The Hubble servicing mission having been a great success, NASA is now talking about postponing the next visit from 1997 to 1999, which means a two-year delay in installing the improved instruments under development for that visit. Feasibility of this depends on how soon Hubble needs a reboost, which in turn depends on solar activity.
Geos 8, en route to Clarke orbit, is having attitude-control problems which seem likely to delay its arrival at its operating position: NASA has postponed the remaining apogee-motor firings until the problems are better understood.
Endeavour lands at Edwards after a one-day mission extension in hopes of better weather at the Cape. Radar observations were continued. Data processing will take quite a while, but preliminary results are good. Particularly interesting are *color* (well, false color) images, made possible by the SRL radar system doing simultaneous imaging at three different wavelengths.
Planned April 21 Titan IV launch slips at least two days after a procedural error in preparations cuts power to the Titan's guidance system. Nature of the payload is still undisclosed, although the use of a Centaur and a high-inclination orbit (the Cape having warned Canada about an up-the- Eastern-Seaboard launch trajectory) suggests that it is the eavesdropping satellite that reportedly has been sitting in a Cape hangar for three years awaiting launch.
NASA releases new launch schedule, calling for eight shuttle missions next year and nine per year in 1996 and 1997, plus assorted expendables. The next expendable launch is the very last Scout, set to launch DoD's MSTI-2 from Vandenberg May 16.
New French defence plan includes authorization for the Helios 2 spysat.
[A light week.]
"All I really want is a rich uncle." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology - Wernher von Braun | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry