Cover picture is Mars Observer being prepared for launch.
China launches a test mission of a new recoverable-capsule design, with a greater payload than their current production model.
Optus B1, the comsat that was aboard the Long March 2E that pad-aborted in March, launched successfully Aug 14 (by an LM 2E).
Senate stalled on FY93 DoD authorization, the point of contention being a second $1G cut for SDIO; opponents to the cut claim it is not enough to keep the program healthy and risks a Bush veto.
ASRM supporters claim reports of its death are exaggerated, that moves are afoot to get it put back in the House-Senate conference.
Topex/Poseidon launched Aug 10, first NASA satellite launched on an Ariane. The spacecraft and four out of six instruments are US, the rest French. The joint effort mostly went smoothly, although there was a considerable scare during final checkout at NASA Goddard, when a poorly-designed hoist built by NASA almost dropped the satellite a distance that would surely have destroyed it. The US part of the budget is 42% over estimate, but that is mostly because NASA changed the specs in the middle (to require a longer spacecraft life). Two 50kg microsatellites shared the launch, both built by the UoSat crew: a small experimental comsat for South Korea and a CNES low-orbit-comsat test.
US/French groups will be looking at more joint efforts. Most likely first item on the agenda is a smaller and more quickly developed bird carrying some of the same instruments as T/P, to provide continuity of data over the gap between T/P and the European Polar Platform. Delta and even Pegasus are being mentioned as launchers.
NASA tells both prospective EOSDIS contractors to revise their proposals to include more realistic cost estimates, saying that this is a clear case of "low-balling" to try to get the contract. Also of note is a new contract clause NASA is adding, specifying loss of incentive fees if costs rise excessively. (NASA has been criticized for routinely awarding all or almost all of its incentive fees even for programs that are clearly badly fouled up.)
NASA board of investigation starts to look into the tethered-satellite failure as Atlantis lands at KSC. Meanwhile, Eureca is in its operating orbit and its payloads have been activated; the problems in maneuvering it were due to misprogrammed Earth sensors.
Atlantis now goes to Rockwell for inspections and refit, notably to include (probably) fittings for docking with Mir.
NASA security agents raid Ames, sealing offices and sending some personnel home pending security investigation. They refused to tell anyone what they were looking for or why. Ames staff are very upset and want to know what the hell is going on. It's all very peculiar because very little of what Ames does is classified. Circumstances suggest that some specific leak prompted Goldin to order the raid.
FAA accelerates program to introduce GPS as a bad-weather landing aid. One major issue is whether a technique dubbed kinematic carrier-phase tracking can improve GPS accuracy enough for Category 3 operations, which even differential GPS currently isn't adequate for. GPS currently *almost* meets the milder Category 1 specs. The FAA has advanced its GPS evaluation schedule because it needs to decide, relatively soon, whether to put a lot of money and effort into MLS, the ground-based system currently slated to replace the increasingly-inadequate ILS now in use. A lot of countries would welcome an ICAO decision to bypass the expense of installing MLS. However, since it was the US that sold ICAO on MLS in the first place, and since many ICAO nations are not going to be happy about being dependent on US military satellites, it will still be an uphill political battle. There are also problems such as schedule slips in satellite deployment and the occasional coverage gaps at high latitudes. Plans to set up a network of 15-20 ground stations to measure differential-GPS corrections and transmit them via Inmarsat 3 satellites are well underway. Cat-3 use of GPS would require monitoring stations near most major airports as well, and just how their data would be transmitted has not been resolved.
Less controversial and technically straightforward is introduction of GPS for non-precision navigation, which is on track for specs by the end of the year and initial hardware next year. The main constraint on GPS receivers for this purpose will be a requirement that they be able to detect satellite failure or malfunction so the pilot can abort an approach; this requires monitoring at least five satellites, six if you want to know which one is bad so it can be ignored.
Big articles on Mars Observer, now being readied for launch. Its window runs from Sept 16 to Oct 13, although the last few days are contingency only and would involve some sacrifices. [Current target is the 25th, this Friday, after some slippage due to contamination problems.] Total program costs exceed $800M, of which the spacecraft was about $500M and the Titan 3 launch will be about $280M. Being ready for this window became somewhat of a challenge, as several flight items fell well behind schedule in 1990-91; early availability of ground-test spares made it possible to get much of the initial testing done before the flight-ready hardware was available.
This will be the first mission to use the solid-fuel TOS upper stage from Orbital Sciences. MO management is somewhat unhappy about being the first customer for a new upper stage [they thought ACTS was going to use it first, but ACTS has been delayed] and has had some special reliability assessments done. It will also be the first launch from the newly-refurbished Pad 40 at the Cape (which, together with Pad 41, also launched the last US Mars Mission, Viking 1+2 in 1975).
Once launched, booms etc will be unfolded. The full solar-array deployment will not occur until insertion into Mars orbit, which will be done by a large bipropellant rocket system that also handles cruise maneuvers. A completely-separate second rocket system, using hydrazine, will be used for attitude control and minor maneuvering thereafter; it is more precise and is considered less likely to contaminate instruments. Initial entry will be into a highly-elliptical polar orbit in August. Later maneuvers, over the rest of 1993, will eventually result in a 235x218mi Sun-synchronous polar orbit. (The official target for entry into this mapping orbit is mid-Dec, but there is hope that if cruise-phase fuel consumption is low enough, it might be possible to do it several weeks earlier.)
Rundown on MO's instruments. The scientists will have unusual freedom to run their own instruments because none of them require attitude changes (etc) that would need coordination with others. Noteworthy is the camera, built on a "push-broom" design like that of Spot, which has both a wide-angle mode (imaging the whole planet at 7.5km resolution every day, for weather work, with some areas seen at 300m resolution) and a high-resolution mode with 1.4m resolution. There is hope of getting hi-res images showing the Viking landers, although it will be difficult to get just the right area [especially since, as I recall, the location of one of the landers is not known very well].
France plans to take a more active role in its space cooperation with Russia, including technical assistance of as-yet-undetermined kinds. The latest joint flight, with Michel Tognini spending two weeks on Mir, ended last week with good results. Scientists were particularly happy with the improved video quality made possible by the equipment left behind from the Japanese journalist's visit.Picture of a slightly-modified MiG-31 carrying a [presumably experimental] antisatellite weapon on its centerline pylon.
Avcon making progress on small research contracts from Lewis and Marshall on magnetic bearings for rocket turbopumps. The Lewis contract is for tests of small bearings at cryogenic temperatures, the Marshall one for design of magnetic bearings to replace the current SSME pump bearings. Marshall will decide in September whether to proceed to phase two, building and testing the SSME bearing design.
Letter from Chuck Biddlecom, observing that undertaking long-term space efforts with large budgets is fairly futile when it's impossible to keep a consensus on funding levels and even a hint of trouble is grounds for cancellation.
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