[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.
In operating-system code, log(quality) | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology times quantity is a constant. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry