[Vacation and various other things took their toll, and I'm behind again... so what else is new...]
This is AW&ST's Apollo-anniversary issue.
Senate Appropriations approves full station funding.
Alliant Techsystems to buy Hercules's aerospace units.
FAA Administrator to fly first published GPS-only approach, at Frederick MD, July 16.
Astronomers point every piece of glass they can find :-) at Jupiter.
Investigation of DC-X accident concludes that the problem was hydrogen buildup in ground-support equipment. Unusual winds blew hydrogen, venting from DC-X, into the intake of a duct that blows air under DC-X's base to disperse venting hydrogen (!). The hydrogen confined in the duct exploded when ignited by DC-X's engine start, and the shock wave caused a small explosion in the hydrogen around DC-X itself (which normally burns rather than exploding), tearing open DC-X's skin. Damage to everything except the skin is minimal. Skin-repair cost estimate is under $1M, but there isn't that much slack in the DC-X flight-test budget, and ARPA -- which has been sitting on $35M provided to start work on a DC-X successor -- doesn't want to put any more money into this line of development.
"Advertiser Sponsored Market Supplement" on Apollo. A few nice pictures, but pretty content-free.
Article on possible use of lunar resources for future lunar exploration. Lunar LOX production, in particular, just might make it possible to do major lunar exploration without needing a new heavylift launcher [or orbital assembly]. Mass of a space-to-space ferry could be cut by a factor of 3.
Science Applications Intnl. has a specific proposal, based on use of Shuttle-C. The first launch would carry an oxygen plant, with a nuclear reactor for power. The second would carry various teleoperated auxiliary vehicles. After that, manned flights could start.
NASA Lewis has its own concept. Its ferry would use nuclear rocket engines with "afterburners": oxygen injection in the exhaust nozzle. Use of the "afterburner" mode nearly triples thrust, at the cost of reduced exhaust velocity (which remains, however, higher than any chemical system). The tank size and mass drop dramatically. The engine design, a NASA-funded joint effort of Aerojet, Babcock&Wilcox, and Russia's Energopool, was sketched out at the Joint Propulsion Conference last month. They say the proposed engine is small enough to test in existing facilities.
Story on LunaCorp's proposal to send teleoperated rovers to the Moon using the entertainment industry for funding, starting in 1997. They say signing with major customers is imminent. The current plan for the initial rover is to land near the Apollo 11 site and visit the Surveyor 5, Ranger 8, and Apollo 17 sites en route to the Lunokhod 2 site. The biggest technical headache is communication: they had planned to use a Ku-band dish and leased large dishes on Earth, but finding a frequency not already claimed by comsats is troublesome, and antenna pointing is a problem, so there is now talk of optical communications.
Story on International Space Enterprises' attempt to market unmanned lunar landers commercially. ISE is quoting $125k/kg of payload landed, using Russian hardware and a Proton launch. The initial capacity of the Isela-600 lander is 600kg, and ISE plans to launch whenever they can line up 400kg or more of payloads. They also plan a second-generation Isela-1500.
Clementine pictures, including a major depression at the lunar south pole (promising for polar ice deposits), multispectral coverage of Aristarchus much superior to that of Galileo, a preliminary gravity map of Mare Orientale, and Earthrise over the lunar north pole.
"Forum" article by Andrew Chaikin, urging action, not just reminiscing, on Apollo's anniversary.
Rockwell and NPO Energia sorting out what to do about doubts over the reliability of Russian explosive bolts in the Shuttle-Mir docking system. Rockwell and NASA want NPO Energia to run a series of tests on the bolts, since the bolt supplier (a Russian military manufacturer) is unwilling to release performance data. Meanwhile, hardware assembly is underway, although shipment of the docking mechanism was delayed when the US DoT was reluctant to authorize shipment of pyrotechnic-containing hardware as air cargo.
Meanwhile, Rockwell and NPO Energia are puzzling over the recent failure of the docking mechanism in low-temperature tests. The early guess -- lubricant problems -- has not held up to examination. The mechanism does work at -30C, although not at the -50C specified, and it's thought that this should be good enough.
Columbia IML-2 mission launched July 8. The big problem so far is that two of Spacelab's video recorders have died, although rapid replanning and use of one of the orbiter's camcorders have kept things going. The crew has been kept busy troubleshooting other experiment problems.
Arianespace breathing a sigh of relief after the second successful launch in a row (July 8, following one June 17). They are planning a brisk pace to catch up, with launches set for July 30 and Aug 22 plus five more before the end of the year, lowering the normal cycle time from 22 days to 18. Staff has been increased at Kourou. The rapid pace is considered only a temporary measure; the long-term plan is still to stabilize at 10/year, Arianespace's estimate of what the market will support.
The latest Ariane launch used a slightly uprated third stage with longer burn time, and further improvements in that direction are planned.
Arianespace orders long-lead parts for five more Ariane 4s, as a hedge against possible delays in Ariane 5. The final decision on whether to build those five will not be made until March; at the moment, Ariane 5 seems to be on track.
JPL picks Martin Marietta to build Mars Global Surveyor, to be launched on a Delta 2 in Nov 1996 carrying six (out of eight) spare Mars Observer instruments. MGS will use composite structure and aerobraking to hold weight down enough for Delta launch (costing $50M, compared to nearly $200M for the Titan used for MO). Funding, excluding the instruments, some other MO spare parts, launch, and JPL mission support, is $55M. Total MGS costs, through the first 30 days after launch, set at $155M.
Editorial on return to the Moon. "For the past 25 years, NASA has been searching for a manned space mission that would inspire and excite Americans as much as the Apollo program. Mostly, this has gotten the agency in trouble." Science is not enough, however low the cost estimates; it was not the major justification for Apollo, and probably isn't enough to get a return to the Moon funded either. "...any plan that does nothing beyond establishing a tiny science outpost will be deemed too costly. Plans must become more expansive, not just less expensive..."
Justice for groups that doesn't include justice | Henry Spencer for individuals is a mockery. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu