henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (12/18/89)
[The latest Pegasus report is a short slip of the dress-rehearsal flight test due to telemetry problems.] Soviet Union definitively approves funding for the 1994 Mars balloon mission. National Space Council considers the idea that NASA may not be "structured appropriately" to carry out Bush's Moon/Mars program. One possibility is more involvement from some of the national labs, e.g. Los Alamos. Amroc cuts staff and seeks additional funding in wake of the Oct 5 launch failure. There would have been some staff reduction and need for more money in any case. The company is disappointed, but points out that the failure was unusually mild: both payloads survived and appear reflyable, and pad damage has been estimated at $1000. What happened was that the LOX valve didn't open far enough and the rocket did not develop enough thrust for liftoff. The engine was shut down successfully, but hydrogen peroxide used for thrust vectoring continued to flow and started a fire, which in turn ignited both the fuel (synthetic rubber) and the casing (graphite-epoxy composite). An attempt to re-engage hold-down clamps was unsuccessful, and the rocket fell over. Amroc had considered a pad water-deluge system to extinguish fires, but had decided against it because of the elaborate environmental paperwork for the runoff water! The cause of the sticking valve is not known with certainty, but a strong possibility is icing: Vandenberg is much more humid than the test sites at Edwards, and before launch the valve has LOX on one side and atmospheric air on the other side. Amroc says that potential customers are "still talking to us" and no financing has been withdrawn, although a successful launch would certainly have made things easier. First major test of SDI ground-based interceptor technology slips several months due to problems with the destruct system (!). Another Navstar goes up on Delta Oct 21. Pictures of Galileo before and after leaving Atlantis's payload bay. Atlantis came down two orbits early to avoid forecast high winds at Edwards, after preparing for possibly staying in orbit up to three days extra to wait it out. Final approval for the early reentry came only twelve minutes before retrofire, as fog at Edwards dispersed. One of the APUs was started late during the reentry sequence, as it had stuck in high-speed mode during launch and going easy on it was expected to minimize repairs. NASA faces some of the pre-Challenger problems again, as Columbia tries to get up for the LDEF rescue as soon as possible after the Discovery military mission. ESA council confirms choice of Matra's design for the Columbus polar platform. The Matra design is based on the Spot-4/Helios bus. This is characterized as a "classic" satellite design rather than a "true platform" design, avoiding the possibility of delays due to problems elsewhere in Columbus. The losing British Aerospace proposal was based on other Columbus hardware. The council has asked for a study on incorporating some of the advantages of BAe's design in the Matra bird, and on payload growth capacity, although this is considered primarily a face-saving move for the British. Ironically, due to ESA politics, BAe is prime contractor for the polar platform regardless of the choice of design. Ozone-hole images from Nimbus 7; the hole is back despite its disappearance last year. NASA is worried that the ozone mapper on Nimbus 7 is 11 years old, and indeed is one of only two instruments still working aboard N7. NASA has arranged to fly a replacement on a Soviet Meteor 3 in 1991, followed by a US replacement in 1993 and another mapper aboard Japan's AdEOS in 1995. NASA and General Dynamics strike deal: GD gets parts and tools from NASA's Atlas-Centaur and Shuttle-Centaur programs, in return for a commercial A-C launch in June for the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite. -- 1755 EST, Dec 14, 1972: human | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology exploration of space terminates| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu