Letter from Stewart Nozette, reproducing the famous napkin sketch which was the genesis of Clementine, and disputing Bob Farquhar's claim to have originated the mission plan. It was Farquhar who identified Geographos as a good asteroid target for a Moon-asteroid mission, although details of his proposal weren't suitable for the lunar mapping phase of the mission and he wasn't involved in developing the refined version. Nozette also notes a 1983 paper by Chauncey Uphoff, "Two Stones With One Bird", which proposed a Moon-asteroid mission.
APT orders Apstar 1A, a Hughes HS-376, for delivery ASAP, as a partial replacement for the lost Apstar 2 (an HS-601). The 376 is less capable than the 601, but it was available sooner. Launcher not yet selected.
The next Discovery mission will be Lunar Prospector, proposed by Lockheed and Ames. Total cost, including LLV2 launch, is $59M (in the standard Discovery currency, 1992 dollars -- it's $73M today). Huntress says LP was ranked highest when the list reached him for final approval, and was also one of the cheapest Discovery proposals. NASA's warning that the $150M Discovery cost cap wasn't supposed to be an excuse for a bunch of $149M proposals seems to have worked; all 28 proposals were under $100M.
Lunar Prospector is basically a fields-and-particles complement to Clementine. The instruments are gamma-ray and neutron spectrometers (geochemical mapping), magnetometer and electron reflectometer (magnetic field mapping), alpha-particle spectrometer (gas-release mapping), and the usual precision tracking for gravity mapping. LP will be spin- stabilized and very simple, with not even an on-board computer. Some Clementine hardware will be used, notably the Clementine batteries. Design margins are large; for example, total fuelled mass is 233kg at present, while the LLV2 lift capability into lunar trajectory is 450kg. The primary mission is one year in a 100km circular orbit, starting in June 1997.
LP has a long history already. Alan Binder, the project leader, first tried to do it as a commercial venture (Lunar Exploration Inc.), and then sold it to NASA as an SEI precursor mission, where it perished with SEI. Lockheed then hired Binder and kept it alive.
There was considerable suspicion that a lunar mission would win this particular selection, since NASA has conspicuously neglected the Moon in recent years, and lunar missions have the advantage of returning results relatively quickly.
Also selected were three runners-up, which will get study contracts, with the intention that one will fly. Stardust, from U of Washington and MM Astronautics, would use aerogel plates to collect material samples from comet P/Wild 2 and interstellar dust; launch would be on MedLite or Titan 2G in 1999, return in 2006. Suess-Urey, from CalTech and MMA, would collect solar-wind samples; launch on MedLite in 1999, return in 2002. Venus Multiprobe, from Harvard and JPL, would use a Hughes HS-376 comsat bus to carry 16 small entry probes to Venus; launch on Delta 2 in 1999.
Endeavour launched 2 March on the Astro 2 UV-astronomy mission, when bad weather held off just long enough. This was the first launch to use the USAF's new rapid-turnaround Range Operations Control Center at the Cape. The mission so far has had minor technical problems but nothing serious.
NASA internal review teams finger 5900 jobs as possible cuts in the shuttle program in the next few years (although about half of those had already been targeted for elimination by lower-level offices). The teams said safety would not be affected, although the ability to stay on schedule despite problems would be. Center directors and project managers are reviewing the recommendations.
A bit more detail on the Hughes design which won the new TDRS competition. It will add Ka band to the existing S and Ku bands, with potential data rates as high as 650Mb/s.
Canadian Space Agency budget to be cut 15% over ten years, but Canadian station participation will be partly protected to allow Canada to live up to its 1994 agreement with NASA. Still unsettled is whether Canada will actually build the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator, a two-armed robot to ride on the end of the Mobile Servicing System's arm. Some future projects may seek private cost-sharing partners; in particular, proposals for private participation in Radarsat 2 are already being examined.
Declassification begins for 800,000 spysat pictures shot by 1960s US spy satellites, mostly the 145 Corona missions (although the Argon mapping missions and Lanyard high-resolution missions, both using variants of the Corona hardware, are included). Sample images include some of the first ever shot from space [it is slightly unclear whether they are from Discoverer 13, the first payload ever recovered from orbit, or Discoverer 14, the first to be snagged in mid-air as designed; the date given is 14's].
There is a difference between | Henry Spencer cynicism and skepticism. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu