[Since Henry never got his January 27 Aviation Week, I've summarized the news from it. Yes, I know it's old news.]
This is the annual Aerospace Laurels issue. In the Space division, the Laureates are the crews of STS-39 (DoD) and STS-40 (SLS-1), awarded for "pushing the envelope" of orbital flight.
Additional Space Laurels go to:
Magellan Project Manager Anthony Spear and Galileo Project Manager William O'Neil for their respective planetary missions.
Barry Turner and others at Telsat Canada for saving Anik E-2 by deploying the stuck C-band antenna.
The European Space Agency group that put together the Earth Resources Satellite-1 (ERS-1).
Masati Yamano and Eiji Sogane of Japan's NASDA for the Tanegashima H-1 and H-2 launch facility.
Rene Anselmo of Pan Am Sat for creating private, free-market competition in the comsat market.
Thomas Stafford for the Synthesis Group report.
Jeremiah Madden, John Hraster, Martin Davis and Donald Kniffen at Goddard, for the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.
Samuel Keller and Nicholas Petrov for the US-Russian cooperation that resulted in launching the US Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer aboard a Russian Meteor metsat.
In other space news:
The cosmonauts on Mir repair a serious attitude control problem with the gyros. The problem had delayed the Progress M-10 separation and M-11 launch, which is now scheduled for January 25.
STS-42, the International Microgravity Laboratory, is launched January 22 at 9:52 EST. ET fill had been held 33 minutes due to cold, and launch held 1 hour due to spurious high electrical field readings caused by fog, ocean salt and brush fire smoke. Other minor glitches included a leaking hydrogen replenish valve (fixed), a voltage spike on the #2 fuel cell coolant pump (not repeatable), high oxygen levels in the aft compartment (due to late crew entry; purged) and clouds (no moisture found).
A 2-year stretchout is proposed for the Phase 3 development of NASP to cut near-term costs. The 18-24 month delay would put first flight in 2000, but cut FY1994-1996 budgets from $800 million-$1 billion down to $300 million-$500 million. Current funding is $250 million-$350 million.
The current plan, costing $10.4 billion, would have 1-2 ground test articles, plus two 3-engine orbital flight vehicles, which would begin flight test by 2000.
Other plans include: Only one flight vehicle. $8-10 billion. 3-engine suborbital (Mach 18-19) vehicle. $8 billion. 2-engine suborbital (Mach 15) vehicle. $6-7 billion.
In the first three years, the plan is for a full-scale ground test at Mach 8, and subscale flight tests on either SR-71 or rocket, as well as (yet more) detailed design work. SR-71 external burning tests should be underway by mid-1993.
Sam Ho ho@csrd.uiuc.edu