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.
Arthritic bureaucracies don't tame new | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology frontiers. -Paul A. Gigot, WSJ, on NASA | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry