AIAA to host one-day conference in Washington on lower-cost ways of returning to the Moon, at GD's instigation.
DC-X rolled out April 3.
Intelsat orders another Intelsat 7 from Loral.
Yet another new candidate for Goldin's job is rumored: Donald Kutyna, recently-retired USAF general (known for his membership in the panel that investigated the Challenger disaster), is reportedly being sounded out about it. One reason why Goldin's still in his seat, reportedly, is that so few people really want the job under the circumstances... [Kutyna has recently said "not interested".]
Station redesign group struggling with various possibilities. Over 30 concepts have been presented, mostly familiar ones. One new suggestion out of left field is use of a Lockheed satellite bus, "Bus 1", out of an unidentified classified program. AW&ST thinks it looks like it might be the KH-11 bus. The redesign team does have a couple of advantages over previous efforts: the shortened lifetime spec (10 years instead of 30) and the freedom to look at how the station is managed [if you can call it that]. Titan and Russian launchers are also being looked at, as are higher-inclination orbits.
Clinton administration proposes a five-year program of NASA program cuts to boost aeronautics and space technology work under an overall flat budget. High points are station redesign, no NLS, scrapping the Advanced TDRS program and buying a few more TDRSes instead, trimming EOS some more, and killing NASP in favor of some low-key experimental work. ASRM would stay, Gravity Probe B would get a new start. A number of possible 1994 new starts are conditional on substantial station budget cuts.
Discovery, carrying Atlas 2 atmosphere/solar payload, launched April 8. A previous attempt April 6 stopped at T-11s (after some early worries about excessive crosswinds) due to a faulty valve sensor.
This shuttle mission carries a third pilot for the first time -- Ken Cockrell, listed as a mission specialist, is a qualified shuttle pilot. This is partly because Discovery is going to do a lot of maneuvering. On even-numbered days, dedicated mostly to solar observations, the orbiter will spend the day parts of its orbits with payload bay facing the Sun, and the night parts with the bay facing deep space to cool off.
Set of feature articles on low-budget Mars exploration, notably MESUR Pathfinder. MESUR itself is originally an Ames concept, since given to JPL to execute, which was planned to land 16 small surface stations to study geology and climate. NASA management now wants MESUR's costs cut, preferably in half (to $500M), before seeking a new start for it, and this may involve cutting the number of stations to 12 or less. This will be painful, because even with 16 there is a problem: the distribution of stations depends on which discipline you give highest priority. The geologists would be happy with 6-10 sites *if* they are all of different geological type. The meteorologists would really like about 20 sites evenly spread over the globe, preferably grouped on lines of longitude (!). The seismologists would like four groups of three stations in 100km triangles. JPL is looking at various ways of cutting the budget without cutting the science too much: adding even smaller landers as gap fillers, relying on ESA's proposed MarsNet for some of the stations [they can forget that, ESA rejected that project as too dependent on the US], adding Russian landers resembling the Mars 94 vehicles, using an Italian orbiter for communications relay, compressing the launch schedule to reduce the need for long life of the early landers, and using "larger and/or non-US launchers" (MESUR is baselined for Deltas, but it's pretty clear they mean "Proton" here).
NASA is pinning considerable hopes on flying the MESUR Pathfinder mission first for engineering development. This is a slightly tricky mission. MP will make a steeper and faster reentry than Viking (it doesn't go via orbit as an intermediate stop), yet must hold entry and landing forces down to 50G to go easy on the instruments, and must land within a 100x25km ellipse without aeromaneuvering capability. (The scientists would like a smaller ellipse, in fact.) The baseline concept uses an aeroshell for deceleration to subsonic speed, a parachute for further deceleration, and airbags for the landing. Main instruments will be imaging, a soil-analysis alpha/Xray spectrometer, possibly a seismometer. Also along will be a micro-rover based on JPL's Rocky 4 design; it will carry the spectrometer and a camera, plus possibly a rock chipper, and will operate up to 200m from the lander for a few weeks. Both lander and rover will be solar-powered.
Current prediction is that 10% of the MESUR network landers will fail, probably mostly on landing. Part of the Discovery program's supposed approach is to push reliability less and accept a few failures; "we'll see how serious all the talk is when there's the first failure".
A sad tale of missed opportunities in the Mars 94 mission... The US was talking about funding a third lander, with two instruments replaced by US ones. But when they sat down to talk details, they discovered that they'd missed the deadline and the Russians were proceeding with only two landers.
On the other hand, one of the two US instruments will fly, on one of the Russian landers; the contract has been signed for this. MOX, the Mars Oxidant Experiment, will examine Mars's surface chemistry [thought to be responsible for the funny results from the Viking life detectors, although nobody claims to understand the situation completely] by watching the optical properties of various materials coated on the ends of optical-fiber bundles. One bundle will be pressed into the surface on the end of a boom, another will be exposed to the atmosphere, a third will be in a sealed box as a control. The whole experiment weighs 1kg.
The Russians have also offered the US a spot for an instrument on the Mars 1996 rover; JPL is thinking about supplying a spectrometer.
Top people in assorted space programs to meet in Germany May 10-11 in hopes of coordinating Mars-exploration efforts better. The emphasis will be on missions after Mars Observer and Mars 1994/1996. CNES will propose a concept in which JPL's Mesur landers would be deployed from low-altitude balloons. ESA is considering long-term variations on Marsnet (which itself is considered dead, because it is too similar to Mesur and too little coordination has occurred -- one reason for this meeting), perhaps including an advanced rover. Japan is planning a small Mars orbiter for 1996 launch. And nobody knows what post-1996 plans are afoot in Russia.
The Russian-built tethered mini-rover proposed for the current Marsnet landers apparently had a precursor: the Soviet Mars 3 and 6 landers, both unsuccessful, carried such mini-rovers in 1971 and 1973.
Lockheed/Khrunichev offer Proton to Indonesia for its comsat launches, at its request. The L/K Proton price reportedly is close to what GD offered for Atlas; Lockheed is hoping that the US government won't get in the way if the prices aren't too far below the going rate.
Steve Dorfman, president of Hughes, on the US expendables: "As a user of launchers, I find it unacceptable for US policy to be protectionist of the US expendable launch vehicle industry when we are not willing to invest money in our own industry."
Commercial variant of the SS-25 ICBM launched from Plesetsk March 25 as a test. The commercial version, dubbed Start 1, will carry 500kg into a 700km orbit.
Separately, Russia is working on a replacement for the old A booster (aka Soyuz, Vostok, Molniya), to begin tests in 1996.
Hughes says its satellite definitely did not cause the Long March launch failure in Dec 1992, claiming that detailed investigation found no faults in Hughes procedures. Hughes *is* planning to make some small design changes in the HS 601 satellite, mind you, notably changing the way fuel lines are secured to avoid any chance of a leak. Hughes is talking to China about using Long March for another Optus launch [Optus being the customer for the lost bird], but nothing will be signed until the accident investigation process is over.
1994 SDI budget is flat, and continues the shift in emphasis toward tactical defences and longer-term light continental defence. Brilliant Pebbles, directed-energy work, and "follow-on technologies" in general will take major cuts. On the other hand, anticipated overall cuts for SDI have not yet materialized -- Clinton is leaving his options open for now.
Much the same story for Milstar, seen as a likely target for cancellation. The program will be slowed, launching the first four birds 12 months apart and then slowing to 21 months apart, but funding has not fallen much.
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