the first launch from Stargazer, OSC's Tristar.
[Too bad it was a failure.]

Stargazer was acquired used from Air Canada, then sold to a leasing
company and leased back.  [Don't ask me why... some demented feature of
US taxes, probably.]  The Tristar (aka L-1011) was chosen over a 747 or
DC-10 for structural reasons:  the Tristar has a pair of horizontal keel
structures running along the bottom of the fuselage, rather than a single
one on the other aircraft, and it also has an unpressurized hydraulic-service
compartment that sticks up into the pressure hull at a convenient point.
The result was that the Pegasus vertical fin could be accommodated in
the hydraulic service compartment without having to cut into either the
pressure hull or the main fuselage structure, considerably reducing the
cost of modifications.  [Another factor, I suspect, is that airlines are
unloading the out-of-production Tristar to rationalize their fleets, so
secondhand prices are low.]  The Tristar doesn't have quite the B-52's
performance:  launch speed will be similar, but altitude will be slightly
lower, costing a few kilograms of payload.  Rolls-Royce has authorized
brief high-altitude use of "climb" thrust on the engines, to raise launch
altitude somewhat.  The aircraft has been stripped down, including removal
of all passenger seats except a handful in the first-class cabin.

This launch will also be the first use of OSC's new processing facility
at Vandenberg, a refurbished building that can handle 12 launches/yr rather
than the 4/yr of the older Edwards facility.
-- 
SMASH!  "Sayy... I *liked* that window."| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"I enjoyed it too!"  "Hmph!  Some hero!"|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	DECPA::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 27-JUL-1994 15:56:05.32
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from June 20 AW&ST

[Not really space, but what the hell...]  NASA Dryden takes delivery of
four D-21 reconnaissance drones, the unmanned counterpart of the Blackbird.
The surviving D-21s have been in storage at Davis-Monthan since 1971, and
are now being distributed to museums.  NASA has no immediate plans to use
the D-21s, but didn't want to have to retrieve them from museums later if
a use did appear.

Hubble images show many protoplanetary dust disks around stars in the
Orion Nebula.

Martin Marietta announces that most Atlas launcher work will move from
San Diego to MM's Denver facilities, although final assembly will remain
at the USAF-owned plant in San Diego.

Rep. George Brown ends his hesitation and comes out in support of Fredovitch,
after the appropriations subcommittee fully funds NASA science programs.

Picture of the LLV payload fairing in separation tests.

Four-day meeting at JPL discusses joint US-Russian planetary missions.

Russian participation in Pluto Fast Flyby [which is probably essential to
the mission, since Titan IV is too expensive and that leaves only Proton
as a potential launcher] would probably involve a 10-15kg "descent vehicle"
that would fly through Pluto's atmosphere, possibly on an impact trajectory.
Another possibility is use of Russian electric propulsion systems.

Mars was high on the agenda, with specific emphasis on doing something in
1998.  The current notion is that Russia provides a Proton launch, an
upper stage, and a "Mars 96" lander, while the US provides either an
orbiter or a separate US lander.  JPL sees the US part of this as crucially
dependent on funding of the 1996 Mars Surveyor flight, and says that the
US part will be conducted within the Mars Surveyor program and budget.

OSC unveils Taurus 2 [which actually has almost nothing in common with
Taurus -- it's LLV by another name].  It would carry Delta/Titan2 payloads,
and would fly in 1996-1997.  OSC will enter it in NASA's "Med-Lite"
launcher competition, whose RFP is expected this autumn.  OSC says it will
fund Taurus 2 development privately if enough launch orders can be had.
T2 first stage is a Castor 120, second stage is another C120, third stage
is a liquid-fuel stage using a pair of the Aestus 27.8kN engines DASA is
building for Ariane 5's upper stage.  Basic payload is 2300kg into 185km
28.5deg.  This can be expanded by adding Castor 4 strap-ons, up to a
maximum of 8, which gives 5000kg (or 1840kg into GTO, using a Star 48 kick
motor).  OSC plans to duplicate Delta's payload interfaces, including the
dynamic envelope of the Delta 10ft fairing.  Prices will be "competitive".
T2 would be compatible with the launch pad being built at Vandenberg by
the California Commercial Spaceport group.
-- 
SMASH!  "Sayy... I *liked* that window."| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"I enjoyed it too!"  "Hmph!  Some hero!"|  [email protected]  utzoo!henry

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Andrew Yee, Science North"  
        1-AUG-1994 04:14:31.52
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Langley's space-related projects make news this year

[Extracted from the May 20 issue (Vol. 8, Issue 10) of RESEARCHER NEWS, 
Langley Research Center.]

LANGLEY'S SPACE-RELATED PROJECTS MAKE NEWS THIS YEAR
By Catharine G. Schauer

Langley space-related projects are making the headlines this calendar 
year, as researchers see the results of their efforts flying on a Shuttle or 
gaining recognition in a variety of ways as on-going projects.

MAPS, the Latest

MAPS (Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites), which calculates 
the global distribution of carbon monoxide in the free troposphere, flew 
on Shuttle Endeavour April 9.  Because of MAPS' previous flights on-
board Shuttle, Earth system scientists now know that carbon monoxide 
concentrations in the troposphere are highly variable around the planet, 
and that widespread agricultural burning in the South American Amazon 
region and the African savannas are major global source of carbon 
monoxide in the troposphere.

During the two dedicated Earth Observing Space Shuttle missions, in 
April and mid-August, MAPS will measure the distribution of carbon 
monoxide in the middle troposphere to evaluate CO sources and 
chemistry as well as evaluate the seasonal variation of this key 
atmospheric trace gas.  Interpretation of data will help scientists 
understand the consequence of human activities in global climate change.

LITE Slated for September

Langley is preparing to launch its Lidar In-Space Technology Experiment 
(LITE) in September 1994 aboard STS-64, Discovery.  The project will 
detect stratospheric and tropospheric aerosols, probe the planetary 
boundary layer and measure cloud top heights.  Lidar (light detection 
and ranging) is a remote sensing technique which can be used to study 
clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere with very high vertical resolution.  
Lidar is similar to radar except that very short pulses of light produced by 
a laser are used instead of radio frequency pulses.  The LITE mission is 
the first time lidar will be operated in space to study the atmosphere.

The LITE system,developed by Langley, is a testbed for the development 
of technology required for future operational spaceborne lidars.  It 
employs a three wavelength Nd:YAG laser and a one-meter-diameter 
collecting telescope.  LITE data will also be useful in improving current 
spaceborne sensor measurement retrieval algorithms and in developing 
parameters of these atmospheric phenomena for use in global climate 
models.

New information which LITE will provide on the distribution and 
characteristics of clouds will increase America's understanding of its role 
in the global climate system.  LITE will also provide information on 
aerosols in the atmosphere derived from both human and natural activity.  
Millions of tons of particulates are suspended in the atmosphere as a 
result of activities such as biomass burning, volcanic eruptions, wind 
erosion and the use of internal combustion engines.  These aerosols are 
currently believed to have the potential to reduce the extent of 
greenhouse warming experienced by Earth.  LITE will help study the 
distribution and sources of these particulates.

HALOE Still Flying

Langley continues to manage the Halogen Occultation Experiment 
(HALOE) aboard the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS).  
HALOE is obtaining high resolution (2-3 km) measurements of the 
vertical distributions of ozone, key trace gases (HCl, HF, NO, NO2, CH4, 
and H2O), aerosols and temperature that will provide a better 
understanding of the chemistry and dynamics of the middle atmosphere. 
The experiment is unique in that measurements of HF (whose only 
source is chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs), taken simultaneously with HCl (a 
measure of the stratospheric chlorine), permit differences of the 
anthropogenic contribution of chlorine from that due to natural sources 
(chlorine is a major catalyst in the destruction of ozone).

ERBE and SAGE

Ongoing Langley activities include the Earth Radiation Budget 
Experiment (ERBE) and the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment II 
(SAGE II).  ERBE non-scanner radiometer measuring total and shortwave 
solar energy continue to be operational on the Earth Radiation Budget 
Satellite, which was launched in 1984, and on two NOAA operational 
satellites launched in 1984 and 1986.  These data are important in 
advancing our understanding of the Earth's radiation balance and in 
studying large-scale climate anomalies such as El Ninos and volcanic 
eruptions.

OARE Preapres for Reflights

Langley's OARE (Orbital Acceleration Research Experiment) measures 
drag forces in orbit and during early stages of re-entry into the 
atmosphere.  It flew on its fourth mission in March 1994.  OARE can 
measure absolute acceleration levels to an accuracy never before 
achievable on the orbiter. The measurements will be used to predict 
aerodynamic and other forces on future missions.  Another OARE 
mission is planned in 1994 on Columbia, where the experiment will be 
adapted to support Shuttle International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-2) 
research.

The Orbiter Experiments Program (OEX), which began in the 1970s, had 
its first Shuttle flight in 1981, and concluded with the OARE experiment 
on STS-58 in 1993.  It used the Shuttle as a testbed to measure orbiter 
aerodynamic performance during flight.  OEX flight data have enabled 
NASA to validate its aerothermodynamic design methods for shuttle-
class hypersonic vehicles.  These methods include new, hypersonic wind 
tunnel testing techniques and state-of-the-art computational fluid 
dynamics (CFD).

In an effort to develop a less costly launch system for use to and from the 
Space Station, Langley is working on designs for access to space.  The 
study, conducted under the auspices of NASA Headquarters, examined 
three launch system options that would provide the nation's required 
payload delivery capability until 2030.  The first option looked at 
upgrading the Shuttle, the second examined a conventional technology 
expendable launch vehicle and the third studied the potential of applying 
advance technology to reusable launch vehicle design.  Langley was 
active in the development of the second and third options.  The Access-
to-Space study concluded that current launch operations costs could be 
reduced by designing a new, operationally efficient launch system with 
advanced technologies.  Studies in this area are underway to refine the 
cost and sensitivities models to allow more refined technology trade 
studies.

The Durable LDEF

The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) was a reusable, unmanned 
spacecraft designed to accommodate a wide variety of technology and 
science experiments that required long-term exposure to a low-Earth 
orbit environment.  It was designed and built by Langley to be 
transported into orbit via the Space Shuttle, fly free and stable for an 
extended period of time and be retrieved by Shuttle for return to Earth.  
LDEF, which spent five and one-half years aloft, transporting 57 
experiments into space.  It also focused on the evolution of galaxies and 
the impact of radiation on those who might someday live in space.

The LDEF's archive system is being developed to contain all LDEF-
derived space environments and effects data, photographs, publications 
and hardware.  It will be expanded in the future to include space 
environments and effects data from other sources.  The system will be 
available to the public via Internet in December 1994.

The LDEF structure was disassembled at Langley and shipped in early 
May to Kennedy Space Center.  There it will be reassembled and placed 
on permanent display at Spaceport U.S.A.  The opening of the display is 
tentatively scheduled for 1995.

From:	US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Andrew Yee, Science North"  
        1-AUG-1994 04:14:54.17
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	1994 Pacific exploratory mission completes phase B data gathering

[Extracted from the May 20 issue (Vol. 8, Issue 10) of RESEARCHER 
NEWS, Langley Research Center.]

1994 PACIFIC EXPLORATORY MISSION COMPLETES PHASE B DATA GATHERING

Langley scientists have once again played a major role in assessing 
human impact on chemical processes in the atmosphere over the 
western Pacific Ocean.

As overall project manager, Jim Hoell, Atmospheric Sciences Division, 
headed a team of international scientists during a six-week expedition to 
conduct a wide range of measurements over the Pacific Ocean as part of 
the second phase of the NASA Pacific Exploratory Mission-West (PEM-
West).  The mission, which returned from the field in March, was a major 
component of the East Asia/North Pacific Regional Study (APARE), part 
of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGBP) Program.  
PEM-West expeditions are part of NASA's ongoing Global Tropospheric 
Experiment (GTE), which, since the early 1980s, has conducted similar 
field expeditions over many of the important ecosystems of the world.  
Program manager for the GTE is Dr. Robert McNeal of NASA 
Headquarters.

Why the Pacific?

Hoell noted that the Pacific Ocean is one of the few remaining region of 
the world that, to date, is relatively clean.  This region, however, is 
bordered upwind by Asia, a densely populated continent that is 
becoming increasingly industrialized.  The impact of Asian human activity 
on the chemical processes over western Pacific Ocean is the focus of 
studies by scientists from the western Pacific rim countries and the United 
States as part of the PEM-West expedition.

NASA, in cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration (NOAA), universities and government agencies in Hong 
Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the Peoples Republic of China and Japan, 
is leading this experiment as part of the Agency's continuing role in the 
assessment of global atmospheric chemistry.  Langley participants 
include scientists, technicans and support personnel from the 
Atmospheric Sciences Division, the Flight Electronics Division, and the 
Operations Support Division as well as Science Applications 
International Corp., Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Co. and 
Science and Technology Corporation.  This latest expedition was the 
second phase of a multi-year study.  Phase A of PEM-West was 
conducted in September to October 1991, a period of the year 
characterized by minimum outflow from the Asian continent and strong 
connective activity over the Pacific Ocean.  The recent Phase B period of 
data gathering was during a period characterized by maximum outflow 
from the continent.  The Phase A measurements will serve as a baseline 
to help gauge the relative contribution of natural verseus human activities 
on the atmospheric budget of carbon, nitrogen, ozone, sulfur and aerosols.

1991 Results

The results from the 1991 expedition, to be published in the Journal of 
Geophysical Research-Atmospheres show that transport of man-made 
pollutants from Asia is already having an impact on the atmosphere over 
the Pacific.  One unexpected finding was the observation of elevated 
concentrations of sulfur dioxide and sulfate in upper tropospheric air that 
had been influenced by downward transport of stratospheric air.  This 
finding may have a significant implication on the formation of aerosol and 
cloud condensation nuclei in the free troposphere.

Hoell noted that one of the "high" points of the 1991 mission was a flight 
into the upper regions of Mireille, one of the most intense typhoons to 
strike Japan in the past decade.  Measurements during this unique 
opportunity have resulted in new estimates of the ability of typhoons to 
transport soluable trace gases, normally found only within one to two 
kilometers of the Earth's surface, into the upper troposphere.

During the 1991 and, particularly, the 1994 expedition, industrial 
emissions from as far away as Europe and, possibly, North America were 
detected in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of kilometers from 
their parent source.  Scientists aboard the NASA DC-8 during the most 
recent mission were surprised by measurements showing elevated 
concentrations of nitrogen oxides over the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Analysis of the measurements from this region will focus on determining 
the source of these high concentrations.  An intriguing explanation, that 
will be intensely studied over the few months, is that nitric oxide, which is 
known to be produced during electrical activity, was generated in situ by 
intense convective activity within the intertropical convergence zone.  An 
alternative explanation is long-range transport of emissions from the 
Asian continent.  An understanding of this phenomena is important for 
understanding the global budget of ozone in the troposphere.

The primary measurement platform for the PEM-West expedition was the 
NASA DC-8 aircraft which is based at Ames Research Center, Moffett 
Field, Calif.  The aircraft carried instrumentation developed by scientists 
from U.S. and Japanese universities and several NASA centers.  During 
the most recent mission, 17 flights were conducted from Guam, Hong 
Kong and Japan.  Another aircraft carrying instrumentation developed by 
Japanese scientists from the University of Toyko and the Japanese 
Institute of Environmental Sciences conducted measurements 
coordinated with those of the NASA aircraft.

Ground Stations Used

Ground stations provided a set of measurements during the same time 
period the aircraft were active.  Stations were located on several remote 
Pacific islands, the eastern coast of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and 
Hong Kong.  A network of ground-based lidar systems in Japan have 
also made collaborative observations of the Asian dust storms prevalent 
during the February to April time frame.  Many of these stations have 
remained active after the aircraft departed, providing a longer term of 
study of selected chemicals.

An important factor contributing to the day-to-day success of the 
expedition's flight planning, and to post-mission analysis, is 
meteorological data.  During both Phase A and B, the Royal Observatory 
in Hong Kong served as the meteorological data center.  Local 
forecasting was also provided by the U.S. Air Force meteorological 
facilities in Guam and Japan.  The Royal Observatory was the central 
point for receiving a wide arrary of up-to-the-minute meteorological data 
which was then transmitted to the mission meteorologists stationed with 
the DC-8 aircraft.  More meteorological data was also transmitted to the 
aircraft location from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from 
Langley.

"The PEM-West expedition illustrates the international collaboration that 
has become increasingly important in studying the impact of human 
activities on the global environment," Hoell said.  Results from Phase A 
will be reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres 
early next year.  The first data workshop to review measurements from 
Phase B is scheduled for early November.

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 11-AUG-1994 01:08:42.43
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from June 27 AW&ST

[A heavy news week, with some particularly interesting items.]

First attempt to launch STEP-1, by Pegasus XL dropped from OSC's Tristar,
scrubbed June 23 when a stabilizer locking pin fails to retract during the
final countdown.

NASA names "Hoot" Gibson, its head astronaut, to command the first Mir-docking
shuttle mission in mid-1995.

Development of the new lighter external tank hits snags:  two review panels
report weight growth, problems with aluminum-lithium alloy production, and
difficulties with the new structural design, and also raise questions about
the decision not to reserve the first new tank as a structural-test article.
Martin Marietta says the situation is under control and the project's goals
can still be met; others are less sure.  JSC says the 12klb payload boost --
to be done with the new tank, filament-wound SRB casings, and clearing the
SSMEs to run at 106% of their nominal power rather than 104% -- can still
be achieved, but much of the weight reserve is gone and it's still early.

A related headache is that the shuttle airlock has gained weight, partly
due to Russian avionics and partly due to "structures miscalculation".
Shuttle managers wanted to charge the 1200lb weight overrun against the
space-station weight reserve, but the reserve is only 1800lb and the
station managers don't want to see 2/3 of their reserve eaten up when
much of their own hardware isn't built yet.

There are things NASA could do to boost performance further if the reserves
aren't enough:  authorize use of the main engines at 110% [before Challenger,
there was talk of doing 120% eventually], delete the recovery systems on
the SRBs, or tighten shuttle launch windows to minimize propellant reserves.
All of these have their own problems.

US and Russia sign interim agreement on station cooperation, plus that $400M
contract for shuttle-Mir operations in the next four years.  Russia still
says it is firmly committed to the program, and will go it alone if the
US decides "to abandon us".

NASA thinks it has backup plans in place in case Russia does fail to deliver.
Of note is a decision to buy, rather than lease, the Salyut FGB tugs; the
Lockheed Bus-1 would also be available as a backup (although it's hard to
sort out the cost, because the hardware already exists and NASA isn't sure
how much it would have to pay the unnamed government agency that owns it).

Congressional station battle looms.  [As usual, I'll skip details of stuff
like this that is already history by the time I write the summary.]

Both NASA and RKA are concerned about details of station cooperation.  NASA
is uneasy about the friction between RKA and NPO Energia (which will be doing
much of the work), and is worried about signs of poor coordination within
Russian space operations.  RKA, in return, is concerned about whether US
technology-transfer paranoia, left over from the Cold War, will drown the
station in paperwork (with accompanying delays), and about how to maintain
effective international cooperation if the US reneges on its commitments
to the station program.

NPO Energia receives Russian government approval for privatization (over
RKA's protests), with the Russian government retaining a controlling interest
for three years.

NASA starts technology work for a next-generation reusable launcher --
nominally, but not necessarily, an SSTO -- with a shower of small study
contracts undertaken on a non-profit basis.  The program will be run by
a new Office of Space Access and Technology, aka Code X, being formed
within NASA.  It will try to emphasize flight demonstrations, including
flights on DC-XA (DC-X after NASA takes it over).  Of note:

- A second-generation testbed for 1997-9, about five times the size of
	DC-X and capable of near-orbital performance.  [That is, SX-2
	by another name and several years late.]

- Decision on horizontal vs. vertical landing deferred.

- Studies of the transition from government to private development, with
	NASA interested in the idea of guaranteeing a certain number of
	flights for a privately-developed operational system.

- McDD to refit DC-X with lightweight tanks (graphite-epoxy LH2, Russian
	aluminum-lithium alloy LOX).

- Various structural test articles and thermal-test articles.

- Aerojet and CADB (Russian firm) to do tripropellant work using CADB's
	existing LOX/LH2 RD-120 as a starting point.

- Rocketdyne to try adding a ring of kerosene-burning chambers exhausting
	into an SSME at a nozzle manufacturing joint.

- Refractory nozzle extensions to try to reduce the need to protect
	engine nozzles from reentry heat.

- Characterization of Russian rocket kerosene, which may be better than
	the US RP-1.

- Miscellaneous minor upgrades to DC-X, including a hydrogen-burning APU
	derived from Buran hardware.

And speaking of DC-X... it's flying again.  Fourth flight on 20 June,
fully fuelled for the first time, reaching higher altitude and doing some
maneuvering to test high angles of attack.  No problems.  Four more flights
are planned, two closely spaced for a rapid-turnaround demo followed by
two more to try the flip maneuver (including the first use of the RCS).
After this, DC-X will go back to McDD for NASA-funded changes, with static
test late next year and further flights (at White Sands) in spring 1996.
[Well, this may change a bit after what happened on the fifth flight.]

Ukrainian space agency pursues international cooperation on various
projects, notably ocean-sensing radar satellites and the Zenit launcher.
They plan to offer Zenit commercial launch services (13t to LEO, 2t to GEO)
and are pursuing air launch [!] of a modified Zenit [with a shortened first
stage, by the looks of it] that could put 9t into LEO or 1t into GEO without
relying on use of Baikonur.  Also under consideration is sea launch of a
three-stage Zenit, perhaps in cooperation with Boeing; a Norwegian firm
specializing in oil platforms is studying the details of a floating pad.
Finally, conversion of some ballistic missiles into small launchers is
being pursued; a demonstration launch of a launcher-configured SS-18
is planned for later this year.

DARA funds a feasibility study of the Russian-proposed Burlak small
air-launched launcher, nominally capable of 1100kg into LEO.  Burlak would
be dropped at supersonic speed from a Blackjack bomber.  OHB System GmbH,
which has been working with the Russians on various things for years, is
doing the study.  Development cost est. $29M, launch cost $5M.  OHB has
in fact been studying air-launch systems in a small way for some time,
including a system dubbed Diana that would use a Concorde as a carrier.

Separately, OHB and Polyot have signed a deal for OHB to market the
Cosmos launcher (1500kg into LEO) in the West.  OHB will also use Cosmos
to launch some of its own Safir mini-comsats.  The first Safir has been
awaiting piggyback launch on a Resurs satellite for some time, and delays
with the Zenit booster and the Resurs main payload are becoming a concern:
OHB could accommodate some delays because the ground stations were not
ready anyway, but now everything is waiting for the satellite to fly.

Aerojet completes tests of a small Russian rocket thruster, intended mostly
as a pathfinder for further cooperation.  R&DIME's LTRE 400N thruster is
noteworthy in one minor respect:  it uses a film of oxidizer, rather than
the film of fuel more usual in the West, for chamber/nozzle cooling.

NASA about to take delivery on a Carnegie-Mellon-built robot to do automated
inspection and maintenance of shuttle tiles.  Tessellator should do a better
job of inspection than humans, because it compares the appearance of each
tile to an image from the previous inspection.  It does only one maintenance
job -- injection of waterproofing compound -- but that is itself significant
because the compound is a hazardous chemical that requires protective gear
for human maintenance workers.

Successful Ariane launch June 17, carrying an Intelsat 7 and a pair of
small British military-research piggyback payloads.  Arianespace is planning
three more launches before the end of July, to start catching up on backlog.
This launch slipped from June 4 due to problems with the LH2 arm on the pad.
The January failure has been traced to inadequate bearing cooling in the
third-stage LOX turbopump, and has been cured by adding a purge line and
a lubricating coating.

Third Ariane 5 SRB firing successful June 20.

Inmarsat selects intermediate-altitude orbits for its Iridium competitor,
with exact constellation layout still being examined.

ISAS officially admits that the M-5 launcher is two years behind schedule
and launch of its early payloads will be delayed.  Little has been revealed
about why, although it is known that the program has had trouble with the
telescoping nozzles for its second and third stages.  Muses-B (VLBI radio
astronomy) will fly in 1996, Lunar-A (three penetrators to the lunar surface)
in 1997, and Planet-B (small Mars orbiter) in 1998.

Japan has also approved three new satellite projects:  ALOS (nee HIROS, an
advanced remote-sensing satellite with 2.5m imaging and a radar), DRTS
(an experimental Clarke-orbit data-relay satellite, to fly before ALOS),
and Astro-E (an "advanced environmental observation" satellite).
-- 
"It was blasphemy that made us free."              |       Henry Spencer
                        -- Leon Wieseltler         |   [email protected]

Article: 6281
From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.news
Subject: Space news from July 4 AW&ST
Date: 23 Aug 1994 07:40:00 -0700
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Sender: [email protected]
 
ISAS successfully test-fires a prototype M-5 first stage June 21, putting
M-5 on track for 1996 operational capability.
 
NRC space-station committee says things are looking up lately, but some
issues still need work, notably slow development of working relationships
with Russian engineering groups.
 
NASA is re-examining Shuttle-Mir mission plans after discovering that the
Russian docking system does not have quite as much redundancy as they'd
thought:  the docking-hook mechanical systems are dual-redundant, and all
the shuttle-side hooks have pyro systems for emergency separation, but
only half the hooks (the ones active on the Mir side) have pyro systems
on the Mir side.  A contributing problem is that NPO Energia is being
slow about supplying performance data on the Russian pyros.  NASA is
examining EVA procedures as an emergency backup, but EVA disconnection
of the docking system would be tedious:  96 bolts.
 
As a further complication, a qualification-test version of the docking
system failed two out of five cold-conditions tests at NPO Energia last
month:  it doesn't react quickly enough to small misalignments during
docking when it's cold.
 
All of this is at an awkward time, because the schedule for getting the
first docking mission -- STS-71 -- off on time is tight already.  For
later missions, some consideration is being given to revising the docking
hardware (on the shuttle side) to simplify EVA disconnection or add another
pyro separation system.
 
House vote firmly rejects station termination.  Clinton and Goldin have
been lobbying hard, and the opposition is starting to lose heart.  The
Senate is still a harder sell, though.
 
Story on experiments planned for the second International Microgravity
Lab mission, set for launch on Columbia this week.
 
Pegasus has its first total launch failure, as the first Pegasus XL is
destroyed by Vandenberg range safety June 27 after drop from OSC's Tristar.
It's bad timing, as Pegasus launch rates were about to ramp up sharply to
try to clear some backlog.  Launch of NASA's APEX payload on a standard
Pegasus -- the last launch planned to use the NASA B-52 -- is still being
prepared for July 7, but in practice it will probably slip at least a few
weeks while the failure is investigated.
 
First hint of trouble was at ignition +35s, when the Pegasus dipped briefly
and an object appeared to fall off, trailing vapor.  Telemetry had been
lost a few seconds earlier, but radar and visual tracking confirmed that
the launcher was still accelerating on about the right path, although weaving
slightly.  It was not initially clear that the telemetry loss was a Pegasus
problem rather than a ground problem.  At about 75s, the launcher began to
lose speed and fall below its nominal trajectory.  Normal first-stage
burnout would be at about 72s; it looks like the first stage performed
roughly as expected but the second stage did not separate or ignite.
 
DC-X lands safely after being damaged by a pre-launch explosion.  The
damage is repairable, but the funding situation is confused.  The problem
appears to have been an unusual accumulation of the hydrogen vented during
engine chilldown.  When the engines lit, the vented hydrogen exploded,
blowing in a section of DC-X's skin.  The launch crew did not notice the
damage, and DC-X made a normal liftoff.  As speed built up, bits of skin
began to fall off, and observers warned Pete Conrad that something was
wrong.  At about 1000ft, Conrad put DC-X into autoland abort mode.  Existing
upward velocity carried DC-X to about 2600ft before it began to descend.
Descent was smooth and stable despite more bits of debris falling off.
DC-X touched down on the gypsum sand -- autoland mode doesn't try for any
particular landing site -- and momentarily disappeared in a dust cloud
raised by the engines.  Apart from the loss of a good bit of skin, damage
looks minimal, and DC-X has enough performance margin to absorb the weight
added by repairing rather than replacing affected components.
 
Telesat Canada reestablishes pointing control over Anik E2, despite loss
of both primary and backup momentum wheels.  TC says this is a unique
accomplishment -- previous such failures have led to abandonment of the
affected satellite -- and it has had inquiries from others interested
in using the technology.  Full commercial service is to be restored by
August, and the estimated loss of useful life due to increased fuel
consumption is about a year.  The satellite is essentially being "flown"
by ground computers now, with its own autonomous attitude-control system
useless.  The tricky part was that Anik has no on-board yaw sensor, since
the defunct momentum wheels normally limited attitude changes on that
axis; ground receivers are measuring shifts in Anik's antenna pattern
to detect yaw changes.
 
Closeup image of Ida's moon shows large craters, indicating that it is
probably as old as Ida itself, maybe a billion years.  There is some
surprise that it has stayed intact and in orbit that long; the theorists
are not happy.  Unfortunately, the moon's orbit cannot be determined
very well, because the available observations are too close together to
get a good measurement of the slow orbital motion.  Orbital period is
about a day, altitude is between 60 and a few hundred km, and the moon
orbits roughly in Ida's equatorial plane.  Its surface spectrum appears
similar but not identical to Ida's, strengthening the theory that it is
a fragment of the same original body but not a piece of Ida itself.
-- 
"It was blasphemy that made us free."              |       Henry Spencer
                        -- Leon Wieseltler         |   [email protected]

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Henry Spencer" 24-AUG-1994 14:15:45.31
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Space news from July 11 AW&ST

[A light week.]

Binariang SDN BHD [don't ask me what all that means...] picks Arianespace
to launch MEASAT-1, Malaysia's first comsat.

Latest Hubble result:  a tentative detection of the long-sought intergalactic
medium, and a measurement of the helium in it (verifying a prediction of the
Big Bang theory), using the Faint Object Camera.

Pratt&Whitney signs cooperative agreement with NASA for test-firing of Russian
tripropellant engine injectors.  The tests will start in Russia, and move to
Marshall next year to get higher operating pressures.  The injectors are the
ones developed by NPO Energomash for the RD-700 series engines, which NASA
is eying for SSTO applications.

Russian satellite image (5m resolution) of North Korea's Taepo-tong missile
test complex.

Spot Image is skeptical of the high-resolution imaging market, saying that
established aerial-photography customers will be reluctant to switch to
satellites and that achieving the same responsiveness will be difficult.
[Well, difficult for Spot Image, anyway... :-)]  Spot sees a continuing
market for its 10m images because of their wide field of view.

Cosmos 2277, a Glonass navsat whose main propulsion system apparently
failed, is nevertheless moving slowly toward its operational orbit.  The
speculation in the West is that it has ion thrusters, meant for stationkeeping
or attitude control, which are being used instead.

New Mir crew goes up July 3, unusual in that it does not include a veteran
cosmonaut.  There may be political reasons:  the number two man, Talgat
Musabayev, is a citizen of Kazakhstan (although also a colonel in the
Russian air force).  The old Mir crew is scheduled to return July 9;
Dr. Valeriy Poliakov will remain aboard for his long-stay mission.

Editorial observing that planetary-science enthusiasm for small satellites
is generally a good thing, but it has problems.  For one thing, it's eroding
support for existing major missions, notably Cassini.  For another, NASA
has yet to demonstrate that its $150M cost cap on Discovery missions will
work in practice, that it will be willing to accept constrained missions
with higher risk of failure, and that it can maintain the higher mission
frequency that convinced the science community to buy into the concept.
-- 
"It was blasphemy that made us free."              |       Henry Spencer
                        -- Leon Wieseltler         |   [email protected]

From:	VERGA::US4RMC::"[email protected]" "Brian Haas"  9-SEP-1994 
To:	distribution:;@us4rmc.pko.dec.com 
CC:	
Subj:	 AIAA Sept. 1994

==========================================================================
|                                                                        |
|                           AEROSPACE RESOURCE                           |
|         ... of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area           |
|                                                                        |
|                           Volume III, Number 1                         |
|                             September, 1994                            |
==========================================================================

AEROSPACE RESOURCE
AIAA San Francisco Section
PO Box 1548, Mountain View, CA 94042-1548

Editors:                                     Contributors:
Dr. Brian L. Haas   (415) 604-1145           Dr. Norman Bergrun
Dr. Gregory Wilson  (415) 604-3472           

Published monthly by the San Francisco Section of the American Institute of 
Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) to inform government, membership, and the 
general public of developments in the aerospace field with direct impact upon 
Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area.  All material is 
excerpted from established publications.  AIAA is the non-profit 
professional society of aerospace engineers, scientists, and managers with 
1,800 members locally. 

EMAIL inquiries or to be on mailing list:  [email protected]
=============================================================================

Lockheed, Martin Marietta Announce Merger

Lockheed Corp. and Martin Marietta Corp., the nation's second 
and third largest defense contractors, disclosed on August 29 
an agreement to merge the two companies.  The merger will 
involve a stock swap valued at $10 billion and create a 
company with 170,000 employees and $23 billion is annual 
sales.  The new company would control about 20 percent of the 
U.S. defense spending, and would have twice the defense sales 
of its nearest competitor, McDonnell Douglas.  

This merger is by far the largest in a series of successively 
larger defense industry combinations, including several by 
these two companies.  Lockheed acquired General Dynamics' 
Fort Worth jet fighter division and Sanders Associates, a 
large defense electronics supplier.  Martin acquired General 
Electric's defense business, which had previously swallowed 
up RCA's satellite business.  Lockheed's Calabasas 
headquarters will be dismantled, and the new company, to be 
called "Lockheed Martin", will be based at Martin Marietta's 
current headquarters in Bethesda, Md.  Lockheed chairman and 
CEO Daniel M. Tellup will head the new company initially, 
after which Martin Chairman Norman R. Augustine will take 
over.  Lockheed's Missiles and Space Company (Sunnyvale, CA), 
with about 11,500 workers, is the second-largest employer in 
Santa Clara County.
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, August 18, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

Trimble Supplies Municipal Systems

Trimble Navigation Ltd. (Sunnyvale, CA) will supply the 
satellite navigation ground equipment for two major vehicle-
tracking projects for public agencies in Chicago and 
Baltimore.  Trimble received a subcontract from PRC Public 
Sector Inc. (McLean, VA) to provide vehicle tracking and 
geographic information systems for a Chicago Police emergency 
response project.  Trimble also received a subcontract from 
Westinghouse Electronic Systems Group (Baltimore, MD) for the 
Baltimore Mass Transit Administration's communications and 
vehicle-tracking project.  Both systems will use the U.S. 
Defense Department's Global Positioning System satellites.  
The equipment will allow Chicago authorities to track 
emergency vehicles and Baltimore transit officials to monitor 
city buses.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 32, Aug. 15-28, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

Firm to Construct Singapore Sensing Center

DPS, a joint venture formed in August 1993 by two California 
firms, has been awarded a $7.3 million contract to design, 
build, and install a remote-sensing center for the National 
University of Singapore.  Datron/Transco (Simi Valley, CA) 
will build a 42-foot antenna for the planned Center for 
Remote Imaging, Design, and Processing.  International 
Imaging Systems Inc. (Milpitas, CA) will provide hardware and 
software for retrieval and processing of satellite imagery.  
The facility is scheduled for completion in  September 1995 
and will be able to receive and process data from the 
Canadian Radarset, European ERS-1, French SPOT, and future 
imaging satellites.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 32, Aug. 15-28, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

World View Gets Investment Partner

An Italian corporation involved in satellite information, 
Telespazio, has agreed to invest $12 million into  World View 
Imaging Corporation (Livermore, CA) as a partner in the 
attempt to build satellites for commercial photography.  
World View gained publicity last year when it became the 
first company to gain a license from the U.S. Department of 
Commerce for high-resolution photography rivaling that of 
some spy satellites.  World View's camera technology was 
derived from "star wars" research.  
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, August 18, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

Ames Hunts Lymes Ticks with Satellites

Scientists at NASA Ames Research Center (Mountain View, CA) 
are using satellite imagery combined with computerized maps 
to detect populated areas with a high risk of Lyme disease 
transmission.  Research has focused on suburban areas of New 
York's Westchester County.  Lyme disease is transmitted to 
people by infected deer ticks.  Ames is working to determine 
if satellite imagery will be useful in identifying communi-
ties or individual properties at greatest risk from the 
disease.  Ames scientists compared data from the Landsat 
thematic mapper and computerized maps with results of from a 
study of Lymes antibodies in dogs in the county.  They found 
a significant correlation between the dogs' exposure rate and 
the proportion of vegetated residential areas located next to 
woods.  Now the Ames team is taking a closer look at two 
county communities to determine whether they can predict the 
prevalence of ticks carrying Lyme disease near individual 
properties.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 32, Aug. 15-28, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

NASA Budget in Congressional Limbo

House and Senate leaders planned to meet in August to work 
out a common spending bill that includes 1995 funding for 
NASA.   For NASA, the House recently approved $14 billion for 
NASA while the Senate approved $14.4 billion with $400 
million slated for future spending on wind tunnels.  Congress 
failed to complete the bill, however, because of disagreement 
over housing provisions in the same legislation which have no 
relation to NASA.  The conference was postponed until the 
housing provisions are sorted out.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, Nos. 31-32, Aug. 8-28, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

Lockheed LLV-1 Prototype Ready

Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. (Sunnyvale, CA) unveiled the 
prototype model of its new Lockheed Launch Vehicle (LLV-1) 
after stacking and engineering tests were recently completed 
at Vandenburg AFB.  The two-stage LLV-1, scheduled for it 
first launch in November, is designed to loft a one-ton 
payload into low Earth orbit, but will carry only a 300-pound 
communications satellite built by CTA Space Systems (McClean, 
VA) on the first mission.  Flight hardware is scheduled to 
begin arriving at Vandenburg in September.  The solid rocket 
and its payload are being developed by the companies without 
government funding and could become the first all-commercial 
launch to occur from Vandenburg.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 30, Aug. 1-7, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

California Lobbies for New Wind Tunnels

California leaders hope to bring a $2.5 billion wind-tunnel 
complex to NASA Ames Research Center (Mountain View, CA).  
The Project has yet to receive final approval from the White 
House and Congress, but it has prompted fierce competition 
among states and intense lobbying by the aerospace industry.  
In California, under the leadership of the Bay Area Economic 
Forum, a bipartisan coalition of federal and state politi-
cians, business representatives and labor leaders will spend 
$160,000 on its lobbying efforts over a two year period.  
Several local cities, including San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain 
View, Sunnyvale, Redwood City, and Millbrae have contributed 
money to the campaign.  

Earlier this year, Congress allocated $74 million to begin 
design work on the wind tunnels.  The Senate, meanwhile, has 
earmarked $400 million for the tunnels in its budget appropriations 
for 1995 now begin debated in a conference committee.

The two proposed wind-tunnels would provide an estimated 
1,000 construction jobs over a five year period.  Upon 
completion, they would provide 200 permanent jobs, a $10 
million to $40 million annual operating budget, and 400 
support jobs at related industries.  

In April, NASA announced that it may shut down existing wind-
tunnels once the new ones are built.  Local officials are 
concerned that two of the existing 16 tunnels at Ames could 
be closed and up to 400 people laid off if the new tunnels 
are built elsewhere.  

Congress has killed several large science megaprojects 
recently, so aircraft manufacturers are lobbying heavily for 
this project.  The U.S. Share of the worldUs commercial 
aircraft market has dropped from 85 percent two decades ago 
to 60 percent today.  Most tunnels in the U.S. are 30-40 
years old.  There hasnUt been a major wind-tunnel built in 
the U.S. for 15 years.  During that time, however, five new 
tunnels have been built in Europe and a sixth will open later 
this year in Germany.  

California officials argue that NASA Ames would be a natural 
spot for the new tunnels, and would soften the blow resulting 
from recent defense spending cuts.  But the state has several 
obstacles to overcome, including high energy and labor costs, 
concerns about water availability, and the perception that 
the state has a maze of time-consuming red-tape.  PG&E has 
offered to provide power at highly competitive rates.  At 
maximum operation, the tunnels would use 500 megawatts of 
electricity, enough for a city of 500,000 people.  The state 
most often mentioned as CaliforniaUs chief competitor is 
Tennessee, Vice President GoreUs home state, where the 
Tennessee Valley Authority has lower electricity rates.  
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, Sept. 4, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

Stanford Grad's Seeds Grow on Shuttle

Flying on the most recent flight of space shuttle Endeavor 
were 50 tomato, turnip, and cucumber seeds.  After eight 
years of testing and designing, the seeds will be allowed to 
grow for five days in space, watered by an automatic pump, 
and heated by a one-inch-square heating strip designed by 
Teddy Johnson, a 1993 Stanford University engineering gradu-
ate.  Seeds that grew in microgravity may help to explain why 
plant roots grow down but leaves and stems don't.  The 
project will also sample what gases the tiny seeds emit.  A 
similar experiment a decade ago failed because the test seeds 
froze to death, leading Johnson to devise the small heater to 
maintain temperatures at 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit.  
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, August 18, 1994.  

------------------------------------------------------------

THAAD Launch Test

Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) has 
conducted a hot launch of the Theater High Altitude Area 
Defense (Thaad) test vehicle.  The successful launch provided 
a full-up missile launch verification and demonstrated the 
missiles' aft-end aerodynamic flare, a conical metal 
structure which provides stability during flight.  The 
simulated hot launch involved boosting the missile from its 
canister to a 150-200 ft altitude using a short burn test 
motor.  The evaluation was considered a significant milestone 
in reparation for first flight of a Thaad missile which could 
occur in January, 1995.  The Thaad team includes Lockheed, as 
prime contractor; the Chemical Systems Div. of United 
Technologies; and Westinghouse Marine Division.  Thaad is 
designed to be the upper tier of a two-tier missile defense 
system with the capability of intercepting theater ballistic 
missiles at long range.  The current demonstration/evaluation 
program is budgeted at $689-million and runs through 1996.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, August 8, 22, and 29 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

Sierra College Hardware on Shuttle

Sierra College, a small community college in Northern 
California, will send a camera and spectrometer on the next 
flight of space shuttle Discovery to test how well the 
instruments operate in space.  Funding for the program 
amounts to $440,000 over a three-year period and is provided 
by ARPA's Technology Reinvestment Project.  This matches 
funding and resources contributed by the college and its 
industrial partners.  These partners include CV Associates 
(Auburn, CA) which will provide thermal and structural 
analysis of satellite components; PASCO Scientific 
(Roseville, CA) which makes physics equipment used in high 
schools and colleges; and Aerojet (Sacramento, CA) which is 
expected to perform the environmental testing of the 
satellite.  Sierra College Students will design and build a 
small spacecraft to measure Earth's ozone layer, and have 
already built the camera and spectrometer for the spacecraft.  
Those instruments will be carried into space aboard Discovery 
in a Get Away Space (GAS) canister.  U.S. Educational 
institutions pay between $3,000 and $10,000 for GAS payloads 
depending upon canister size.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, No. 33, Aug. 29-Sept. 4, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

Milstar Saved in Congress

By a 62-38 vote on August 10, the Senate rejected a proposal 
to cut funding for the Pentagon's controversial Milstar 
satellite communications program.  The $17 billion Milstar 
project has been a target for lawmakers eager to reduce 
defense spending.  The Senate approved $647 for Milstar in 
1995, but a House and Senate authorizers agreed to a 
compromise 1995 bill of $607 million for Milstar with an 
additional $22 million for the Advanced Extremely High 
Frequency followon.  Meanwhile, Milstar's prime contractor 
Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (Sunnyvale, CA) was 
pleased that orbital checkout of the first Milstar satellite, 
launched Feb. 7, is proceeding normally despite the failure 
of its primary power system several months ago.  The backup 
power system by TRW (Redondo Beach, CA) has since been 
providing electricity to the spacecraft.  
SOURCE: Space News, Vol. 5, Nos. 31-32, Aug. 8-28, 1994.

------------------------------------------------------------

Low Cost Radar

A unique, low-cost military radar technology developed by 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory soon will be available 
at your local hardware store.  Campbell, Calif. based Zicron 
Corp. has licensed the technology, which generate rapid, 
ultrawide-band radar pulses and detects returns reflected up 
to 200 ft away, for use in commercial handtools.  The initial 
product will be a specialized detector for locating steel 
within concrete, a task that cannot economically be done 
today.  Follow-on scanners will detect and differentiate 
between buried pipes, gaslines and wiring.
SOURCE: Aviation Week & Space Technology, August 8, 1994.

=================================== END =====================================

% ====== Internet headers and postmarks (see DECWRL::GATEWAY.DOC) ======
% Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 16:27:54 -0700
% From: [email protected] (Brian Haas)
% Message-Id: <[email protected]>
% To: distribution:;@us4rmc.pko.dec.com 

From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Sept 26 AW&ST
Date: 26 Nov 1994 19:02:33 -0800
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
 
More surprises from Ulysses:  although it is passing almost directly
under the geographic south pole of the Sun, it has not yet encountered
the Sun's south magnetic pole.
 
Iridium [finally] completes first-round financing, about $1.6G of equity.
The rest ($3.4G) will be debt financing.
 
Brisk satellite use by US Army in Haiti.  Inmarsat is getting substantial
use; no other commercial comsats, but their day will come as the military
comsat network ages.  The army bought 10,000 commercial GPS receivers to
improve navigation in Haiti's mountainous jungle.  Finally, the most recent
maps of Haiti are over 30 years old, so US Army Space Command sweated hard
to draw up new ones using satellite images.
 
USAF trying to take over US military space operations, citing advantages
of centralization and standardization.  The Army and the Navy don't think
much of the idea.
 
Rockwell does a successful strap-down firing of a prototype tactical
antisatellite weapon for the US Army.  Full-scale demonstration work was
killed last year due to budget cuts, but Congress authorized low-level
funding to continue technology work.
 
Tests of the SAFER rescue pack successful (tentatively, pending final
data analysis), with gas use lower than predicted, despite overenthusiastic
astronauts starting tests with spin rates higher than intended.  SAFER is
intended solely as a self-rescue system, with minimal redundancy and very
limited total maneuvering capability; the payoff is that it weighs 83lb,
compared to 340lb for the MMU.  These were the first untethered spacewalks
in a decade.
 
Extensive troubleshooting required for Discovery's other payloads.  The
LITE lidar observations had to be drastically replanned after a failure
of the instrument's high-rate data recorder, and Spifex's scheduled times
for observation of the orbiter jet plumes were largely taken up with
communications problems, although extension of the mission by a day made
it possible to finish the Spifex tests after all.
 
Story on the first EuroMir flight, launch imminent.  Ulf Merbold will be
the second man (after Krikalev) to fly on both US and Russian spacecraft.
The EuroMir program (which includes a second flight in 1996) was put
together only about two years ago, so preparation and training has been
hectic.  Sigmund Jaehn, the (then) East German cosmonaut who visited
Salyut 6 in 1978, has been extremely helpful in contacts between ESA and
the Russians.  ESA is used to working with NASA, but the Russians do things
differently.  In particular, there is less written documentation -- for
example, there is still no payload-accommodation manual for Mir -- and
more reliance on what's in the Russian engineers' heads.  There is also
much more emphasis on autonomous operation, partly because Mir is out
of touch with the ground for much of each day.  Merbold says his biggest
problem has simply been learning Russian in a hurry.
 
Also flying on this mission will be Elena Kondakova, who will spend five
months on Mir to get the first female long-stay medical data.
 
Investigation of the NOAA-13 failure says that the most likely cause was
a short circuit in the battery charger, caused by a screw that extended
too far and penetrated insulation.  Other possible causes are now thought
unlikely, partly because telemetry records show a heat buildup in the
charger.  The investigation board ordered an inspection of the charger
assembly for the next NOAA bird, and found 10 of the 12 screws protruding
beyond the specified limit.  The board calls the charger "an unforgiving
design... allows numerous places for shorts... cannot be checked once
it is assembled".  Also, the assembly technician was unaware that it was
important to check for protrusions that might cause shorts.  The lax
procedures are thought to have resulted from personnel turnover and the
many successful flights (the charger box was designed in 1972 and has
flown 16 times).  NASA ordered design changes and further inspections
for the replacement bird, and further changes for later ones.
 
Meanwhile, MM is trying to figure out its latest loss.  "We had those
reviews and improved procedures in place for Telstar 402..."
 
China Aerospace unveils a solid-fuel perigee motor that it will market
for foreign comsat launches on Long March.  Asiasat 2, next summer,
will be the first user.
-- 
Little minds have only room for thoughts           |       Henry Spencer
of bread and butter.       --Amundsen              |   [email protected]

Subject: space news from Oct 17 AW&ST
Date: 15 Dec 1994 10:31:04 -0800
 
Letter from Joe Ratcovic at Litton, observing that AW&ST was a bit behind
the times when it said "the next advance to be applied to space [gyros]
could be interferometric fiber-optic gyroscopes [IFOGs]":  Clementine's
primary attitude-reference system used Litton IFOGs.
 
Magellan goes down into Venus.  Periapsis-lowering firings were done as
planned in the morning of 11 Oct, briefly interrupted when Magellan dropped
into safe mode after the first firing because the engineers had forgotten
to disable some fault protection.  Good aerobraking data was obtained, the
required thruster firings were smaller than expected, and the electronics
behaved themselves to surprisingly low battery voltages.  At 0305 PDT on
12 Oct, Magellan went behind Venus on orbit 15032, and somewhere between
then and the next scheduled contact, either it lost attitude control due
to fuel exhaustion, or the electronics started misbehaving as the batteries
declined.  Intermittent signals were seen until about 1100 [this actually
isn't mentioned in AW&ST, but it comes from other reliable sources], but
full contact was never regained.  Actual burnup probably occurred around
noon the next day.
 
Israel announces intent to open commercial marketing of its Shavit launcher,
and to develop a larger version with stretched first and second stages and
a new liquid-fuel fourth stage.  The new version, dubbed "Next", will be
capable of 300kg launches into polar orbit.  US marketing, including entry
in NASA's ultralight-launcher competitions, is planned.  Israel's own third
satellite, the third Offeq, is slated for launch early next year; it will
carry imaging sensors.
 
China announces plans to develop its own navsat system, Twin-Star, using
a pair of Clarke-orbit satellites and providing some "timing and
communications" capabilities not available through GPS or Glonass.
[Sounds like they're planning a revival of the late lamented Geostar.]
 
Also in China's plans is a constellation of ten 250kg remote-sensing
satellites, with seven carrying 100m visible imagers and three carrying
infrared imagers.  The system will emphasize frequent coverage rather
than high resolution, with twice-a-day coverage of most areas of Earth
giving much better monitoring of fast-moving events like floods than
that provided by Landsat and Spot.
 
France announces a new experimental comsat, Stentor (for 1999 launch),
and the next extension of the Spot line, Spots 5A and 5B (for launch
in 1999 and 2003, carrying 5m imagers).
 
ESA awards contract for its X-ray Multi Mirror spacecraft to DASA.
Launch planned for 1999.
 
When the imminent Atlantis flight deploys and retrieves the Crista-Spas
atmospheric-research free-flyer, it will make the retrieval approach
using a new technique planned for the Shuttle-Mir flights.  The new
"plus R bar" approach, approaching the target from below, is attractive
for rendezvous with large and fragile structures (like Mir) because it
involves few or no jet firings toward the target:  orbital mechanics
supplies deceleration, and indeed the orbiter will have to fire its
jets downward to maintain its closing rate.  Normal shuttle rendezvous
operations use V-bar approaches (closing from ahead), and the LDEF
retrieval used a minus-R-bar approach (closing from above), but all
of those involve jet firings in the general direction of the target;
this is not a problem with small targets (which fit between the danger
areas from the forward and aft thrusters), and large targets can be
protected somewhat by using "low-Z" braking with thrusters angled
away from the target, but very large targets with lots of fragile
solar arrays present problems even so.
 
The main objective of the Atlantis test approach will be to determine
how much fuel is used and whether the approach can be completed promptly
(important because the Russian controllers would like to have the whole
approach occur while they have radio contact with Mir).
 
Another minor objective on this flight will be testing of new recumbent
seats for the orbiter middeck, intended to ease reentry and landing loads
for Norm Thagard and his cosmonaut companions, who will come down on
Atlantis next May after several months in free fall aboard Mir.
 
Sixty-four US senators write to Commerce Secretary expressing concern
over the export license for Eyeglass, citing concerns that Saudi Arabia
(which is still legally at war with Israel) will acquire unrestricted
access to 1m images of Israel.
 
Endeavour lands at Edwards 11 Oct (KSC was socked in) after SRL-2 mission.
The radar imaging was very successful, including the interferometry work,
with some repeat passes coming within 26ft vertically and 149ft horizontally
of the earlier ones.  Early results from Mammoth Mountain (California) show
where the Long Valley caldera's floor has swelled a few centimeters with
reviving volcanic activity; geophysicists have spent years getting similar
results for a handful of points in Long Valley, but interferometry combining
the SRL-1 and SRL-2 radar data has generated a complete map of the changes.
More orthodox comparison of radar images has confirmed that SRL-1 saw the
seasonal flooding in the Brazilian rain forest (through the vegetation).
Researchers would very much like to see a third SRL flight, and preferably
a fourth, to build up a longer set of data and examine other seasons.
 
NASA asks National Academy of Sciences to recommend where to go next on
space radar work, and specifically whether SRL should fly again and if
so, whether it should be on the shuttle or as a permanent free-flyer.
Also on the NAS panel's agenda is whether there is potential for doing
a major radar satellite as an international project, combining current
programs in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan.
 
Procurement reform act (signed by Clinton last week) authorizes NASA to
experiment with soliciting bids for mid-range contracts ($25k-$500k per
year with a five-year total of at most $2.5M) over the Internet.  Such
contracts are 11% of NASA's spending but 80% of its contracts, and there
is wide agreement that the current paperwork procedures (e.g., announcing
through the Commerce Business Daily) are wasteful.  New mid-range contracts
will be solicited via both CBD and the Internet for six months starting
(probably) in the spring, after which, if all is well, use of the CBD will
be phased out.  Not only is the Internet quicker than paper publication,
it also allows potential bidders immediate access to all the details (the
CBD only publishes summaries).  One criticism has been made:  "the Internet
is not free".  The response:  "neither is the Commerce Business Daily".
 
Shuttle managers start comprehensive review of possible cost savings, in
the wake of budget cuts.  The flight rate (7/year) is to remain unchanged,
the ET and SRBs are exempt because they have recently had major reviews,
and closing one of the two shuttle launch pads has already been rejected.
The idea of mothballing Columbia (oldest and heaviest of the orbiters) is
being raised again, but it probably won't be done:  the other three are
committed to space-station assembly, leaving only Columbia to fly any
non-station missions during that time.
 
NASA has decided to spend a small amount to build a kit for modifying
a second orbiter -- Discovery -- for Mir missions.  Current plans are for
seven Mir flights, which Atlantis can handle, but three more are pencilled
in as a hedge against difficulties, and flying them would require another
orbiter.  Building the kit now will make it quicker and easier to modify
Discovery if the need arises.
 
NASA HQ overrules MSFC, going along with JSC in its request that the new
SSME oxidizer turbopump be flown first on only one of the three engines.
Mission 70 (Discovery, next June) will fly with one of the new Pratt &
Whitney pumps, and if that goes well, 73 (next fall) will fly with all
three engines converted.  MSFC argued that ground testing would establish
whether the pump was safe to fly, and it should therefore fly on all three
engines to gain experience quickly; JSC countered that flight-testing it
once before depending on it was smarter.
 
NOAA-11, the current "afternoon" civilian polar-orbit weather satellite,
lost its high-resolution radiometer in mid-Sept due to electronics failure
in the scan-motor power supply.  The spacecraft was launched in 1988 and
is well beyond its rated lifetime, and in fact its replacement was already
slated for 4 Dec launch.  The major impact will be loss of data on fine
particles in the atmosphere, which is used to correct atmospheric data
from other sources.  Sea-ice tracking will also suffer, as will tracking
of volcanic ash plumes for aviation.  Major weather forecasting mostly
uses the atmospheric sounder instrument, which is unaffected.  NOAA-12's
radiometer is unable to fill in completely for NOAA-11's, because its
infrared channel has a higher noise level than 11's did.
-- 
There is more to life than getting a job           |       Henry Spencer
and making a living.     --Barbara Morgan          |   [email protected]

Subject: space news from Oct 24 AW&ST
Date: 17 Dec 1994 21:36:52 -0800
 
[Addendum to the Oct 17 summary:  the times in the piece on Magellan's
death plunge are PDT, zone -0700.]
 
Cover picture is a topographic map of the Greenland icecap from ERS-1 data.
 
Topex/Poseidon team gets the CNES medal.
 
FAA Administrator formally offers the world GPS at no charge for 10 years.
(This is written confirmation of a verbal offer made several years ago.)
 
FCC licenses Orbcomm for its full 36-satellite constellation for data
relay and position determination.
 
US Army admits deployment of JTAGS (Joint Tactical Ground Station) units
in the Persian Gulf, giving direct reception and rapid processing of
missile-warning-satellite data.  Similar equipment is/was in Korea.
 
India's PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) flies successfully, for
the first time, 15 Oct.  The Indians are overjoyed; their recent launch
record has been spotty.  PSLV payload capability is comparable to an
Atlas E.  There are plans to upgrade it into GSLV, for 5500lb to GTO.
The PSLV's first stage is a large segmented solid motor with six smaller
strap-ons.  The second stage uses storable liquids, the third is another
solid, and the small apogee stage uses storable liquids again.  Next
launch will be in about a year, after which PSLV will be considered to
be operational.
 
The PSLV launch involved a dogleg maneuver, a 55deg turn just before
first-stage burnout, because range-safety limits at Sriharikota constrain
polar launches to start out heading SE rather than due S.  The payload
was the 1770lb IRS-P2 remote-sensing spacecraft, and it was placed in
its desired 825km Sun-synchronous orbit.  It carries a CCD pushbroom
imager with about 40m resolution in four spectral bands.  It's similar
to the one lost in the unsuccessful PSLV launch last Sept, and to two
others that have been launched by the Russians for India.  More advanced
satellites with higher imaging resolution are planned.
 
Aerojet seeks DoD approval and partial funding for testing the NK-33
engine, possibly at Phillips Labs or Aerojet's Sacramento test site.
The objective is to demonstrate feasibility of using existing NK-33s on
US launchers.  Over 90 are in storage, and about 70 of those are nominally
cleared for flight.  Aerojet thinks it has the lead over its competition:
P&W/Energomash's RD-180 is a paper engine (although based on the RD-170),
and so is Rocketdyne's proposed upgraded MA-5.  The NK-33 is rated at
338klb thrust, and minor upgrades could give 440-450klb.  Aerojet is
prepared to put the engine into production in the US when Russian stocks
run out.
 
Mir hits some problems in mid-Oct, with temporary loss of automatic
attitude control (apparently due to power shortages plus a computer
malfunction) for a couple of days, and some life-support difficulties
with a six-man crew aboard.  The problems were severe enough for ground
controllers to consider bringing the crew down, and some of the EuroMir
experiments were disrupted.
 
ERS-1 radar-altimeter map of the world's oceans, showing substantial
differences in surface height.
 
Story on the British National Remote Sensing Center, which started out
as a government agency but was privatized a few years ago, and has been
growing quite rapidly as a commercial venture, with government support
gradually being phased out.  It specializes in working with customers
to do in-depth analysis, especially combining data from multiple satellites,
rather than just providing raw data.  For example, it is now doing analysis
of images of British croplands, using Spot and Landsat images and digitized
boundary maps, to verify farmers' claims for crop subsidies.
 
Bureaucratic snag on Cassini/Huygens...  Goldin has told the Cassini people,
in no uncertain terms, that they are responsible for the success of the
mission, including the Titan IV launch and the Huygens probe.  So they are
asking for direct access to ESA's contractors and labs to do their own
quality-control reviews.  ESA does *not* approve, citing the US-European
Memorandum Of Understanding which defines the roles of the participants.
Goldin has offered to open US contractors and labs to ESA quality control
in return; however, ESA has no particular interest in this.
 
David Dale, head of science projects for ESA, says it's fine with him if
NASA just wants to add people to ESA's existing review boards and such.
It's not so fine if they want to do their own reviews.  He's concerned that
such independent reviewers will want to demonstrate their diligence by
complaining about every i that isn't dotted and every t that isn't crossed,
without regard for whether it affects the spacecraft or not... and he hasn't
got the manpower to deal with such nitpicking and still meet the C/H launch
schedule.  He also notes that anything which goes beyond the existing MOU
instantly becomes political, and he's got 14 governments which have to
sign off on it.
 
There is one precedent for such review:  Dale "turned a blind eye" to such
independent review when British Aerospace was building the replacement
solar arrays for Hubble.  He considers that a special case, however.  For
Huygens, "unless I am confronted with something the system has missed or
where the system has broken down, I would see no reason to change it".
 
Many NASA managers think worrying about ESA quality control on Huygens
should have very low priority compared to worrying about Russian quality
control on the space station.
 
Brazil reports successful tests of automatic dependent surveillance (in
which aircraft automatically report GPS-computed positions via satellite
data links) over the Amazon, where ground radar coverage is sparse.
-- 
There is more to life than getting a job           |       Henry Spencer
and making a living.     --Barbara Morgan          |   [email protected]