[Hmm, dearie me, I've gotten behind again... Expect things to be a bit terse while I try to catch up.]
Letter from Peter Thomas (Cornell) criticizing the notion of sending Clementine 2 to Mars as an MO replacement, on the grounds that its instruments are not up to the job.
NASA moves to shut down ASRM, after House votes 401-30 against it with the Senate expected to follow suit.
Hubble takes a look at Shoemaker-Levy 9, the shattered comet now on a collision course with Jupiter. The Hubble images suggest that early estimates of the size of the nuclei were excessive, so the impacts will not be quite as violent as first thought. The Hubble images put a rough upper bound of 5km on the size of the bigger lumps, as against a 15km bound from ground-based observations.
Third test of the Ariane 5 SRBs postponed -- bubbles have been found in the fuel of the test SRB. Such bubbles are not unheard-of, and are not necessarily disastrous, but ESA is unable to determine how large and how numerous they are at the moment, and if there are too many and too big, it could ruin the test and possibly damage the test stand. The SRB with the bubbles will be set aside and not fired until later, if at all. The delay will be used to implement planned improvements in the fuel-mixing process. The problem is not expected to delay Ariane 5 first flight.
The Russian-rocket-technology-for-India issue surfaces again, as Rep. Sensenbrenner asks the State Dept. to assess reports that Indian technicians in Russia are getting access to hardware and information that would violate the recent US-Russian agreement.
Shuttle and station programs are under a single boss again: Maj.Gen. Jeremiah Pearson. Pearson may also be temporary director of JSC for a while, with the mission of knocking heads on Goldin's behalf. Other management changes include astronaut William Shepherd becoming manager of the JSC station office, with Bryan O'Connor picked as station director (in Washington).
Aerojet is importing a Trud NK-33 LOX/kerosene rocket engine into the US for examination and display. They say its design is substantially more advanced than the US LOX/kerosene engines, most of which are fairly old, and it would make a good upgrade for Delta or Atlas. Thrust is 339klbs (sea level), Isp 297s (s.l.) to 331s (vacuum), with a sea-level thrust:weight ratio of 125. It is throttlable. The chamber pressure is about double that of US LOX/kerosene engines. Aerojet would like a bit of government funding to test-fire the engine at US facilities, validating the Russian claims and sorting out operational issues. There are 70 nominally flight-ready NK-33s in storage, and parts for about 32 more. The one en route to Aerojet is officially not cleared for firing, although it is to full production standard and would only need disassembly and inspection.
Second Arrow failure in a row involving the warhead failing to fire. The Israelis thought they'd fixed the fuze software after the March failure; evidently not so. Otherwise the test intercept worked.
Interview with Charles Bigot, head of Arianespace. "A good year so far", he says, with 14 new satellites booked for launch. He's expecting some drop in business a few years out unless new customers materialize. He sees no new US competitor soon, thinks the Chinese don't really have Long March under control yet, but is concerned about Proton: he wants to see Russian markets opened to Western launchers if Western markets are opened to Russian launchers. He's happy about Ariane 5 and sees it proliferating into a family of launchers. He's not interested in moving into the small-launcher business, which he sees as crowded already. He is unhappy with Motorola's push to have Iridium launch suppliers invest in Iridium: Arianespace wants to stay neutral and supply launches to everyone, rather than picking winners and losers.
Much talk about new efforts at Mars exploration, with the loss of Mars Observer and declining confidence that Russia will get Mars 94 launched in 1994. Russian attempts to attract Western financial support for Mars 94 have fallen flat; "it's as if a bankrupt company came to court appealing for help, but showed up without a restructuring plan". Some now think that even a 1996 launch for Mars 94 is optimistic, and the outlook for Mars 96 is equally gloomy.
On the US front, Goldin is unenthusiastic about a duplicate Mars Observer, although JPL likes the idea. It would be old technology, and would be a single spacecraft without a backup -- particularly worrisome when the design is known to have a nasty flaw in it *somewhere*. JPL, at Goldin's prodding, put out an RFP for a two-spacecraft "Mars Observer Recovery Mission", with each craft carrying some of the MO instrument spares. Launches could conceivably be in 1996, although one in 1996 and the other in 1998 is more likely. Mesur Pathfinder is still on track for 1996.
There are assorted proposals farther down the road, with Japanese, ESA, French, and Italian participation also proposed.
AW&ST gets copy of Russian document, essentially a price list for space- station components. NASA and the White House are firmly saying that they want to see Russia in the station program on the same terms as the other partners, with Russia paying for its own hardware.
Japan and Russia sign space-cooperation agreement, with space-station efforts first on the agenda. The possibility of launching Japan's station module -- rather heavy for the shuttle to lift into a high- inclination orbit -- on Proton has been mentioned.
Clinton formally asks the station partners to admit Russia as a full partner, reiterating his own enthusiasm for the project.
Columbia aloft on Spacelab Life Sciences 2 mission, slated for 14 days (longest yet), with four astronauts and 48 rats as guinea pigs.
Goddard engineers run yet another set of optical checks on WFPC2, clearing it for launch despite earlier doubts. NASA is waffling about whether or not to move the Hubble-repair launch up; they want to leave as much room as possible for hardware or weather problems before things close down for Christmas, but there are range conflicts and they don't want to have to bring work crews in over Thanksgiving. Official date still Dec 2.
China has lost control of a recoverable microgravity spacecraft, including a two-ton reentry capsule that will likely come down in one piece.
NASA ozone sensor aboard the Russian Meteor 3-5 satellite reports the deepest Antarctic ozone hole yet seen, attributed to an unusually harsh winter there. The area of the hole is a bit smaller than last year.
Belief is no substitute | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology for arithmetic. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry