henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (05/03/89)
[This issue has a big spread on "Mission to Planet Earth", the new name for various Earth-sensing activities considered as one great aggregate. I'll only skim the surface.] Editorial observing that MtPE is being discussed as Commerce is working on shutting down Landsat, and suggesting that Commerce has bungled Landsat commercialization and the program should be taken away from them. [Seems to me the mess is at least half Congress's fault.] NASA forms Lunar Exploration Science Working Group to "develop new strategies" for future exploration of the Moon. OSC and its Space Data subsidiary start building a $14M assembly/test facility in Phoenix, including thermal-vacuum test chamber and a vibration-test facility for Pegasus etc. USAF mothballing of the Vandenberg shuttle pad to be completed by the end of Sept. First Boost Surveillance and Tracking System satellites will not be able to hand off targeting data to interceptor systems, although they will be designed to permit later upgrades. This change is intended to help defuse treaty-compliance criticism of the SDI satellites, but it may intensify the debate over whether BSTS is enough of an improvement over existing warning satellites to be worth $8G. Senate panel generally backs MtPE project, but raises concerns about coordination: "Management by a loose confederation of agencies is a prescription for disaster". Ariane launches JCSAT 1 and Meteosat MOP1 (Japanese comsat and European weather satellite resp.) March 6, after a four-day delay due to a strike by tracking crews and another two-day delay due to problems with umbilical connectors. Arianespace says contingency margins are adequate to cover this delay and the rest of the 1989 schedule should not slip as a result. Quayle intercedes to prevent Landsat shutdown. New interim plans calls for agencies using Landsat data to chip in to keep the satellites going; details being worked out. Commerce insists that Eosat Inc., the nominal operator of the satellites, should contribute. The underlying problem is that the satellites are well past their their design lifetime (although in another way this is a blessing, since no replacements are yet ready), and the beancounters hadn't planned for continued funding. Studies done for Congress and Commerce find that remote sensing is not yet a commercially viable field, although this will improve considerably in the next decade. The studies were finished last summer, but were withheld until Rep. George Brown threatened legislation to break them loose. Landsat, in particular, with its 30m resolution, is not even competitive, much less viable. The Geosat Committee, a group of remote-sensing users, calls Commerce and NOAA leadership in remote sensing "nonexistent", says US government basically doesn't care about having a secure source of such data. "Apparently this is because US government needs can be met by classified means and US civil needs be damned..." Rep. Dave McCurdy says Congress is fed up with the Landsat mess, and in particular the way it's being run into the ground by the beancounters: "The OMB has lost sight of the forest. They're among the trees and weeds right now. There are guys in green eyeshades in a basement somewhere deciding our space policy." Canada exercises its associate membership in ESA, formally notifying ESA of its intent to participate in Hermes and contribute funding for it. Canadian companies will get a commensurate amount of work; this will probably mean building the flight simulators [CAE of Montreal is one of the world's biggest simulator suppliers] and perhaps some work in "aerodynamics and robotics". Europe may move Meteosat 3 to provide better Atlantic weather coverage in the wake of the GOES failure in January, although this will depend on Meteosat MOP1 entering service successfully. Two-page spread, the "first picture of the global biosphere", using Nimbus 7 phytoplanton data for the oceans and NOAA 7 polar-metsat vegetation data for land. More images of various kinds, some fairly striking, illustrating the MtPE coverage. MtPE costs for the US will run $15G-$30G, depending on how ambitious the project is; the major difference between low and high is a system of five Clarke-orbit satellites to supplement low-polar-orbit instruments. Bush has said he supports MtPE; next year he gets to prove it, when NASA asks for $100M+ for instrument development. Both the White House and Congress are thought to like the idea. Red letter day: James Van Allen actually says something I agree with! :-) He supports MtPE but would be happier if the polar platform were split into a larger number of smaller satellites, to reduce integration problems and minimize the consequences of a launch failure. He also says that making the polar platform officially part of the space station is "political fraud" and the two should be separated. Space-station managers agree, saying that commonality is minimal, the joint organization is clumsy, and the separation will happen eventually anyway. -- Mars in 1980s: USSR, 2 tries, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 2 failures; USA, 0 tries. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu