[At last, I'm caught up!] [Yes, I regard being one month behind the calendar date as "caught up", considering delays in getting the issues, reading them, and typing them in. As it happens, this is actually the last one I have on hand at the moment, although I'm visiting my PO box tomorrow and there should be more...]
Intelsat and Martin Marietta come to terms over the 1990-Titan-failure lawsuits. MM will give Intelsat a special deal on its next satellite buy from what is now MM Astro Space. [Handy, that merger...]
Aspin authorizes purchase of four [!] more Topaz 2 space reactors by BMDO. Delivery tentatively set for August.
Clinton is trying to use the space station as leverage to reduce Russian exports of missile technology and such. For example, an 80T shipment of ammonium perchlorate (used in solid fuels) from Russia to Libya was intercepted in the Ukraine (with Ukrainian help), and the Russians were told that refraining from such exports would materially help the case of their companies trying for space-station work. High-level talks expected soon.
Support for Spacelifter waning as the military concludes that in times of budget cuts, its existing launchers can do the job. [Gosh, what a surprise.] Gen. Charles Horner, head of US Space Command, said so in public, dismaying Spacelifter supporters, who had been looking to Horner to lead the battle. Horner says his top priority right now is the Follow-on Early Warning System. Spacelifter supporters are in disarray, partly because industry has always been split on whether it was better to develop a new launcher (and if so, what sort) or upgrade old ones. Contractors plan a meeting to see if a consensus can be reached for lobbying purposes.
Boeing/GD/L/MM/R launch-services-market-study consortium gets small NASA contracts to start work.
Latest Congressional attempt to kill the space station fails by one vote (although it actually wasn't quite that close, because four of the anti-station votes were cast by representatives from US territories, and under House rules their votes cannot decide such an issue). The split was not along party lines: "a bizarre bipartisan coalition on one side against a bizarre bipartisan coalition on the other side". Clinton was busy rounding up votes for his economic proposals, but Gore did some lobbying for the station.
NASA is forecasting about a two-year slip in the 2000-2001 permanent- manning schedule for the station under the new budget projections.
The House authorization bill does call for killing ASRM, with half of the funding to go to NASA space-science programs.
ESA delays final decisions on Columbus and other major programs, pending the outcome of political battles on both sides of the Atlantic over the space station.
France, still smarting over Hermes, is now starting to talk about the notion of developing an Apollo-style capsule to launch on Ariane 5, once the Columbus situation stabilizes. [A far more sensible approach than Hermes, I would say...]
French propulsion company SEP forms an alliance with the Russian Fakel design bureau to develop and market plasma thrusters for comsat stationkeeping, specifically for Space System Loral comsats. Apparently Fakel's thrusters have already flown on a number of Russian satellites.
NASA, ESA, CNES, RSA, and ASI agree (in principle) to better coordination of Mars exploration after Mars 96 and Mesur Pathfinder, with an eye on better science and reduced costs. Japan did not participate in the meeting.
Energia design bureau proposes family of semi-ballistic reentry capsules for everything from microgravity experiments to space-station lifeboats. These would be followons to the Raduga capsule used for 150kg payload return from Mir.
The May Proton failure did have one bright side: it tested a new abort mode. The launch failed when second-stage tank pressurization was lost. The abort mode dumps fourth-stage fuels if launcher performance is too far below nominal, to ensure that the tanks are empty on impact if the stage does not burn up completely.
BMDO proposes that Clementine 2 carry four LEAPs (Light ExoAtmospheric Projectiles), designed as missile interceptors, and fire them at two asteroids to give sensors on the main spacecraft more information on surface composition and structure. BMDO estimates the spacecraft, including the four LEAPs, could be built in under two years for under $35M. Clementine was planned from the start as a two-spacecraft project, so a good bit of the hardware needed for the second one is already on hand. The weight savings needed to accommodate the LEAPs would be had by using all-composite structure (Clementine 1's structure is partly metal) and using Aerojet's ALAS (Advanced Liquid Axial Stage) for higher-performance propulsion. ALAS burns hydrazine and chlorine pentafluoride for an Isp of 350s, highest for any storable fuel mix.
Meanwhile, final assembly of Clementine 1 is underway at NRL. The program is on track for launch in January.
And speaking of asteroids, US Space Command has started regular monitoring of data from its early-warning satellites to detect the explosions of asteroids striking Earth's atmosphere. They have been detected for years -- there are 10-30 asteroid impacts per year with energy release exceeding a kiloton -- but logging has been unsystematic because the system is "very manual" and the operators tended to ignore anything that definitely wasn't a missile launch. The Russians have also offered to make their early-warning radars available for asteroid searches; "if programmed right, those radars can see halfway to the Moon". The BMDO people note that funding for such things can be a problem: "it's difficult to be taken seriously when asking for money to find out whether the sky is falling".
Endeavour launched June 21, after a one-day slip due to bad weather.
Endeavour successfully retrieves Eureca. After all the worries over the solar arrays, the only real hitch came from a different direction: Eureca's two antennas would not stow properly. However, both were close to their fully-stowed positions, and the grappling and berthing was not hampered. Cause of the problem is not known, although video images show thermal insulation puffed out in places, and it may be interfering. Nobody is too worried, because a spacewalk is planned for the 25th and the astronauts have practiced dealing with problems like this. David Low and Jeff Wisoff will first try to just push the antennas into fully-stowed position, in hopes that they will latch. [They did.] Failing that, they could tie them down or cut them off. This is expected to add perhaps 1hr to the 4hr spacewalk, second of the "generic EVAs" aimed at testing spacewalk techniques.
The Spacehab side of the mission is going well, and another customer (Mitsubishi) signed up for some of the remaining space on later flights early in this one.
SHOOT, an experiment testing transfers of liquid helium for "refuelling" cryogenic astronomical telescopes, isn't going well. Endeavour did some maneuvering in an attempt to slosh the experiment's contents a bit, without major improvement.
Editorial supporting the station redesign, not so much for what it's done to the hardware but for the decision to fix the management, while pointing out the ironic state of the world's two space-station programs: "In Russia, where the economy dangles by a thread, work edges forward on Mir 2 as Mir 1 heads toward a decade in orbit. In the US, where the economy remains the world's most formidable, the Freedom space station dangles by a thread, headed toward a decade on the drawing boards."
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