Japan drafting its own commercial-launch rules, anticipating first launch of the H-2 and the possibility that it will be handed over to Rocket Systems Corp to run.
Eosat to sell Landsat image data in the ARC/Info format widely used for geographic data. Also, Eosat has cut the cost of old thematic-mapper images drastically.
ERS-1 radar-altimeter data will be used to correct serious errors in topographic maps of Greenland and Antarctica; errors of up to 500m in elevation have been found on current maps.
OSC is fitting out its Lockheed Tristar for Pegasus launches, and is expected to start using it this summer.
First Ariane 5 SRB test successful Feb 16 at Kourou.
General Dynamics wants to arrange a government/industry meeting to discuss GD's cheap-lunar-mission scheme. NASA is not opposed but would like to see it opened to other concepts as well.
Clinton orders Yet Another Station Redesign, primary objective to reduce costs, savings to be put into aeronautics and other space projects. Goldin officially claims to be happy, saying that the deficit would make proper funding of other activities difficult otherwise. This decision was the outcome of extensive battles within the White House, and there are varying stories about the details and the expected level of station funding. The international partners are unhappy, and are pointedly asking to be involved not only in the redesign but in setting the ground rules for it.
National Transportation Safety Board to investigate the confusion about whether the third Pegasus launch should have been aborted, at the request of the Office of Commercial Space Transportation. NTSB is normally the primary US investigator of things like air crashes. The Pegasus launch was successful despite indications that one of the destruct receivers had failed shortly before launch, a failure which should have caused a scrub and did cause "abort" calls on some of the radio channels in use.
The Magellan project is pinching pennies to try to keep going long enough to aerobrake Magellan into a circular orbit. Savings in recent months are enough for 5-6 weeks of aerobraking -- not enough, but a start. The new cost estimate for completing the job and taking full advantage of it for gravity mapping is $9M, down from $33M due to austerity measures and abandoning plans for some circular-orbit radar work [which would have been difficult anyway because of Magellan's transmitter problems]. Magellan's periapsis will be lowered to 140km, and its solar panels oriented broadside- on to its direction of motion, providing a few pounds of drag total. The limiting factor is friction heating, notably of the solder in the solar arrays, and periapsis altitude will be adjusted to keep it under control.
SDIO's MSTI-1 satellite images a rocket-motor firing at Edwards using an infrared camera. The 150kg spacecraft, built in under a year for $15M, is meant as the first of a series of low-cost missions to test SDIO technology and sensors, with two or three launches a year for the rest of the decade. MSTI-1's primary mission lasted six days after its Nov 21 launch, although it will continue in operation until it reenters this summer.
SVR4 resembles a high-speed collision | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology between SVR3 and SunOS. - Dick Dunn | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry