a quick look at AW&ST 2 March - 4 May 1992

Henry Spencer summaries

[Those who have been reading these summaries for a while may recall that I missed about four months last year due to illness and upheaval. I've concluded, with some regret, that there is no prospect of my finding enough time to do those issues in the foreseeable future. So, I'll do a very quick scan through them, hitting the highest points only. This posting covers the first half of the gap; another will follow.]

March 2:
  • Soldiers riot at Baikonur, citing poor food and working conditions.
  • Italy to supply small pressurized logistics modules for the space station.
  • NASA reveals scaled-down, split-up lower-budget version of EOS.
    March 9:
  • USAF ground-based cameras to photograph JERS-1, at Japan's request, in hopes of determining the position of its stuck radar antenna.
  • NASA asks JPL to look at using standard (no SRMUs) Titan IV for Cassini.
  • Pioneer 10 celebrates its 20th anniversary in space, >5Gmi from Earth.
  • Ground-based photos of a Russian comsat exploding in Clarke orbit, a serious debris problem, as the result of a catastrophic battery failure.
  • WARC-92 approves spectrum allocations for low-orbit comsat networks.
    March 16:
  • Endeavour rolls out to the VAB.
  • Dan Goldin announced as tentative new NASA administrator.
    March 23:
  • NASA begins talks in Moscow to explore using Soyuz as station lifeboat.
  • Mitsubishi executive says that neither the LE-7 engine (which M. builds half of) nor the H-2 launcher is suitable for commercial purposes: too much high tech for the sake of high tech, heedless of the pricetag.
    March 30:
  • Intelsat places an order for a Long March launch, subject to US approval.
  • Mir crew Krikalev and Volkov, launched from the USSR, land in Russia.
  • Russian suborbital scramjet tests revealed; foreign partners probably wanted.
  • Trud offers to sell leftover LOX/kerosene engines from the N1 lunar booster.
  • NPO Energomash reveals the hydrogen/kerosene-oxygen RD-701 engine system.
  • Long March launch aborted on the pad after engine ignition, Aussat payload.
  • DoD pressured to end foot-dragging on US purchase of Topaz 2 reactor.
    April 6:
  • Baikonur Zenit launch fails as second stage malfunctions.
  • Jim Webb, easily NASA's best Administrator (1961-8), dies.
  • Goldin sworn in as Truly's replacement.
  • White House okays purchase of Topaz 2, prototype electric thrusters, and several kilograms of plutonium 238 from Russia. (The plutonium buy will save restarting a US reactor to supply plutonium for isotope generators for NASA deep-space missions and "some terrestrial applications" for DoD.)
  • First long-life cryogenic refrigerators for space sensors about to be cleared for operational use.
  • First doubts aired about Hermes budget situation within ESA.
    April 13:
  • NASA engineers generally impressed with Soyuz as possible lifeboat.
  • JERS-1's radar antenna deploys fully.
  • SDIO observes that Grand Forks -- the only ABM site in the US that is within the current ABM treaty -- is a lousy place to try to defend the US from: in the center of the continent, far away from both the threats and the most crucial targets.
  • NASA to replace Endeavour's engines after flight-readiness test firing finds several minor anomalies; launch schedule tentatively unaffected.
    April 20:
  • Musa Manarov, who has logged 541 days in space, says he thinks the best mission length is about four months.
    April 27:
  • Russia-India oxyhydrogen-engine deal, in its final stages, criticized by US as "missile technology".
  • Magellan project studies cost cuts to try to keep Magellan alive.

    May 4:
  • Gerard O'Neill dies.
  • NASA urging White House to send stronger signals to Russia about space cooperation, specifically to preserve options for use of Energia in future.
  • Goldin: "We put humans on the Moon in less time than we've spent debating a space station."
  • "No problems are expected" with the capture bar for the Intelsat rescue.
  • Russia drops the idea of a radically new Mir 2 design -- too expensive.
  • COBE data analysis finally reveals variations in the microwave background radiation, to cosmologists' relief. 
    SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
between SVR3 and SunOS.    - Dick Dunn  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry