henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (06/01/88)
[Aviation Week & Space Technology subscription address is PO Box 1505,
Neptune NJ 07754 USA. Rates depend on whether you are an "unqualified" or
"qualified" subscriber, which basically means whether you look at the ads
for cruise missiles out of curiosity, or out of genuine commercial or
military interest. Best write for a "qualification card" and try to get
the cheap rate. US rates are $55 qualified, $70 unqualified at present.
It's weekly, it's thicker than Time or Newsweek, and most of it has nothing
to do with space, so consider whether the price is worth it to you. -- HS]
NASA expects to pick name for space station by June, and has asked its
staff and contractors for ideas. Rules are: no acronyms, no names of
living persons, and nothing that is ambiguous or offensive when translated
into the languages of the international partners.
ESA approves astronaut training plan for Hermes and Columbus; HQ will be
in Germany with facilities in several other countries.
Reagan urges Congress to adopt the $11.5G NASA FY89 budget uncut. The
odds are not good.
Recently revealed: as part of a routine Minuteman test last fall, SDI
confirmed that minor damage to a missile warhead would prove fatal on
reentry. A dummy warhead, damaged in a secret way to a secret extent,
self-destructed on reentry. SDI is crowing about this as a demonstration
that direct hits are not necessary. [I dunno. Seems to me that the hard
part is being *sure* that you have inflicted damage; direct hits at those
velocities are unmistakeable.]
USAF to proceed with technology work on antisatellite weapons to replace
the cancelled F-15-launched system. Leftover funds from the F-15 system
are being used to start a new kinetic-kill system, and lasers are also
being thought about. One system that is dead is the idea of putting the
F-15 homer on top of a Pershing 2, since the Pershing 2s are to be scrapped.
Something similar might still be done, though.
USAF is re-evaluating the problems of the US inability to do rapid-
reaction launches of military satellites. Gen. Bernard Randolph (USAF
Systems Command) says existing launch vehicles were not conceived with
rapid response as a goal, although improvements are possible. He claims
ALS will be designed from the ground up for this. [My, my, ALS sure is
turning into all things to all people, isn't it?] [More to the point,
this stuff about existing systems not being conceived for quick response
is utter nonsense. The Atlas and Titan were ICBMs, for God's sake! There
were Titans sitting in silos until a year or two ago. Delta is a Thor
derivative, and there was a time when Thors were theoretically ready to
go on 15 minutes' notice. Most of the launchers are not quite the same
as the old missile versions, but there is no inherent reason why they
should take four orders of magnitude longer to launch from the word "go".
The problems are with the management, not the hardware, as witness
what the Soviets can do with ex-ICBMs of similar vintage. ALS will be
no better unless the management improves.]
QM-6 SRB test seems to have been a success. The boot ring survived.
Things seem to have gone fairly well despite deliberate seal defects.
Further details when the motor is disassembled.
NASA reveals that mission 51J had a boot ring fail, probably very late
in the mission since the boot was intact and there was little bearing
damage.
There is still some puzzlement about the source of the recent insulation
debonds. NASA is putting a test segment in a vertical position for a
while to see if slumping of the propellant is a factor. There were some
minor debonds in QM-6, but they were not in vulnerable areas. The next
test, in July, may deliberately expose some debonds to a hot gas leak
to see what happens.
NASA is considering various possibilities for a space-station crew rescue
vehicle. One possibility is simply to buy another shuttle orbiter after
the Challenger replacement is built. A variant on this is the idea of
launching a shuttle unmanned, to get a rescue mission up without risking
further lives. The shuttle office (which is now in charge of the rescue
vehicle) will report its recommendations to Fletcher in June. [The shift
of responsibility to the shuttle office is logical in one sense, but in
another it may, um, *limit* serious consideration of non-shuttle ideas.]
In testimony to Congress, Fletcher is holding out for the full $11.5G
FY89 budget, on the grounds that it is all necessary and there is no more
room for cuts. Congress is not happy, especially since some recent NASA
projects -- notably the Transfer Orbit Stage -- have experienced some
truly massive cost overruns. Mars Observer doesn't look like it will stay
within budget either. One hopeful sign is that there is some sentiment
in Congress for either funding the space station 100% or killing it outright.
[Nice to see Fletcher showing some backbone, but this may be the wrong time
for it...]
India signs for two more Ariane launches, in 1990 and 1991.
ESA is considering trying to reactivate Giotto for a flyby of comet Grigg-
Skjellerup in 1992. Post-Halley analysis shows some damage; in particular,
the pivoting external baffle that kept stray light out of the camera is
gone, probably lost to dust erosion. Study of the power output of the
solar cells indicates that the baffle is no longer casting a shadow on
them. The loss of data at closest approach is now thought to have been
due to a combination of slowing of Giotto's spin rate by dust impacts
on the camera baffle and nutation from one or more large impacts. Both
affected antenna pointing until the on-board systems got things under
control again. The camera is thought to be still functional. ESA must
now decide whether to fund reactivation of Giotto, currently in a quiet-
cruise mode, early in 1990 for instrument checkout. If this is done and
things are okay, ESA would then have to decide on funding the possible
Grigg-Skjellerup encounter.
Japan is considering retargeting Sakigake and Suisei [its Halley probes]
for future comet encounters. Orbit corrections were made last year to
bring them back near Earth for gravity-boost maneuvers; they will also
return useful data from the Earth's magnetotail during these maneuvers.
Close encounters with Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova (Sakigake, 1996) and
Giacobini-Zinner (Suisei, 1998) are among the possible targets.
USAF is pushing NASA for action on its problems with safety boundaries
for shuttle launches, which the USAF thinks are too narrow, and with the
rule that allows mission control to ignore range-safety rules so long as
they declare that the orbiter is under positive control. One idea is
to establish a backup safety line, beyond which crew survival is thought
unlikely and destruct systems would be activated. The USAF safety people
say that NASA cannot have it both ways: either the safety boundaries
must be widened -- awkward because various viewing sites are just outside
them now -- or destruct criteria must be loosened for better control.
Leeds University scientists who pioneered the analysis of signals from
the Soviet Glonass navsats are developing an experimental navsat receiver
that can use both Glonass and Navstar.
Letter from Don Vogel of Vermont, applauding Stofan's "the shuttle should
have begun flying again 18 months ago", and adding: "It's been over two
years now and re-inventing the shuttle still goes on. It was a very
successful space vehicle until Jan 28 1986. It did not need re-inventing."
--
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry