U of Queensland researchers demonstrate scramjet thrust exceeding drag in a Mach 6.4 wind tunnel.
DC-X static tests completed June 17; move to flight-test area underway.
Full 353s static test firing of H-2 completed at Tanegashima.
[Not really space-related, but what the hell...] Russians release the flight-recorder tapes from KAL 007! The Soviets recovered them shortly after the incident, but kept quiet about it. ICAO analysis shows that the course deviation was crew error: the aircraft's autopilot was running off the magnetic compass instead of the inertial navigation system.
Deke Slayton -- Mercury astronaut grounded due to heart irregularity, long-time chief astronaut, docking-module pilot on Apollo-Soyuz, vice chairman of Space Services Inc. -- dies June 13 at 69.
Randy Brinkley, manager of the Hubble repair mission, given approval to slip the Dec 2 launch into January if necessary for adequate crew training. (NASA review panel had criticized the planning/training schedule for the complex mission as overly tight.) Brinkley says his big worries right now are whether thermal effects have caused any unexpected changes on Hubble, and how to best prevent any possibility of contaminating the optics.
Clinton chooses: a slightly slimmed-down option B. It is going to cost more than he wanted, and this will cut into the funding that was supposed to be available for "new technology initiatives" within NASA. There will also be some slippage from the 2000-2001 completion date, since OMB is adamant that the station will not get more than $2.1G/year and all the redesign options would need $3G peaks to stay on schedule. [My, this sounds familiar... last time OMB dug in its heels like this, the result was solid-fuel boosters for the shuttle.] Clinton also declares: "We are going to redesign NASA as we redesign the space station". Clinton says he has no plans to replace Goldin [AW&ST repeats the rumor that Kutyna was about to be named Goldin's successor, since determined to be false].
The Vest panel, it turns out, pushed options C and A. Clinton's design is billed as "A with improvements from B", but between the things that got included from B, and the things that will have to be put back to accommodate those things, the differences from B ended up being minor. NASA has been given 90 days to sort out the details of the design. As yet unresolved are orbital inclination (the Vest panel recommended 51.6), possible Russian participation other than use of Soyuz as the lifeboat, termination costs for the existing program, the exact configuration (notably, the number of science-equipment racks to fly in the US modules), and program leadership. The Vest panel agreed with other station supporters that the project is not worthwhile unless it is carried through to permanent manning.
The international partners are... well, not happy, but still in the program at present. At Canada's request, a meeting was called at the US State Dept June 11 to give the partners a chance to air their complaints about how this has all been done. Political support for ESA participation in Space Station Clinton is still uncertain, in particular, and ESA is generally quite angry. Jean-Marie Luton, ESA's director-general, says that ESA is most unlikely to enter into any further major cooperative agreements with the US unless they include penalty clauses by which ESA could recover costs if programs are terminated or revised by US political fiat.
Bits of news from the Paris Air Show... Aerospatiale is shopping for partners for two launcher projects: a Delta-class launcher targeted at a launch cost 1/3 that of Delta, and a small launcher targeted at 400kg into LEO for $7M. E-Systems unveils the USAF's Joint Service Imagery Processing System, demonstrating image enhancement etc. using an image from a KH-9 spysat (showing a nuclear power plant being built, in sufficient detail that one could see the workers' suspenders and the gas hoses of their torches). Matra Cap Systems announces sale of a $5M mobile ground station for Spot data... to the USAF.
South Africa shows an engineering test model of its "Greensat" environmental imaging satellite, now being built for launch in 1995. It will operate in a 400km orbit, carrying a panchromatic imager with 2.5m resolution, plus a multispectral camera with 16m resolution in two bands optimized for agricultural data. While the satellite is billed as being primarily for commercial applications, 2.5m imaging is clearly of military interest to South Africa and potential partners like Israel (although South African officials say Israel is not involved in the project). The satellite weighs 300kg and is of a fairly advanced design, including graphite-epoxy structure and South-Africa-developed rocket thrusters. Some technology is being imported, e.g. momentum wheels from British Aerospace. A launch vehicle has not yet been selected. South Africa is hoping to find a European partner to handle some of the commercial marketing.
South Africa is also developing its own launcher, a three-stage solid dubbed the RSA-4, designed to launch 515kg into LEO for $15M. (The program is said to be based entirely on commercial viability, although this would obviously make a dandy ballistic missile.) There are hopes of finding a European partner for this project too, and its future is not assured if commercial interest does not materialize. A launch facility is also being developed on the Cape of Good Hope; suborbital launches have already been flown there. Funding permitting, the first orbital launch, possibly with a test payload, is set for 1996.
Spain shows models of its Minisat, a 300kg small satellite carrying extreme-UV astronomy and materials-processing experiments, set for 1995 launch. Launcher is as yet undetermined, although the obvious possibilities are piggybacking on Ariane or buying a Pegasus. The satellite is being built as a flexible bus that could be adapted to other missions.
Also in the works in Spain is yet another small launcher, Capricorni, a three-stage solid capable of launching 50-150kg into LEO. First and third stages will be from Thiokol (Castor 4B and Star 30); the second stage is being developed in Spain to advance technology there.
Israel Aircraft Industries announces plans for Arrow 2, a two-stage operational successor to the Arrow tactical interceptor missile now being tested in partnership with BMDO. Arrow 2 will be smaller than Arrow to make it more portable. Development will start at the end of the Arrow contract in April 1995. Estimated cost, including development money already spent, for a 350-missile system, is $1.7G. Little information on Arrow has been released. Israel's defence ministry has notified BMDO that it is commencing work on system components other than the missile, e.g. radar, computers, launchers.
NTSB investigation of the Feb. Pegasus launch cites poor coordination, confusion about assignment of communications channels, and inadequate preparations for unexpected events as the primary cause of Pegasus being launched despite "abort" calls. Officials from Wallops, the Cape, and OSC had agreed to abort the launch if there was any signal dropout from the Pegasus destruct system in the last 6 minutes, with a minimum three-day downtime to allow analysis of the problem. The Dryden people [involved because it was their B-52] say they were not informed of this and would have challenged it if they had been, because the routing of telemetry data was complex and there was a fair chance of transient dropouts unrelated to the health of the Pegasus hardware. The dropout *was* transient, and was recognized as such... but different groups involved had different ideas about which radio channel was the primary one, and about which Wallops official had final say on rescinding an abort. So the launch went off on time, quite safely but technically in violation of rules.
FAA initiates major effort to integrate GPS into air operations; Canada will follow. In the initial phase, alternate navigation aids are required to be present, operational, and continuously monitored. These restrictions will gradually be lifted as experience builds up and as GPS receivers acquire the ability to monitor GPS integrity.
Magellan Systems unveils what it describes as the first GPS receiver to meet the FAA integrity-monitoring specs.
Congress and satellite builders are pressing the CIA to ease up on its opposition to export of high-resolution imaging satellites and data. Foreign systems with 1m resolution are already on offer: France is actively seeking users for its 1m Helios system, Russia will happily sell 1m satellites (and cheap launches for them), Germany is reportedly pursuing 1-2m resolution, and even China is talking to possible customers. Lockheed looks like the US test case: it has applied for a permit to operate a 1m commercial remote-sensing system. CIA director Jim Woolsey reportedly told a closed Senate hearing that the CIA will no longer "automatically" oppose approval for high-resolution systems, but he refused to say anything more helpful. Litton Itek Optical says it may have already lost a lucrative sale -- the United Arab Emirates wants to buy a complete system including two satellites -- due to US government inaction since the export-licence request was filed in June 1991: the UAE is still interested in buying from Litton, but now considers Russia and France to be viable alternatives. The US companies are pointing out that if such systems are bought from the US, this at least gives the US government control over maintenance and spares.
Satellite image of the Pentagon, taken by a Russian satellite.
Bad News Of The Week: both of the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometers in orbit have failed. The timing is lousy too, since stratospheric ozone levels are unexpectedly low and everyone would like to be able to see what's going on. Both failures were in the chopper wheels of the spectrometers. The chopper wheel in the TOMS aboard Nimbus 7 simply stopped on May 6, and repeated efforts to restart it failed. (Since Nimbus 7 was launched nearly 15 years ago, the assumption is that the electronics have simply died due to accumulated radiation exposure and general aging.) The chopper wheel in the TOMS aboard the Soviet/Russian Meteor 3 started having synchronization problems in May, producing minor data dropouts. The problem got worse, and then cleared up. By the second week of June, it got worse again, to the point where the TOMS is essentially off the air. The problem is not fully understood, although it seems to correlate to memory upsets due to solar-flare particle hits, and the prognosis is unclear. NASA is considering trying to accelerate the Earth Probe satellite (essentially a dedicated TOMS carrier) being built by TRW for launch next year.
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