NASA safety panel notes that shuttle SRB nozzle joint #2 shows soot on its O-rings with some frequency (much more so than the other joints), and suggests that it needs a good hard look and possibly a design change.
USAF says that the Spacelifter design competition will be open to even relatively radical concepts, e.g. SSTO, and that the USAF will consider turning the operational system over to commercial operators. There is also a possibility of funding some upgrades to existing launchers until Spacelifter is ready. (This is from Maj. Gen Don Hard, director of space-programs acquisition.) There is a strong desire for a flexible system, like Ariane 4, where overrunning payload weight slightly means using more strap-ons rather than taking a massive jump up to a much more expensive launcher. The operational date for Spacelifter is a bit unclear, but the USAF would like to have it early in the next decade, since several major military satellite programs will be moving to new designs, or at least new production blocks, in that period, and this would be a good opportunity to coordinate design with a new launcher. [Whatever happened to the philosophy of having two possible launchers for crucial payloads? Well, actually, it's obvious what happened to it -- it was just an excuse to get the USAF its own launch system again, and now it can be dispensed with. We can also forget that part about handing Spacelifter over to commercial operators; reasons not to do so will be found or manufactured as required.]
ESA about to make major decisions on its science efforts for the next decade or so... and a major criterion being applied is that they not depend on cooperation from NASA, because ESA is fed up with having its projects changed or killed in Washington.
The big decision is whether to give funding priority to Rosetta or the Far InfraRed Submillimeter Telescope. Both are considered worth doing eventually, but only one can be done at a time. Either would launch circa 2003.
Rosetta is a comet mission. Originally it was meant to be a sample-return followon to CRAF, using a CRAF-derived bus and a Titan launch. When CRAF died, it was back to the drawing board. Rosetta is now primarily an all-European CRAF -- asteroid flybys followed by a comet rendezvous -- including a comet-surface touchdown. Rosetta will use high-efficiency solar arrays rather than an RTG, and will launch on Ariane 5.
FIRST has also been redesigned, due to problems encountered without help from the US. :-) The original plan, an 8m cryogenically-cooled telescope, has been revised to a 3m system with passive cooling. It will open the last major unknown area of the spectrum to astronomers.
An almost equally-important decision is the choice of the next "medium" mission from four contenders. Marsnet, a multi-lander surface-station concept tied in with JPL's MESUR, is unlikely to be selected because it is too closely tied to NASA. Better bets are Integral (gamma-ray astrophysics), Prisma (stellar oscillations), and Step (a precision test of general relativity's Equivalence Principle). These missions could involve some US or Russian participation, but would remain firmly under European control. [The nod went to Integral, with the Russians getting a share of observing time in return for supplying a Proton launch.]
NASA reveals plans to require poorly-performing contractors to return previously-paid incentive fees. Goldin says incentive fees have put too much emphasis on signs of progress and not enough on results. The upside of the plans is earlier payment of incentive fees when they are felt to be merited.
Goldin also wants to streamline small-contract procurement (under $0.5M) and would like to be allowed to publish RFPs for such work electronically.
German scientists prepare for Spacelab D2. One payload that has been pulled from the mission, alas, is the Bremsat project that would have deployed a small micrometeorite satellite from a Getaway Special can; it has been put on hold pending investigation of problems with a similar payload last December.
P&W ships the fourth and last modified RL10 to the DC-X project.
Space-station management structure criticized... by Goldin. "I have personally run multi-billion-dollar programs. I have never in my life seen a management structure like this... We've got to "deconvolve" this system, and it's going to make a lot of people unhappy."
Thiokol offers accelerated deliveries on Castor 120 (to wit, 12 months from firm order) following successful test March 4. Analysis says the test was exactly on prediction, including the thrust curve resulting from slots cut into the fuel (which can be used to tailor the thrust curve to customer needs).
Mars Observer plans altered, with surface observations to start earlier, on Nov 20. Previous plans, starting observations Dec 12, used less fuel for orbit changes, but MO's launch delay gave it a near-ideal trajectory and the extra fuel is available. There is considerable interest in getting going earlier: Mars will pass behind the Sun around the end of the year, hampering communications for about two weeks, and the dust-storm season will start in about February, hampering observations for about six months. The fields-and-particles people are the losers on this one: the intermediate orbit that MO will now spend less time in will be better-suited to observing the bow shock where the solar wind encounters Mars.
Preliminary checks of Mars Observer instruments show it mostly in good shape, with the exception of some concerns about the magnetic-field instruments. (Nothing is yet known about Mars's magnetic field, previous instruments not having been sensitive enough to find one.) The magnetometer shows some variation in the background field, and the best guess is that this is the result of poor shielding of some of the solar-array circuitry -- the problem was discovered on the ground (too late to fix it), but it was thought that it would cause only a constant bias, and the variation is puzzling. The noise seems to be 5-10nT, compared to an expected Mars magnetic field of 10-50nT, and there is hope that the noise can be measured and subtracted out once the spacecraft is in orbit. (Failing that, the noise should drop to near-zero during the 1/3 of each Mars orbit for which MO is in shadow, which will permit at least the most important measurements.) The other magnetic-field instrument, the electron reflectometer, seems to have its case shorted to the spacecraft chassis, perhaps by a wiring fault or an unintentionally-conductive thermal blanket; this may be cured when the instrument's boom is fully deployed in November. If not, its measurements will be degraded. The good news is that concerns about earlier blurry images from MO's camera have been laid to rest: residual water in its graphite/epoxy structure has been baked out, and star images are now sharp.
USAF to solicit bids for an airborne laser system capable of destroying tactical ballistic missiles shortly after launch at ranges of several hundred km. The USAF and SDIO believe this is now feasible; this experiment will prove it.
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