henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (04/18/88)
Martin Marietta is studying a near-term manned Mars mission. It would
need about 1.5 Mlbs in Earth orbit. Needed would be orbital storage of
cryogenic propellants, aerobraking, and a lightweight spacesuit (the
old lunar spacesuits would be too heavy in Mars's stronger gravity).
Congress puts the Commercially Developed Space Facility on hold due to
doubts about the need, and irritation that NASA didn't ask them about it
first. NASA expects that Congress will okay it eventually, but some
changes may be needed.
NRC urges NASA not to fly the shuttle again until the cause of the
nozzle boot ring failure in December is understood, and urges more
testing before launch. This would probably cause delays, since there
is no slack in the Aug 4 schedule. NRC is concerned that even the old
boot-ring design should not be trusted until the failure of the new one
is understood, which it isn't at the moment. NASA points out, though,
that the analytical methods are not really trusted and testing is the
real source of confidence in the boot-ring designs. A mid-April test
will involve a deliberately weakened boot ring.
Remaining full-scale tests before STS-26 are QM-6 (April 19, with defects
in joint seals and boot ring), QM-7 (June, high temperature, flight loads,
but no defects), and PVM-1 (July, still more drastic defects).
NASA FY89 budget likely to lose about half the $2.5G increase requested
over last year.
NASA is looking at four sites for an Advanced Solid Rocket Motor production
facility. Unresolved is whether the plant should be owned by the contractor
or only operated by them. NASA-owned facilities would provide a more
competitive situation for contractors. Morton Thiokol favors company-owned
facilities; the other four interested companies all favor NASA ownership.
Phase one work on the Awesomely Lucrative Spacelauncher, er excuse me the
Advanced Launch System, resumes as USAF and NASA come to agreement on roles.
USAF will be in charge, NASA will do full-scale propulsion work and
hydrocarbon-fuel subsystem work, USAF Astronautics Lab will do hydrogen-
fuel subsystem work, and USAF will pay for upgrading of NASA facilities
for propulsion testing.
British government expected to approve additional develoment funding for
Hotol, to supplement substantial industry-provided funding.
ESA and NASA come to tentative agreement on space-station participation!
ESA also decides to give Britain a chance to change its mind about its
recent refusal to get involved.
Britain awards large contract to Marconi Space Systems for work on laser
communications for satellites, to include lab demonstrations of hardware.
Progress 35 tanker launched to Mir March 23rd.
Drawings by Charlie Vick of the expected configuration of the Soviet
shuttle stacked on Energia. From the back (looking at the orbiter's top)
it actually looks a lot like the US shuttle except at the bottom, where
Energia bristles with rocket engines and the orbiter tails off into a
streamlined fairing. [Vick is one of the top Soviet-space-program watchers.]
DoD formally approves SDI's Space-Based Interceptor experiment as compliant
with the ABM Treaty, partly as a result of a number of changes made to the
experiment to make it more compliant.
[Also of note, from the March 12th issue of Flight International:]
Alexander Dunayev, head of Glavkosmos, confirms that the second Energia
will carry an unmanned shuttle orbiter, adding that it may not be quite
what Western analysts expect. He says launch could be within a month
but four months is more realistic. Dunayev thinks that if the automatic
system works, there is no rush about putting men aboard. There may be
two different versions of the Soviet shuttle, manned and unmanned. As
some Western analysts have suggested, the shuttle's main mission is to
bring major payloads down. [Energia is just fine by itself for taking
them up.] Dunayev says that the third-stage failure in the first Energia
test was pre-launch human error, and that the engine did fire but in the
wrong direction. He confirms that parts of Energia are meant to be
reusable, and says that tests indicate this is practical. The current
Mir crew is intended to be up 400 days, although medical considerations
may change this as the mission goes along. Bulgarian cosmonaut Alexandrov
will not in fact do an EVA, and earlier reports about "space bicycles"
referred to exercise bicycles rather than manned maneuvering units (although
such things are planned for later).
Pravda says that the Sanglok Mountain complex the Soviets are building is
not an antisatellite laser station but a combined electro-optical space-
surveillance site and astronomical observatory.
--
"Noalias must go. This is | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
non-negotiable." --DMR | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henrybob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) (04/19/88)
In article <1988Apr17.235244.214@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >ESA and NASA come to tentative agreement on space-station participation! >ESA also decides to give Britain a chance to change its mind about its >recent refusal to get involved. It's funny you should say that. In an unexpected announcement yesterday, Monday 18th April, The British Government changed it's previous position on the funding of space science, and is now to provide 250 million pounds to ESA over the next 10 years to take a 5.5% share in the Columbus project. This change in policy seems to have happened after a House of Lords comittee report last month was highly critical of Government space funding. The Government minister who made the announcement, and who earlier criticised ESA for being a "hugely expensive club" and "Over-ambitious", now says that sufficient changes have been made to make British participatrion worthwhile. British Aerospace is expected to be the main contractor for an Earth observation platform. Other British companies are expected to provide operation control facilities and data processing. Also yesterday, the appointment of the new Director-General of the UK's National Space Centre was announced. He is Mr Arthur Prior, 49, a Department of Industry regional officer in Birmingham for the past three years. Bob.
livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey) (04/21/88)
In article <1175@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bob@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF08 Bob Gray) writes: > > In an unexpected announcement yesterday, Monday 18th April, > The British Government changed it's previous position on > the funding of space science, and is now to provide > 250 million pounds to ESA over the next 10 years to take a > 5.5% share in the Columbus project. > > This change in policy seems to have happened after a > House of Lords comittee report last month was highly > critical of Government space funding. > > The Government minister who made the announcement, and who > earlier criticised ESA for being a "hugely expensive club" > and "Over-ambitious", now says that sufficient changes have > been made to make British participatrion worthwhile. It's very gratifying to see that the Upper House is still performing its role efficiently. It's also gratifying to see that the threat of non-participation by one member state is enough to influence ESA goals. jon.