[Another fairly light one.]
NASA forms a new Office of Space Access and Technology, combining two older offices (space systems development, and advanced concepts / commercial space programs). John Mansfield named to head it.
AXAF's first major X-ray optics component -- the P1 mirror, the largest and most difficult -- completed and checked out, well within specs.
25 Aug Titan-IV-Centaur launch at the Cape scrubbed due to thick cloud.
Summit meeting on SSTO to be held in Washington 14 Sept. SSTO advocates are likely to rake Goldin over the coals for a perceived NASA trend toward frittering away money on more ground-based technology studies, motivated partly by the desire for huge (30%) margins for weight growth. Many SSTO supporters think that near-orbital flight demonstrators, done sooner rather than later, would be a quicker and more effective way to deal with worries about weight: reduce the uncertainty rather than trying to accommodate the worst case. Worst-case thinking without hard data is driving desires for things like tripropellant engines.
Euroconsult predicts booming comsat markets in the next ten years.
NASA and Rocketdyne engineers prepare to test-fire the #3 engine pulled off Endeavour, in an attempt to trace the overheating problem that aborted the 18 Aug launch attempt. Except for that one temperature reading, all other measurements were normal, and the problem is rather mysterious.
Endeavour rolls back to the VAB to replace its engines with Atlantis's. Its launch will slip to early Oct, following Discovery's scheduled 9 Sept launch. Some scrambling is underway to try to find replacement engines for Atlantis.
Galileo images of SL9 fragment W impact. Jupiter, about 2/3 full. Jupiter with little white dot in dark portion. Jupiter with larger and brighter white dot. Jupiter with shrinking and dimming white dot. The four frames were shot over a 7s period. [The main significance of the Galileo observations is not the images themselves, because the resolution isn't very good, but the precise information on timing. Earth observers only saw the fireballs, some short but not-precisely-known time after the impacts themselves.]
Three new Glonass birds launched 11 Aug by a Proton, taking Glonass closer to an operational constellation. Three more will go up later this year, followed by three more sets of three next year, giving the full 24-bird constellation late next year. Russia is also starting to make serious progress toward establishing a civilian management for Glonass.
Meanwhile, preparations continue for joint US-Russian tests of GPS and Glonass aircraft navigation over the Russian Far East, where conventional navigation aids are scarce and potential air-traffic growth is high.
Justice for groups that doesn't include justice | Henry Spencer for individuals is a mockery. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu