DSN hopes to have the 70m antenna at Goldstone operating again this week. Its subreflector was knocked off its mountings by the June quake.
Japan is considering flying an experimental satellite that would communicate by laser with ESA's Artemis comsat. It would fly in 1997.
TRW and Lockheed teams win second-stage contracts for the Follow-on Early Warning Satellite program, with the Rockwell team losing out.
International space programs are not doing well... ESA's recent problems are well-known, but they're getting worse: French officials have just called for further ESA budget reductions. [Sour grapes over losing Hermes?] Everyone is approaching cooperation with Russia rather gingerly. France, however, is miffed that it's happening at all: they'd seen themselves in the position of a monopoly supplier for Russian space cooperation, but now see themselves shut out by US-Russian cooperation. To make it worse, the US consent for launch of one US-built comsat on a Proton is seen as the foot in the door for a major threat to Arianespace.
The one bright spot for ESA is that the idea of ESA building the space- station lifeboat is being examined seriously again. One possibility being mentioned is use of Soyuz as an interim solution for early operations, with an ESA craft replacing it later (avoiding the need for extensive re-engineering of Soyuz for longer stay time etc.).
Progress M-13 had to abort its first docking attempt (July 2) with Mir when the automatic docking system acted up. A software problem was found, and a second attempt July 4 was successful. Goldin is unhappy that when he visited associated Russian facilities a few days later, the matter wasn't mentioned.
Russian space activity is down 40-50% against last year.
Clinton/Gore space platform differs from the Administration's only in small ways; the lack of major change is seen as an attempt to avoid mortally offending the battered aerospace industry.
Goldin says that US-Russian space cooperation will proceed carefully, and the objective will be to combine capabilities rather than buy goods and services (although he comes out against paying US contractors to duplicate Russian capabilities just to keep US workers busy). He says his trip to Russia did allay some concerns, and that the Russians appear committed to an ongoing space program, although a more limited one than previously. He notes one difference between the two nations' philosophy: "The Russians test and the Americans analyze... They built twelve different modules of Mir for tests..." [A cynical man would undoubtedly suggest that they learned things from those tests that the US missed in its analyses and will learn the hard way on the "operational" hardware. Who, me, cynical?]
F-18 flight tests successfully demonstrate the "external burning" process probably planned for the X-30, paving the way for higher-speed tests on one of the NASA SR-71s.
Story on X-30 spinoffs, mostly new alloys and processing techniques.
India aims at becoming a commercial satellite supplier, pointing to the (hoped for!) success of Insat 2A as proof of its capabilities. It will start by selling subsystems, hoping to eventually sell complete satellites. This will be complicated by sanctions imposed by the US after India bought upper-stage technology from Russia; the US claims violation of rules meant to stop missile technology from proliferating.
Meanwhile, India's ASLV launcher finally had a successful flight in May. Even this flight was marred by problems, with the final stage not spinning up to its full intended RPM before ignition, and the resulting orbit having a lower perigee than intended.
Magellan radar mapping has been stopped temporarily. Magellan's transmitter A is no longer capable of sending radar data due to a modulator failure, but it is still in use for gravimetry work. Transmitter B is still usable, despite a spurious whistle that requires using only part of the original bandwidth (limiting transmission rate), but it seems to be deteriorating, and it has been turned off to extend its life and allow time for closer study of the problem. The highest priority right now is to have things in the best possible condition for a period of mapping in September, to cover an area which was missed in both previous mapping cycles. The last time B was turned on, in January, no whistle was seen for the first 20 minutes of operation, and JPL is exploring the possibility of running it intermittently, in hopes that the ability to use the full data rate would make up for the need to turn it off regularly. Previously this approach had been ruled out for fear of damage from too much thermal cycling, but the progressive deterioration is now considered to be a greater threat.
Magellan is funded through May 1993. After the September gap is filled, further priorities are picking up remaining missing spots, revisiting areas where signs of change have been seen, and experimenting with aerobraking to lower the orbit for more precise gravimetry and radar work. The aerobraking effort would start in summer 1993, if money is available.
Two Magellan images, eight months apart, of an area in the Imdr region. Patchy bright areas and other features have appeared for the second one. This has happened in a few other areas as well. One complication is that the radar images were taken from opposite directions, and it is just possible that this is causing the apparent differences, although explaining just how that could happen is difficult. [One of those areas has since been re-examined from the original angle, and it looks like the changes are indeed artifacts of the viewing angle. There is still no good theory of how that would occur.]
There is nothing wrong with making | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry