The cover story is the Hubble servicing mission.
Outside review panel finds that the Bush administration overestimated Pentagon budget savings for FY94-97 by $12-15G... a lot less than some had feared. The gap includes $1-2G for the Titan 4 launcher.
Rep. George Brown, with others on the Science/Space/Technology Committee of the House, offers a bill requiring NASA to stick close to current space-station plans, budgeting $1.9G/yr through 1999 for construction and $1.3G/yr thereafter for operations -- more than Clinton's target, less than current plans. Brown predicts that an attempt at drastic redesign will die in Congress.
NASA advisory panel notes that Hubble would have had even more in-orbit failures if its launch had not slipped from 1986 to 1990 as a result of Challenger. The delay permitted additional testing that found a number of problems. However, there is evidence that things "fell through the cracks" when responsibility for Hubble moved from Marshall to Goddard after launch; for example, there has been no attempt to track performance of other satellites with similar subsystems.
House hearing reveals tentative terms for Russian entry into the commercial launch market... accompanied by warnings to Europe that more international competition is desirable. The Russians will be allowed to contract for up to eight Clarke-orbit satellite launches through the end of 2000, with launches into other orbits handled on a case-by-case basis. Terms and pricing will be "similar to" those of comparable Western services; special consultations will be triggered by any Russian bid more than 7.5% less than Western ones. Russia will not contract for more than two launches in any 12-month period. The recent Inmarsat contract is exempt from all this, as are up to three Iridium launches.
Lockheed (which markets Proton in the West) says it is reasonably pleased with the terms, for now, and expects to fill the quotas easily.
The US's ultimate objective remains "rules of the road" agreements with all commercial launch suppliers, but although Europe had expressed interest in the idea, they did not participate in the talks with the Russians. The US claims that the Europeans want access to the US-government market as a condition of such an agreement, and are reluctant to allow the Russians in at all. The US position is that the Russians are coming :-) and the Europeans should accept part of the pain that will cause.
Major story on preparations for the Hubble repair. The review panel says the mission is "achievable", but the workload, tight schedule, and management complexity introduce a high risk of problems. Hubble is generally quite well designed for in-orbit repair; "the problem is the failure rate". The EVA time has grown 25% during the panel's review, and growth is continuing. Five spacewalks are planned during an 11-day mission, with two more available for Hubble contingencies in addition to the usual spare for shuttle problems. NASA is considering adding another repair mission next year, although the final decision will not be made until after "end to end" mission simulations in October. The review panel recommends shelving plans for service calls every 3-4 years, and instead pencilling in more frequent service opportunities to be used as needed.
The latest Hubble headache is that one of the fine-guidance sensors is acting up. It is not (yet) on the list of things to be dealt with in the repair mission; tests have verified that the problem is not severe and workarounds are feasible.
NASA actually sees restoring Hubble to full function as only the second goal of the mission; the more important goal is demonstrating that such major in-space servicing will work. If something goes badly wrong, long- term plans for the space station in particular are in trouble, not to mention long-term plans for Hubble.
The major jobs, in order of priority:
Secondary jobs are:
There is no single item on the work list that is particularly difficult; the sheer numbers are the main problem. Planning is complicated by the need to pack jobs into 6-8-hour EVAs, to rearrange the schedule if things go more or less quickly than expected, and to leave time to "back out" a procedure if it hits problems, so that Hubble will not be left in worse shape than it started in. Because of this, the highest priorities won't necessarily be done first. The current thinking is:
Day 3: Rendezvous with Hubble. Day 4: Three gyros and preparations for solar arrays. Day 5: Solar arrays. Day 6: WFPC2 and possibly the magnetometers. Day 7: COSTAR and the coprocessor. Day 8: Solar-array electronics and spectrometer repair. Day 9: Hubble redeployment. Day 10: Spare.
Hubble managers say they will be satisfied -- and will not request a second repair flight in the near future -- if the crew does the solar arrays, WFPC2, COSTAR, two gyros, and one magnetometer. However, if things go well and there is extra time, they want to make sure the hardware and plans are in position to get more done. Provisions are being made for 3-man EVAs, although there are no specific plans for any.
The review panel notes that "EVA planning, training, and scheduling is occurring very late in mission preparation", and warns that division of responsibilities between Goddard, Johnson, and Marshall complicates the management structure badly. It does applaud Goldin's appointment of a single mission director reporting directly to NASA HQ.
Currently there are 10-15 days of slack in the schedule for the target launch date of Dec 2.
COSTAR's development has hit minor snags. Vibration testing found a problem: parts of the hardware rubbed against each other, producing graphite-epoxy particles that contaminated 7 of its 10 mirrors. The mirrors have been cleaned, and the design of one of the mirror arms modified slightly to keep it clear of the graphite-epoxy structure. Nobody is too happy about the problem, but it was easily solved, and COSTAR's alignment remained within spec despite it. Quite elaborate testing is being done, by a team separate from the alignment team, using various pieces of hardware including a Hubble-aberration simulator that has been analyzed separately by NASA, ESA, and Ball (the COSTAR contractor).
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