henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (07/11/89)
Magellan's first course correction, May 21, used significantly less fuel than expected and was sufficiently accurate that the second correction, scheduled for December, may be unnecessary. JSC prepares RFP for station crew-rescue vehicle. It will set only the high-level requirements, leaving bidders to pin down detailed specs; this is most unusual for NASA. [Well, I guess now and then NASA's inability to make up its mind can be useful after all...] National Space Council expects to finish updated version of the national space policy by July 20. Quayle says Bush Administration will emphasize execution of the policy, not more changes. "Space policy has not been implemented for a long time." Long-term support for the Aerospace Plane is one of the major issues to be decided. Growing Soviet and West German interest in spaceplanes is likely to be a factor in the Bush policy on the Aerospace Plane. The USSR seems to be heavily into hypersonic research, and Germany recently approved $200M in initial funding for its Sanger project. There is disagreement about how soon these nations, and Japan, will be competitive. USAF awards Lockheed $28M contract to build an on-board threat-warning system to alert satellite controllers to attacks by antisatellite weapons. First flight of Ariane 44L, the heaviest Ariane 4 configuration, slips to June 5 due to minor technical problems. AW&ST reverses itself: the Titan 34D launch May 10 was a snoopsat, not a pair of military comsats. The comsats were originally going to be first, but the snoopsat hardware was ready early. Picture of Buran atop Mriya in flight, as it will appear at Paris. Soviet aerospace industry is awaiting a government decision on how many more orbiters will be funded for the Soviet shuttle; it will be one or two in addition to the two now in existence. Buran was generally in pretty good shape after its orbital flight, despite some tile problems. The assessment is not yet entirely complete, as plans to partially disassemble Buran for wing-interior inspections had to be postponed slightly when the decision was made to take it to the Paris Airshow. There is known to have been minor damage as a result of a hot-gas leak between the carbon wing leading edge and the tiles aft of it on the underside; the Soviets say the problem is understood. Soviets say that Buran was originally going to have a pair of jet engines in pods beside the fin, with tiled exteriors and covers over the intakes against reentry heating. They would not have been enough to permit stable horizontal flight or a go-around after an aborted landing attempt, but they would have given greater maneuverability on the final approach. Approach and landing tests led to the conclusion that they were not useful enough to be worth the trouble. The tests were run with a non-space-ready orbiter carrying a second pair of engine pods on the sides, which added enough thrust for takeoff and cruise. Drawings of a small-spaceplane proposal using a Mriya as an airborne launch platform. Picture of a stripped Buran orbiter (no tail fin, in particular) atop an M-4 "Bison" bomber. [Pretty clear why they want to use Mriya instead; *this* configuration looks incredibly top-heavy, as the orbiter fuselage is about twice the diameter of the M-4's.] Soviets offer Buran's tile-based thermal-protection technology for foreign spacecraft, including full design, production, and installation services. Interior and exterior color pictures of the Soviet shuttle and test articles for it. Ball Aerospace develops toroidal LOX tank, meant to wrap around an oxyhydrogen engine to give more room for hydrogen tankage in an upper stage constrained by length limits. The USAF doesn't seem to have abandoned the idea of hydrogen upper stages for the shuttle as thoroughly as NASA has. Also of note is that the LOX tank is designed to be cooled by hydrogen boiloff, with an objective of a 30-day hold time in orbit. -- $10 million equals 18 PM | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology (Pentagon-Minutes). -Tom Neff | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu