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. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry