Magellan starts "windmill" testing -- measuring the torque needed to counteract atmospheric torques arranged by tilting its solar arrays in opposite directions -- as a lead-in to its death plunge in October.
Bob Cabana named as head of the astronaut office, replacing Hoot Gibson (recently named to command the first shuttle/Mir docking).
SSTO enthusiasts unhappy about NASA's sudden enthusiasm for quick development of a small reusable launcher (with a payload of 1-2klb to orbit), because they see it as a costly detour in development of a larger reusable launcher. Riot act to be read at the imminent SSTO summit meeting. :-)
Augustine and Tellep, asked about loss of competition in military space programs from the Lock-Mart merger, observe that there is so little new business in the area that the Pentagon is likely to be more worried about just keeping one contractor alive than about preserving competition.
ESA about to sign $35M contract with Aerospatiale for development of the 6klb reentry test vehicle slated to fly in early 1996 on the second Ariane 5 test. The Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator will not only test technologies for ESA's vaguely-planned manned capsule, it will also be a pilot effort for streamlined management and fast programs. ARD will fly on the core stage of the Ariane 5, left behind when the second stage separates to carry an Arabsat to GTO. Its trajectory will peak at 1200km and then enter atmosphere over the Pacific.
New British minister for space, Ian Taylor, seems to be taking a more active role than his predecessor: "we have seen more of [him] in the last month than we saw of the previous space minister in two years", says one industry source.
Ulysses is making its first pass over one of the Sun's poles, the south pole in this case, and the solar physicists are finding lots of surprises: "really interesting features that none of us expected..."
On 13 Sept Ulysses will reach solar latitude 80.2deg, almost directly over the Sun's south pole. It's taken a while: U of Chicago researcher John Simpson conceived the mission 35 years ago.
Simpson's own instrument aboard Ulysses, a cosmic-ray experiment, is giving the most mysterious results so far. Solar activity is known to affect the intensity of cosmic rays in the solar system, with high activity reducing cosmic-ray intensity. This was thought to be a straightforward magnetic-shielding effect, in which case cosmic-ray intensity should be higher near the Sun's poles, where the magnetic field provides little shielding... but it's not.
Ulysses controllers are watching the spacecraft carefully, using an ESA antenna dish at Kourou to supplement the DSN station at Canberra (the other DSN stations are too far north to see Ulysses now). Fears that Ulysses's nutation problem might return with the axial boom antenna again in sunlight have so far proved groundless, but nobody is relaxing yet.
Ulysses will climb northward this winter, passing through the ecliptic in Feb and over the solar north pole next summer. That's the end of the primary mission, but Ulysses's RTG is in good shape and power should be available until at least 2001... and scientists are hoping that funding can be found to extend the mission to cover Ulysses's second set of polar passes, starting late in 2000.
Story on improved Titan IV pad processing, exemplified by the recent Cape launch after a mere three months on the pad. This one was helped by a loan of personnel from Vandenberg Titan operations, done partly to help out and partly to keep Vandenberg crews in training while the Vandenberg pad is modified for the new Hercules SRBs. "Surge" demands in future may be met by borrowing some Atlas launch crews (and vice-versa when Atlas needs people) as MM consolidates Atlas and Titan launch ops. MM says the consolidation is reasonably natural, given that the two launchers "were always rigidly tied at the waist because of Centaur".
MM is talking about various changes in Titan procedures, notably including an effort to install as much hardware as possible in the booster before it ships from the factory. [You would think this would be obvious, but for Titan it's a novelty...]
Full-page ad from OSC/Hercules, saying "so long and thanks for all the B-52 drops". :-) The ad thanks NASA in general and Dryden in particular for their assistance with Pegasus, following the sixth and last B-52 Pegasus launch.
Atlas managers eagerly await an RD-180 engine mockup, being shipped from NPO Energomash for evaluation of an RD-180 Atlas upgrade. (The RD-180 is half the four-engine RD-170 cluster that powers Zenit and the Energia strapons.) Shipping of the mockup has hit export snags in the Russian government, but it's expected soon.
The RD-180 effort is part of a "common engine bay" project to try to limit the impact of engine changes on the rest of Atlas. It's also tied in with the question of how to proceed on further Atlas development, now that the 2AS is flying. The common-bay project has been presented to US engine manufacturers, but they are unenthusiastic, perhaps partly because it might mean competitive bidding for engine contracts.
Even if that doesn't happen, MM is very interested in the RD-180. Its throttling capability would eliminate the need for staging events "except when an upper stage was used". [?!? Could an RD-180 Atlas make orbit without strap-ons or an upper stage? This remark is not elaborated on.] The RD-170 is a robust, well-tested engine with good performance (total four-engine thrust of 7903kN, Isp 308s at sea level and 337s vacuum, chamber pressure 250atm (among the highest in the world)), and the only new part of the RD-180 will be the half-size turbopumps.
MM complains that all the customers grumble about high launch costs, but they aren't willing to invest in improvements. NASA and USAF facilities say they'd love to be involved in RD-180 testing, for comparison with US engines, but they aren't interested in funding even a modest test program.
The airline industry is wondering what's going to happen on landing guidance now that the US has abandoned MLS in favor of the still somewhat hypothetical precision GPS. Most everyone thinks that transition to GPS is inevitable eventually, but the Europeans are under far more pressure to adopt MLS as an interim measure, because of their crowded airspace, poor weather, and greater interference problems.
Progress M-24 successfully docks to Mir 3 Sept, after being flown in manually by Mir cosmonaut Malenchenko using a remote-control system and a TV camera aboard Progress. The control station aboard Mir has controls similar to those used on Soyuz, and the TV view is similar to that from the Soyuz periscope. Malenchenko had rehearsed the procedure a number of times in simulators, and the TV system was tested last year, but this was the first time a real docking had been done this way. The TV camera was added to Progress a few flights ago. Work is underway on extending the system to permit TV-guided dockings done from the ground.
Had this attempt failed, there would probably have been enough fuel for one or two more tries. Had even that failed, sending another Progress might have been feasible, and if worst came to worst Mir could have been left unmanned for a few months.
The Progress docking problem is tentatively attributed to a malfunction of the Kurs radar aboard Progress. When Progress is undocked, some test maneuvers will be flown to explore the problem.
NASA is happy about both the way the problem was handled and the results. NASA and ESA personnel were kept fully informed, and have been critical of apocalyptic predictions that the docking problems might cause the collapse of the Russian space program. Some note that automatic docking is routine for the Russians, with the manual procedures kept as backups, while "in the US we haven't allowed the shuttle orbiter to make even one autoland". "I'm frankly sick and tired of all those armchair experts... who begin crying every time things go less than nominal with the Russian space program."
Justice for groups that doesn't include justice | Henry Spencer for individuals is a mockery. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu