Russian officials propose converting Mars 94, now delayed to 1996, into a double mission, possibly including more hardware from other countries. The 1996 planetary alignment is not as good as 1994's, so Mars 94 would have to shed about 200kg to fly as a single mission. Splitting it and using two Protons will preserve its payload and possibly allow a third lander to be added.
Telesat Canada will lease Telstar 301 until Anik E2 is returned to service. T301 has been maneuvered into AE2's orbital slot temporarily.
Clementine Geographos encounter formally cancelled due to the loss of attitude control. Burns in progress to bring Clementine's perigee down into the Van Allen belts, for radiation-effects testing.
STEP-2 launched by Pegasus May 19.
Rep. Sensenbrenner unhappy about details of the space-station deal, notably the fact that NASA does not plan to track where its payments to RKA go. He suggests that dollar customers undoubtedly have more leverage than ruble customers, so the money should stay dollars until it reaches the people who will actually do the work, e.g. Khrunichev.
Kiberso, the Moscow company selling 2.5m spacecraft imaging, says that so far it has sold few of the maximum-resolution images, possibly because of the long delays involved in the use of film-return spacecraft.
Lockheed's board approves spending $150M on its high-resolution imaging project, about a third of total estimated cost. Partners will be sought over the next 6mo for the rest. The intent is an operational system by the end of 1997, with 1m resolution and 2-3m position accuracy. Apart from ground stations, the system will sell images, not equipment.
Eyeglass International gets DoC licence for its 1m system, planned with similar capabilities and a similar schedule (and probably similar cost).
WorldView Imaging is still on track to launch two satellites for its 3m system (approved several years ago) in late 1995.
Lockheed and WorldView, at least, feel that their satellite systems should cut heavily into the market for aerial photography. Others are less sure.
France is considered likely to commercialize its 1m Helios technology. Japan has announced plans to fly Hiros, a 2.5m satellite. South Africa's Denel-Houwteq is reportedly still on track with its GreenSat prototype, to offer 1.5m next year (with a Russian launch). And speaking of the Russians, reportedly there is a mirror image of the US's recent internal debate now in progress in Moscow, over whether the Russian military 0.75m system should be made commercially available.
Meanwhile, the USAF [!] is exploring the possibility of using Russian high-resolution imaging. Russian imagery was used to plan Gen. Doolittle's funeral in Washington last fall. One idea being discussed is having the USAF simply buy 2-3 Russian film-return spacecraft missions per year, at a cost much lower than a comparable US program.
Congressional battle over the station heats up, with Russian participation still the major hot item. RKA and NASA now both insist that the lead-in phase will cost no more than the promised $400M, but RKA's abortive $650M proposal has definitely muddied the waters. The White House is reviewing a revised proposal for Canadian involvement, lowering the CSA's costs and reducing its access to the station. Station officials are still trying to increase available power in the early phases of station use, and to reduce the EVA needed for assembly. Goldin says that historical odds of on-time shuttle launch, about 30%, can be improved to 50%+ with procedural improvements.
Goldin says he sees no way to finish the station on time at less than $2.1G a year. Congressthings looking for other programs to cut are having a hard time of it, since NASA has been hit hard in recent years and there is little maneuvering room left.
Priroda announces plans to develop a new commercial remote-sensing system, to have 5m resolution (comparable to that planned for Spot 5). Whether the Russians can compete well enough on price to beat out Spot's established position in the market is unclear. [Landsat wasn't even mentioned.]
Planned June 20 launch of a new Mir crew slips due to assembly delays, reportedly due to delivery delays on subsystems.
Binariang, a new Malaysian company, signs with Hughes for an HS376 comsat dubbed Measat, and an option on a second one. Launch to be Ariane or Delta. The underlying motive seems to be to provide Malaysian authorities with a satellite-broadcasting system whose content they can control. The beam footprint (in Ku band) will be relatively narrow, although there will also be some lower-power wider-footprint C-band service for regional service.
Inmarsat will start a spinoff company to develop Inmarsat-P, its Iridium competitor. Inmarsat and its signatories will own at least 70%, but the rest will be commercially available. This is basically intended to improve the chances of attracting financing.
Russia joins Eutelsat.
SMASH! "Sayy... I *liked* that window."| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "I enjoyed it too!" "Hmph! Some hero!"| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry