More surprises from Ulysses: although it is passing almost directly under the geographic south pole of the Sun, it has not yet encountered the Sun's south magnetic pole.
Iridium [finally] completes first-round financing, about $1.6G of equity. The rest ($3.4G) will be debt financing.
Brisk satellite use by US Army in Haiti. Inmarsat is getting substantial use; no other commercial comsats, but their day will come as the military comsat network ages. The army bought 10,000 commercial GPS receivers to improve navigation in Haiti's mountainous jungle. Finally, the most recent maps of Haiti are over 30 years old, so US Army Space Command sweated hard to draw up new ones using satellite images.
USAF trying to take over US military space operations, citing advantages of centralization and standardization. The Army and the Navy don't think much of the idea.
Rockwell does a successful strap-down firing of a prototype tactical antisatellite weapon for the US Army. Full-scale demonstration work was killed last year due to budget cuts, but Congress authorized low-level funding to continue technology work.
Tests of the SAFER rescue pack successful (tentatively, pending final data analysis), with gas use lower than predicted, despite overenthusiastic astronauts starting tests with spin rates higher than intended. SAFER is intended solely as a self-rescue system, with minimal redundancy and very limited total maneuvering capability; the payoff is that it weighs 83lb, compared to 340lb for the MMU. These were the first untethered spacewalks in a decade.
Extensive troubleshooting required for Discovery's other payloads. The LITE lidar observations had to be drastically replanned after a failure of the instrument's high-rate data recorder, and Spifex's scheduled times for observation of the orbiter jet plumes were largely taken up with communications problems, although extension of the mission by a day made it possible to finish the Spifex tests after all.
Story on the first EuroMir flight, launch imminent. Ulf Merbold will be the second man (after Krikalev) to fly on both US and Russian spacecraft. The EuroMir program (which includes a second flight in 1996) was put together only about two years ago, so preparation and training has been hectic. Sigmund Jaehn, the (then) East German cosmonaut who visited Salyut 6 in 1978, has been extremely helpful in contacts between ESA and the Russians. ESA is used to working with NASA, but the Russians do things differently. In particular, there is less written documentation -- for example, there is still no payload-accommodation manual for Mir -- and more reliance on what's in the Russian engineers' heads. There is also much more emphasis on autonomous operation, partly because Mir is out of touch with the ground for much of each day. Merbold says his biggest problem has simply been learning Russian in a hurry.
Also flying on this mission will be Elena Kondakova, who will spend five months on Mir to get the first female long-stay medical data.
Investigation of the NOAA-13 failure says that the most likely cause was a short circuit in the battery charger, caused by a screw that extended too far and penetrated insulation. Other possible causes are now thought unlikely, partly because telemetry records show a heat buildup in the charger. The investigation board ordered an inspection of the charger assembly for the next NOAA bird, and found 10 of the 12 screws protruding beyond the specified limit. The board calls the charger "an unforgiving design... allows numerous places for shorts... cannot be checked once it is assembled". Also, the assembly technician was unaware that it was important to check for protrusions that might cause shorts. The lax procedures are thought to have resulted from personnel turnover and the many successful flights (the charger box was designed in 1972 and has flown 16 times). NASA ordered design changes and further inspections for the replacement bird, and further changes for later ones.
Meanwhile, MM is trying to figure out its latest loss. "We had those reviews and improved procedures in place for Telstar 402..."
China Aerospace unveils a solid-fuel perigee motor that it will market for foreign comsat launches on Long March. Asiasat 2, next summer, will be the first user.
Little minds have only room for thoughts | Henry Spencer of bread and butter. --Amundsen | henry@zoo.toronto.edu