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.
The X Window system is not layered, and | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology it was not designed. -Shane P. McCarron | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry