The cover story is Aviation Week trying out both US and Russian spacesuits. The Russian suit is a lot easier to put on -- you can do it by yourself, which is nearly impossible with the NASA suit -- but the NASA suit has better freedom of movement and its lower pressure reduces fatigue. The Russian suit fits a smaller range of body sizes -- EVA cosmonauts simply had to be the right general size -- but can be adjusted in orbit. Similarly, the Russian backpack is designed for on-orbit maintenance. The NASA suit's safety philosophy is fail-safe, while the Russian approach is multiple redundancy -- it even has two pressure bladders, except in the gloves where that would reduce flexibility too much. (What happens if you get a glove puncture? A tourniquet in the wrist seals off the glove! It hurts but it's better than losing your air. Yes, it's been tested.) The Russian suit loses on versatility but wins on durability.
There are now plans for joint EVAs. One complication is that current US mission rules require use of the SAFER self-rescue backpack on any mission where the orbiter is docked to another spacecraft (and hence would not be available on short notice for a retrieval), and it won't fit on the Russian suits.
The idea of joint development of a new suit design has basically been abandoned, but some effort is still going into improving compatibility in small ways. Hamilton Standard is interested in qualifying the US suit to operate at the Russian suit pressure, to reduce prebreathing requirements.
Hubble images Gliese 623b, one of the smallest stars known, and the ring of stars in the Cartwheel Galaxy.
NASA releases the definitive CANs for X-33 and X-34. NASA has pencilled in plans to fly the shuttle through 2012 at least; the backup plan in case the RLV effort does not pan out is major shuttle upgrades, including new fly-back liquid-fuel boosters.
Dong Fang Hong 3 comsat lost after arrival in Clarke orbit, probably due to a fuel leak.
Large story on shuttle/Mir plans. One complication that has arisen is that each shuttle crew will end up functioning as a bucket brigade to transfer up to 1300lb of water from the shuttle to Mir! The shuttle has excess water from its fuel cells, which is normally dumped, and Mir tends to be short of water despite a 2/3-effective recycling system, so it makes sense to transfer it. Unfortunately, NASA doesn't want to pay for a hose system, so the astronauts will get to carry it across in plastic bags.
Both operational and cultural differences are complicating preparations. The Russians have never rehearsed mission procedures as intensively as NASA does, partly because months-long missions make this impractical. The Russians are upset at the way the US reshuffles personnel constantly (the key coordinating job at Star City has already changed hands twice). And Sergei Krikalev reports that one of his bigger problems when he arrived to train for his shuttle mission was too much new jargon: "in both programs, we have too many acronyms". [He's being polite by saying "both", I think.]
Twelve Proton launches slated for 1995, an impressive pace given Russian economic woes.
Test "Rokot" booster launched from Baikonur 26 Dec -- an SS-19 with a liquid-fuel third stage added. Doesn't seem to be fully debugged yet, though: the spent third stage exploded a few hours after launch, albeit in an out-of-the-way orbit (2000km, deep in the Van Allen belts).
Polyakov reaches a full year in orbit 9 Jan.
US/French/British insurance consortium signs a $2G deal with Intelsat to cover ten launches (7 Ariane, 3 Long March 3B). Intelsat signed just in time -- the deal was nailed down, at very favorable rates, just before the Dec Ariane failure.
Intelsat 704-2 launched by Atlas 2AS 10 Jan. This marks the first flight of an uprated RL10 with about 6% higher thrust than earlier versions, and some other small Centaur improvements to maximize payload.
FTC approves Lock-Mart merger, with minor conditions including loosening of teaming arrangements with IR-sensor suppliers for early-warning sats, and putting "firewalls" between satellite builders and launch suppliers to limit one being tailored to the other.
CIA releases old documents revealing impact of the first spysats.
Asiasat delays launch of Asiasat 2 to June, so it can read MM's report on the Telstar 402 failure first (same satellite type).
JSC begins tests of a new mission-control center, built by Loral using mostly off-the-shelf commercial hardware and software.
Ball and Johns Hopkins get contract to build HACE, a new camera for Hubble, to be installed during the 1999 servicing flight.
The last remnant of NASP, HySTP -- a few scramjet tests to fly on old Minuteman missiles -- dies due to budget crunch.
There is a difference between | Henry Spencer cynicism and skepticism. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu