Letter from Len Losik at EUVE's payload-control center, concerning the recent news item on better status displays for satellite controllers. "Rather than use our funding for developing a software tool with which controllers can see, we developed the software so we did not need controllers doing routine tasks..."
Hughes gets contract to build the next three TDRSes, as HS 601 variants. Goddard ran this procurement more commercially than usual, with bidders given considerable leeway in how to meet specs, and with a requirement that NASA be reimbursed for failures.
"Red team" white paper at NASA proposes serious internal restructuring, with centers strictly split between air and space, and with space centers strictly split between R&D and operations, rather than having everybody doing a little of everything. KSC would do shuttle operations, *all* shuttle operations, possibly via a contractor. Ames and Langley would do aeronautics research. Aircraft operations would be at Dryden. Marshall would do space technology, no science. Etc. [This actually sounds like a good idea to me, if perhaps taken a bit far in spots. Maybe if Marshall wasn't trying to do a little of everything, they'd start doing serious propulsion work again...]
Astro 2 launch on Endeavour imminent. This time the mission planners have taken care to be a bit flexible, remembering the frantic scrambling on Astro 1 when launch delays and balky equipment required repeated revisions of the rigidly-preplanned observing schedule.
One minor innovation is going to be tested during Endeavour's ascent: using TDRS to relay telemetry to Houston. This hasn't been done before because it takes about 40s to switch the telemetry link to TDRS, which is "unacceptably long during powered flight". A new trick is supposed to be able to cut the outage to 7s, which is considered acceptable. If it works, the Bermuda tracking station might no longer be needed as a data relay.
Revised NASA launch manifest plans on 7 shuttle launches per year, and relies more heavily on expendables.
ESA astronomers using Hubble -- analyzing the spectrum of a distant quasar to measure the composition of the intergalactic gas in between -- detect primordial helium, created in the Big Bang itself. Apart from the further strengthening of the Big Bang theory, this has some bearing on the "missing mass" problem... although the numbers are too fuzzy to resolve the recent puzzle of a universe that seems to be only 9-10Gyr old containing stars that seem to be 15Gyr old.
USAF says it is overhauling range regulations and reducing charges for commercial users, noting that this year there will actually be more commercial launches from the Cape than government launches. Among other things, the USAF has finally figured out that charging commercial users for a share of equipment maintenance violates both White House and USAF policies (which state that commercial users pay only incremental costs). Also on the agenda is study of something many commercial users would like: delegating safety responsibility "inside the fence" at the pad to the user, so the USAF doesn't have to be involved with every detail.
Why did Ball decide not to sell its aerospace group after all? Turns out that said group won a $250M "black" contract, and Ball management suddenly decided that maybe this was a profitable line of business after all.
Editorial noting that neither government agencies nor long-time government contractors are really well-suited to lead an effort to create a commercial space vehicle, and urging that "to help these codependents break their costly habits", Congress should mandate two things for the X-33: truly ambitious cost-reduction goals (at least a factor of 10), and a flyoff between two competing concepts.
There is a difference between | Henry Spencer cynicism and skepticism. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu