[Yeah, I've gotten a wee bit behind again...]
[This is a special "Five Year Outlook" issue, long on overviews and a bit short on news.]
March Atlas launch slips due to final checks on the Centaur mods made after the last failure. [This time the Atlas failed.]
For the first time in some years, there are no Soviet/Russian naval eavesdropping satellites in orbit; the last one came down last month. [They have since launched more.]
Goldin gives marching orders for station redesign: 10-15 year life, initial capability by 1997, development done by end of 1998, much simpler management, fewer launches, and less overhead. Permanent manning is not actually on the requirements list.
Feature article on the Mir 2 plans. Metal is being bent already. Europe and Japan are watching with interest. The Russian parliament has approved 1993 funding. Tentative plan is permanent manning by around the end of 1997. It will evolve through several stages as more modules are launched, with construction complete by 1998. The modules are based on the existing Mir designs, and will launch on Proton. Compared to Mir, there are more modules and the module cluster is crossed by a truss carrying solar arrays.
British Aerospace completes construction of the replacement solar arrays for Hubble. They will incorporate "concertina" thermal shields for the bistem booms, replacement of the pulley system by an all-spring design to eliminate stick/slip behavior, and an electrically operated brake on the deployment drum that can be used to stop rotation caused by thermal expansion. The repair-mission astronauts visited Bristol last week to inspect the arrays before final testing. The old arrays will be returned to ESA for inspection, and the space-debris people are eagerly anticipating them.
Russian film-return spysat blown up in orbit Feb 18, presumably after its mission was complete. Not clear why it wasn't de-orbited instead. Fortunately, it was in a low orbit and most of the debris has already reentered.
NASA trying to convince USAF/McDD or USN/GD to postpone an expendable launch from the Cape, to accommodate the Spacelab D2 slip (caused by a hose failure in Columbia's engine compartment) without causing a slip in Discovery's Atlas 2 mission. Both shuttle missions are mildly urgent, Spacelab D2 because it's already late and NASA doesn't want to annoy the Germans still more, Atlas 2 because it is scheduled to make Arctic-ozone measurements that should be done as early in spring as possible.
Altruism is a fine motive, but if you | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology want results, greed works much better. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry