CTA to build Indostar satellite system for Indonesia. Indostar 1, to be launched in early 1996, will be the first direct-broadcast lightsat. It will be the first of four Indostars.
Boeing studying adapting a phased-array conformal antenna it did for military applications to airliner reception of broadcastsat TV signals.
India's fourth ASLV launch is, for the first time, a complete success. The May 4 launch from Sriharikota Shar put an astrophysics satellite into low orbit.
Clinton space policy imminent. [Speech at 11. :-)] Disregarding mumbling, it will say:
DoD and NASA to respond in detail by July 1.
MM completes its acquisition of GD's space operations, after getting a clean bill of health on antitrust *and* DoD approval for MM to hang onto some of the savings to be had from merged launch operations.
DoD *finally* coughs up the $5M Congress gave it for finishing DC-X flight tests. DoD says "that's the end of our involvement". [Oh, and what about that $40M Congress ordered you to spend on starting SX-2 development?] NASA is interested in acquiring DC-X as a technology testbed, after DoD is finished. The DoD flight tests will resume in June, and the funding covers to the end of August, which should allow 3-5 flights, including both the flip maneuver and a rapid-turnaround demo. New participants, too: Dryden will help analyze the flip test, Phillips Labs will nominally run the tests to prepare for possible future military SSTO work, and Marshall will learn the ropes to take over the vehicle for NASA.
That Cape Titan IV finally went up May 3, two years late. [Ah, those reliable expendables, always on time, not like that undependable shuttle.] Apparently the payload had a share in the delays, mind you. The nature of the payload remains secret, although it seems to have gone into a highly elliptical orbit (at least initially) at high inclination, which suggests an eavesdropping bird.
Aerojet to fire a small Russian thruster at its US test range, not with any great interest in selling it (too much competition in that size range) but as a pathfinder for more ambitious collaboration with the Russians.
Clementine 1 boosts out of lunar orbit May 3. It just escaped being shut down early by DoD beancounters cutting budgets. [Only to have its attitude-control system screw up, sigh...]
Serious US-Russian discussions about Pluto cooperation. Pluto Fast Flyby can't fly on Titan IV, it's too expensive. So what about Proton? Trouble is, NASA policy on international missions is "no money changes hands", and the Russians aren't keen on swapping a Proton for 2kg of payload mass and a sticker on the side. IKI proposes adding a "drop Zond" probe to each PFF bird, to impact on Pluto and Charon.
Also under consideration are joint solar missions, and possibly a joint revival of the "Fire and Ice" concept [one bird to Pluto, one into the Sun].
Earth scientists uneasy about imminent reorganization at Ames that may increase costs (and thus decrease flight hours) for NASA's science-support aircraft. For example, maintenance practices may get changed from normal civil practice to mil-spec rules. Trouble is, past cuts have squeezed aircraft operations enough to eliminate slack, so any extra expense means fewer flight hours.
"All I really want is a rich uncle." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology - Wernher von Braun | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry