[As has been mentioned in sci.space, I was incorrect in speculating that Spacelab D2 was the first shuttle mission to fly two foreign astronauts from the same country -- Spacelab D1 was first.]
SDIO considers allowing foreign launch suppliers to bid on the contract to launch the space test of the Topaz 2 reactor. They have bids from McDD (Delta) and GD (Atlas), but problems have surfaced. There is interest in starting at a higher altitude to minimize interference with gamma-ray astronomy satellites, and SDIO now wants to add some extra safety hardware as a precaution against launch accidents. The combination may require more than Delta can deliver, and the desire for competition may lead to opening the contract to foreign bidders. [That means Proton, I expect.]
Clarification of an early report: a cosmonaut will be launched to Mir for an 18-month stay sometime this year; he will be a medical doctor. [I've heard it might be Polyakov, the doctor who spent eight months on Mir sort of unintentionally a couple of years back, when his mission got extended repeatedly.]
Goldin is in hot water with Congressional space-station supporters again, over a claim that Richard Kohrs was only making a "guesstimate" when he said Fred could be built for not much more money than the redesign team is being allowed.
Aspin declares "an end to the Star Wars era", renaming SDIO the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and moving it downward in the DoD hierarchy (reducing its clout).
Independent review of US air operations against Iraq may add some backing for tactical missile defenses: it concludes that sensor limitations and Iraqi tactics (including decoys) severely limited the number of Scud launchers that the coalition was able to find and destroy -- it may even have been zero.
DC-X on the pad for static test firings at White Sands. First run to be 10s to confirm acoustic levels in the aft fuselage ("no one has ever built a vehicle like this before"). Then 50s to simulate the first hover tests. Then a longer test to simulate the most demanding flight currently planned. Once done, DC-X will be packed up and moved from NASA's White Sands Test Facility to the Space Harbor area of the Army's White Sands Missile Range for the flight tests. The move is a nuisance, but WSTF has a flame deflector suitable for captive engine firings, and it is also less hampered by range restrictions, so running the engine tests there was more convenient. Over at WSMR, the concrete pad used to hoist Columbia onto its carrier aircraft (after the White Sands shuttle landing in 1982) now bears a launch stand and a hangar for the DC-X flight tests.
DC-X takeoff will start by running the engines up to 30% for a check. If they seem to be running properly, thrust will be increased until DC-X lifts off; there are no hold-downs. The first test flight [I believe that means first after the initial "bunny hop" checkout flight] will rise to 600ft for hover tests, followed by landing on a prepared area about 350ft from the pad; the number of similar flights flown will depend on results. This will be followed by the second test series, to altitudes of about 5kft to expand the altitude and speed envelope, and the third, going up to 20kft to simulate a full landing including rotation maneuver. The second and third series will have a parachute abort mode, in which DC-X will climb to 7kft and deploy its emergency parachute, in addition to the possibility of doing an automatic landing.
DC-X has changed slightly of late: it now has eight nose strakes to minimize effects of asymmetric vortex shedding. These were added based on Calspan wind-tunnel testing. Despite this late addition, DC-X dry weight is only 21klb -- 1400lb under target.
Boeing proposes a manned two-stage launcher ("TSTO") using an SST-like aircraft as the first stage. Boeing says it could be flying by 2002 if money became available quickly. Cost estimates are not yet public. Boeing feels that SSTO is only marginally feasible, and in particular that Delta Clipper's VTOL approach limits payload and safety, according to John Sandvig of Boeing. [I have heard it said that not all of Boeing necessarily agrees that SSTO is that marginal, although if it were from Boeing it probably *would* use wings for takeoff and landing.] TSTO proposes lower separation velocities, and a less expensive carrier aircraft, than Saenger.
TSTO would use a modified SST as its first stage, with six afterburning jet engines (although industry experts observe that the required very large afterburning engine does not currently exist) and an SSME in the tail. At 30kft and Mach 0.85, the first stage's SSME and the second stage's engines would be lit for climb. About 100s later, at 100kft and Mach 3.3, separation would occur.
The TSTO second stage would be slung underneath the first stage's fuselage, minimizing the need for elaborate support equipment to mate the two stages. There would be three variants of the second stage. Variant A would use an SSME and four RL10s to power a winged orbiter with 20klb of payload (30klb with an uprated SSME). Variant B would use NASP-derived scramjets to carry a similar payload. And variant C would be partially expendable, with only engines and avionics returned (via a ballistic entry and parachute descent), carrying 50klbs payload. The first stage, and second-stage variants A and B, would be manned, although unmanned flight is a possibility. The variant A orbiter would look much like a scaled-down shuttle orbiter, and would have a 12x12x20ft payload bay that could take about 80% of all currently planned payloads.
NASA asks Russian industry for price quotes on construction of modules for Fred... although the US is sending mixed signals about how much Russian involvement it wants, and the Russians have noticed this. Yuri Semenov (of Energia NPO), in addition to expressing interest in building modules, has proposed that Fred be mated to Mir 2. He says Russia is nearing crucial decisions on Mir 2 and needs to know soon whether it will be part of an international station or standalone. NASA says combining the two is "well beyond the scope of what we're studying today", saying that it would take high-level policy decisions to authorize something like that.
The station-redesign team says it is taking Russian involvement seriously, although in smaller ways. Soyuz is definitely planned to be the lifeboat, the station will use the Russian docking system, and the idea of using Proton to launch station modules is being considered. Proton is particularly of interest for the Japanese and European modules, although it would need a new payload shroud. Also being explored is the question of whether Proton could launch Soyuz lifeboats to the station if it ends up in a low-inclination orbit; the current best answer is that Proton could launch an unmanned Soyuz to the high 30s, but not all the way to 28.5 degrees.
One group that wouldn't be too happy about the idea of Russia supplying the US station modules would be ESA -- which proposed to sell the US Spacelab-derived modules years ago, and was turned down.
Astra 1C finally launched May 11. Also along was the Arsene amateur- radio satellite built by a consortium of French universities.
Arianespace shows its idea of a souped-up Ariane 5 for GD's cheap- return-to-the-Moon concept. GD's scheme requires a launcher able to boost a fully-fueled Centaur into LEO, and this would have to be either a souped-up Titan 4 or a souped-up Ariane 5. [Well, if you ignore Energia...] Centaur will fit under the Ariane 5 payload shroud, but performance needs improving, and Arianespace proposes to do that by adding two more SRBs. These would be shorter versions of the regular Ariane 5 SRBs, ignited at altitude (to avoid having to add more flame troughs to the pad). The Vulcain core engine would also be uprated. Payload into GD's 70x300km 28.5deg transfer orbit would be 27.5 tons.
Senator James Exon calls for a Congressional review of whether the US should be providing GPS free to the world. He suggests that a for-profit or quasi-public corporation might be able to operate the satellites and charge fees to cover expenses. [Well, having the system run by profit-minded people would probably make some people happier than having it run by the US military... but good luck on getting the users to pay for it. Inmarsat has been trying to get customers to pay for supplementary GPS transmissions from its planned new satellites, without success.]
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