henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (04/10/91)
DoT issues the first launch operator's license, to General Dynamics, after two years of issuing licenses for individual launches. [It is not clear what this means, although the suggestion is clearly that GD won't have to go through as much paperwork for each launch. Hmm... I wonder if this was a move to head off a confrontation with NASA, which has been insisting that when it buys a commercial launch from GD, that somehow becomes a government launch, exempt from licensing...] Three more applications for such licenses are under review, two [!] from OSC and one from McDonnell Douglas. American Physical Society complains of lack of scientific justification for Fred. [Reportedly the politics of envy at work again, i.e. they thought less money for Fred would mean more for physics. Rotsa ruck.] Magellan is spending ten minutes of every second orbit cooling off, at the expense of no mapping during those periods. Sun angles are expected to improve enough to eliminate the need by March. (Magellan's insulation blankets are not working nearly as well as expected, for unknown reasons.) Early lessons from the Gulf war include a major need for better ways of putting satellite data together with ground information, and an urgent need to get more satellite pics to the tactical commanders sooner. It's good news for lightsats, though, as the tactical folks are screaming for their own birds, and there was some (quite successful) experimental use of a DARPA lightsat for logistics data relay between USN and USMC forces and the US. DoT wants to charge user fees for launch-license processing, $2500/year for the operators and $2.50/lb of payload for the launches. The proposed fees are based on DoT's "assessment of the value of the benefit conferred". [Talk about charging the duck for the orange sauce...] Landsat image of oil spills in the Gulf, the first released. Quite a bit of it there, all right. Picture taken Feb 16, three weeks after the Iraqis started dumping oil. Eosat and others are pleased with it, because satellite imaging of oil spills is difficult -- there is little contrast in the visual bands and long-wave IR bands. Discovery goes back to the VAB for repairs to its cracked hinges, which will probably cut the shuttle launch count this year from seven to six. The conclusive factor was engineers' assessment that one of the cracks was due to "a single unknown event" -- NASA wants to find out what happened. One possibility is that the door is thought to have been ordered closed once when it was already closed, although this should not have overstrained the hinge. Two other hinges had very small cracks, probably due to fatigue from repeated cycling on the ground; these are considered trivial to repair and would not have halted the launch. Lenoir says that the door would have operated successfully in free fall even with one hinge broken in two, and he would not have hesitated to fly Discovery had there been a critical reason to do so, such as an urgent military requirement. Many felt it was safe to fly Discovery with the crack. Atlantis, crack-free, will go up next, carrying GRO. Small fatigue cracks have also been found in Columbia's hinges, but they are not expected to cause delays. Big writeup on the [postponed!] Discovery mission. The primary mission was deployment of several sensor subsatellites, followed by extensive orbiter maneuvering and chemical releases to evaluate sensor performance. Deployment of a small classified lightsat, and infrared observation of the upper atmosphere with an experimental USAF infrared telescope were also on the agenda. Also aboard are a handful of military Getaway Specials doing various experiments, including one on liquid flow in free fall, one on the shuttle glow, and one testing an erasable optical disk for data storage in future experiments. -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry