Eosat develops a system for on-line inspection of Thematic Mapper images from Landsat, runnable on PCs [well, they say "home or office computers", but I'm sure that's what they mean]. This is mainly meant to let image customers browse easily before buying. $500/year.
Arianespace delays next launch; the payload -- the Astra 1C comsat -- has been slightly damaged in a handling accident. Its telemetry/command antennas were struck by an overhead crane during launch preparations. Estimated launch slippage is about a week.
Manakov and Poleschuk perform the 200th Russian/Soviet spacewalk. [I'm told that this is not quite right; it's the 200th human to walk in space, neglecting a few "standup" spacewalks.] They relocated the drive unit for Mir's solar panels, experiencing some difficulties (including loss into space of a handle used to operate Mir's "crane").
Space-station redesign team, and the blue-ribbon oversight panel, formally acknowledge the obvious: it is not possible to meet all the design constraints while halving the cost. "Clearly, some prioritization has to occur."
Orbital Sciences and Canada's Teleglobe Inc. announce a teamup to do Orbital's Orbcomm global digital comsat system. Teleglobe will supply some funding and will operate Orbcomm outside the US (under a new company, Orbcomm International). Teleglobe is the world's fifth largest international communications provider.
Makeyev design bureau offers its land-based missile-test facilities for commercial launches using its sea-launched ballistic missiles. Makeyev is Russia's major builder of SLBMs and is keen on breaking into the commercial launch market.
NASA concludes that minor anomalies in Discovery's Atlas 2 mission will not be problems for Columbia's Spacelab D2, now scrambling to be ready for launch April 24. This will be record time if they make it -- the shortest previous time between one mission landing and the next going up is 10 days, and Discovery landed on the 17th. (Less happily, the flight that launched after 10 days was 51L...)
Speaking of which... Discovery lands April 17, after a one-day delay for improved weather at KSC.
Tool-control procedures are being revised after it was noticed that a pair of pliers took an unscheduled suborbital flight in a cavity in the aft skirt of Discovery's right SRB. They were found during booster disassembly after the launch. They appear to have been lost by a Thiokol employee during launch preparations, and the loss was reported, but no search was initiated, and NASA wants to know why not. The pliers did not pose any danger to the mission in that position.
NASA determines that a 3.5in piece of metal found in a debris collector near one of the hold-down posts after Discovery's launch is nothing to get excited about. It apparently escaped from the system that catches bits of the explosive nuts (which secure the shuttle to the pad and are blown at SRB ignition). [AW&ST said "explosive bolts", but they're wrong.] This is considered an "expected failure" and will not interfere with Columbia's launch.
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