Space-station managers struggling with backup options in case Russia drops out [one would think it's pretty clear by now that the US is the unreliable partner, but...], most notably various combinations of commercially-bought Salyut FGBs, Lockheed Bus-1s, or revived Freedom propulsion modules for stationkeeping.
USAF is hurrying Talon Shield, originally an experimental program to combine data from multiple missile-warning satellites, toward limited operational status. Existing data-combination facilities are quite primitive.
US to deploy a mobile missile-warning-satellite ground station to Korea.
Bickering over a follow-on missile-warning program continues, including allegations that studies favoring upgrading the existing system were suppressed by the USAF.
USAF investigation of the Gulf-War Scud attack that killed 28 US troops reports that all three of the DSP warning satellites saw the missile, but the primary satellite saw it nose-on and didn't see enough motion to generate an alert, the second got only a limited look at it (but did get enough to trigger an air-raid warning), and the third was officially a spare -- even though it actually had the best view -- and was not being monitored. The second satellite was being run from Germany and Colorado, while the other two were being run from Australia. "If data from all satellites had been fused at a common processing center, this launch would have been easily detected." The lack of a full warning, plus various other problems, prevented any attempt at interception.
Plans to use the Salyut FGB tug for station reboost hit a snag: quite a bit of fuel will be needed, and the Progress tankers are too small. NASA is looking at an enlarged Progress, and has asked ESA to study using its proposed ATV for refuelling; doing it with the shuttle would be costly.
NASA is also formally proposing that a single Soyuz configuration be developed for both routine transport and lifeboat operations.
ESA is now pushing the idea of using Ariane 5 for station support, including use to launch the Columbus module.
Another idea that has come up is using Comet for small deliveries to the station and small-payload return.
Joe Allen of Space Industries points out that the practical operations experience that the US is now leaning on the Russians for could have been had with the ISF project, had NASA funded it.
Ariane 5 development is running a bit late, and speculation has the Oct 1995 first launch slipping a couple of months. Arianespace managers are becoming nervous about competition from Proton, Long March, and possible cheaper US launchers. The target for A5 was to be 10% cheaper than A44L, and Arianespace would like to see 20% to meet the new competition, but the current projection is only 3%. The contractors are looking at the problem, but that's a big gap.
The test Ariane 5 SRB with the bubbles in its fuel has been put in storage for shelf-life evaluation, and might possibly be fired later. The problem has been traced to the European ammonium perchlorate used, which has a slightly different structure, affecting fuel viscosity and the pouring process. Work is underway to fix this, and the next four test SRBs will be built with US-supplied a.p. (which will probably be retained as a second source even after the European stuff is cleared for use).
NASDA now believes that man-rating the H-2 would require a major redesign at major expense. It won't happen soon.
Lots of confusion in the LEO-comsat market. The well-known players are all aiming at expanding their mobile-applications market by providing fixed-site service in remote areas... but Teledesic has staked that out as its turf, and is ignoring the mobile market. Inmarsat has deferred any entry into the market, citing market uncertainties and financing problems (notably, Comsat would be reluctant to pay its full share because it's not sure the FCC will authorize the service in the US, while countries like Canada and Brazil might want to contribute more... which would require an amendment to Inmarsat's charter, an inordinately slow process).
Clementine completes the first half of its lunar-mapping mission. Minor rocket burns March 25-26 shift its perilune from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere for the second half. No serious problems to date. Science team "ecstatic". Picture taken looking over the lunar north pole at the Earth.
USAF experimenting with using Inmarsat data links to report GPS-measured positions of transport aircraft, in an attempt to see what can be done with off-the-shelf commercial equipment. Works well.
Spot Image will design and develop the ground system for Spot 5 itself, in the belief that this will yield a system much more responsive to customer needs than the current ones, which were originally developed by CNES.
Senior Russian council recommends slipping Mars 96 to 1998, and it is expected that this will be done. The effort to keep Mars 94 on track has limited funding for Mars 96. The 1998 launch opportunity is not as favorable, and the spacecraft will have to be lightened; details have not yet been decided. Mars 94 is on track but the schedule is very tight; around the start of May, a major review will decide what will be done.
Russian Mars rover runs a set of telepresence tests in the Mojave, trying out a McDonnell Douglas arm (not currently part of the Mars 96 mission, but since the mission has slipped to 1998, things could change...) and a more powerful onboard computer.
Mir's electron gun fired at the Swedish Freja fields-and-particles satellite, in hopes that Freja could detect it. Freja data was being recorded by the Canadian ground station at Prince Albert, and data tapes may need to be flown from there to Sweden for analysis to confirm success. Scientists from Germany and the US are also involved.
New Russia-Kazakhstan agreement on Baikonur signed, including clauses calling for phasing out of military launch operations from Baikonur (presumably moving them to Plesetsk) and transition from military to civilian launch crews. (Despite the existence of Plesetsk, there is still a fair bit of Russian military launch activity at Baikonur.) A stickier problem is that the Kazakhs want Proton launches restricted to 5-6 a year and to civilian payloads only, where Russia wants the right to fly 12-14 to support Clarke-orbit satellite constellations and manned space operations (the historical maximum is 13). Russia and Kazakhstan agreed to negotiate the Proton issue separately, to permit signing of the main agreement.
NOAA prays for a successful launch of Goes 8, scheduled for April 12 at the Cape. The Goes-Next series, of which Goes 8 is the first, is three years behind schedule and massively over budget. Goes 7 is seven years past its design life and almost out of fuel, and NOAA has been surviving by borrowing Meteosat 3 from the Europeans. The new birds will have better instruments, which have been responsible for much of the delay. Goes 9 is under construction for launch next April. NOAA is also looking at the need to get a successor program going, since they will have to be ready to launch the next generation circa 2002.
Editorial chiding the White House for its lukewarm support of the space program, including the first NASA budget drop in two decades, and saying that strong White House support will be needed urgently to keep the space station alive this spring.
"All I really want is a rich uncle." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology - Wernher von Braun | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry