henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (03/20/91)
USAF contracts for two more DSP missile-warning satellites, plus an option
on a third.
Inmarsat expects to pick a launcher for the Inmarsat 3 series around the
end of this year. Of note is that Proton is considered a serious bidder.
The Salyut-7-Cosmos-1686 complex reentered over Argentina mid-morning
Feb 7. Numerous reports from witnesses, no injuries or serious damage
known.
Lt.Gen. Horner, air commander in the Gulf, says lessons learned so far
include the need for much better tactical intelligence and a wide-area
tactical-ballistic-missile defense system. He says there is a
"big BDA [bomb damage assessment] flap" on in the Pentagon, which
"would indicate we may have been overly entranced with some forms of
intelligence collection". [Translation: a handful of strategic spy
satellites is not a very good intelligence system for tactical forces
that need lots of selective coverage quickly.] He says that while Scud
is pretty useless militarily, everyone underestimated its political
impact, and only the success of Patriot controlled the political damage.
What's more, even so the allied forces were lucky: Patriot was adequate
as an anti-Scud weapon only because the significant Scud targets were
so concentrated. An anti-TBM system capable of covering large areas
is conspicuously lacking.
OSC/Hercules prepares for a major Pegasus sales pitch in Japan and other
Pacific-rim nations, including forming a marketing alliance with Okura
& Co. Ltd in Tokyo.
The two major manufacturers of hand-held civilian Navstar receivers are
running flat out, working two and three shifts and selling everything
they can build. The military is ordering huge numbers, and the companies
have also had many orders from individual units, soldiers, and soldiers'
relatives ("...soldiers' mothers have bought units and shipped them to
their sons in the gulf"). The combination of nearly-featureless desert,
often-inaccurate maps, and frequent night operations has produced a
horrendous navigation problem; Navstar receivers are the only available
solution. The Navstar controllers have turned off "selective availability"
[translation: deliberately degrading the civilian Navstar signals] to make
the civilian receivers as accurate as possible.
DoD FY92-93 budget kills SDI's Boost Surveillance and Tracking Satellite
system in favor of upgrading the existing DSP warning satellites, and
"restructures" the Milstar strategic comsat to "emphasize tactical
requirements". A major increase in SDI funding is sought, but nobody
believes it will happen. What probably will happen, though, is approval
for requests for considerably more money for tactical missile defence.
Antisatellite funding is cut heavily, indicating it has low priority.
NASA FY92 budget calls for 13.6% increase, a start on a new heavylift
booster, a start on a Delta-sized "Lifesat" recoverable life-sciences
research satellite for first launch in 1996, only slight growth in space
station funding, a substantial effort in Moon/Mars technology development,
stable funding for NASP, and doubling of the Mission To Planet Earth budget
[if you thought the shuttle ate everyone's lunch, wait until *this* puppy
sinks its fangs into the planetary-exploration budget].
--
"[Some people] positively *wish* to | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
believe ill of the modern world."-R.Peto| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry