henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (03/20/90)
NASA claims Shuttle-C cannot be justified economically for space station construction... but NASA Advisory Council report says this is partly because NASA is overestimating Shuttle-C costs, by bundling in purchase of facilities and hardware that will be needed for the regular shuttle fleet anyway. LACE/RME mission (SDI Delta) goes up Feb 14. Deployment of the two satellites required a total of seven ignitions of the Delta second stage, a new record. LACE is to measure atmospheric distortion of low-power laser beams coming up from the ground; RME is to demonstrate use of a satellite mirror to reflect a laser beam from one ground station to another. This is probably the last SDI Delta for a while, given funding cuts. Galileo Venus flyby successful. Minor software problems with a camera shutter operating unintentionally have been resolved. Fuel consumption is looking good, with revised estimates showing a positive margin with both asteroid encounters and a full schedule at Jupiter. The IUS launch was more accurate than expected, Galileo's thrusters are about 2% more efficient than preliminary estimates, and lengthy analysis of planned maneuvers has turned up some small economies. The Gaspra encounter is now firm; decision on the Ida encounter will be made after Gaspra. Replacement crew go up to Mir Feb 11. Launch of the Kristal technology module is expected late in March, and the new crew will do a good deal of work in it. Some estimates suggest the materials work will be valuable enough to show a net profit for this mission. Matra examines a dedicated military comsat for joint use by France, Italy, and Spain. The French Telecom series and Spain's Hispasat, both being built by Matra, will carry military transponder packages, and there may be enough demand to justify a dedicated satellite later. The Pacific TDRS has suffered a small but troublesome failure. Normally each of the two large antennas can independently switch between linear, left-circular, and right-circular polarization. The left antenna seems to have blown a fuse, and is stuck in left-circular mode. The problem is that major customers, including the shuttle, Landsats 5 and 6, and the Hubble telescope, are fitted for right-circular only. NASA is looking into modifying the shuttle orbiters to use left-circular. The old spare TDRS might also be moved to the Pacific slot. Neither of these steps will be taken until the problem is studied in more detail. [Another light week. Just as well, I'm starting to get caught up. Which in turn is just as well, since I've still got the issues I missed (due to the December subscription foulup) to do. They will be terser than usual, but I'm going to try to squeeze them in.] -- MSDOS, abbrev: Maybe SomeDay | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology an Operating System. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu