henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (04/03/89)
US antimatter research (notably for space propulsion) is being affected by a shortage of antiprotons. CERN, the only major source at present, dedicates its supply to basic research [and also has political reservations about involvement in anything that hints of military applications, even fairly innocuous ones like space propulsion]. DoD considers it urgent to develop a domestic antiproton source; modification of the SSC is being looked at. Interior Dept's Bureau of Land Management is evaluating use of Geostar to track its own aircraft in flight. China's first polar-orbit metsat, which failed after 39 days in flight, may have died because of attitude-control problems. (It is also known to have had overheating problems in its imager, but image quality was nevertheless good.) Future of SDI deployment uncertain under Bush. He is thought likely to take treaty compliance more seriously than Reagan did, and the limited usefulness and high price of a treaty-compliant system will probably scuttle it. Arianespace hopes to launch 13 payloads on 9 Arianes this year, to help clear its growing backlog. Tentative FY88 financial results for Arianespace show it making a profit of about $17M on revenues of $612M. Formal signing of contracts for the 50-unit production batch of Ariane 4s is imminent. There is slight disappointment at managing only 7 launches, rather than the planned 8, in 1988, but the performance was still credible. Britain is reconsidering the idea of taking a limited role in Ariane 5, despite its earlier complete rejection of the program. The possible limited role would be through a bilateral deal with France rather than direct participation at the ESA level. This would give British industry Ariane 5 contracts without compromising the rejection of a direct role for the government. SEP [which builds Ariane engines] will test-fire an uncooled high-temperature composite nozzle on an Ariane third-stage engine. The carbon / silicon carbide composite retains strength up to 1800C, eliminating the complexity and mass of the cooling system needed for metal nozzles. This is strictly a technology testbed; no application to production Ariane third stages is planned at present. GOES-West's imager fails, putting the US back to one Clarke-orbit metsat again. GOES-East is being shifted to a more central position to give better coverage of winter storms; it will be shifted back somewhat in spring for hurricane monitoring. The outer fringes of the coverage areas, notably Alaska, Hawaii, and the eastern Caribbean islands, will see reduced warning time for serious storms. The failure was expected, as GOES-West was beyond its rated lifetime and the encoder lamp that failed is a known trouble spot with the old GOES design. GOES-East has enough fuel to operate until mid-1990, when the first next-generation GOES will be launched. QM-8 SRB firing on Jan 20, the low-temperature test, was successful. This officially concludes the SRB redesign program, although plans are in the works for ongoing tests on a more relaxed schedule. The only test specifically planned yet is one in spring 1990 to qualify the use of ammonium-perchlorate oxidizer from Pacific Engineering's new plant. Coverage of the decision to replace Discovery's oxygen turbopumps. There was some consideration of postponing the mission, since the pad absolutely had to be clear by March 14 to avoid delays for Magellan, but not launching TDRS-D would have threatened postponement of the Hubble telescope launch, which NASA preferred to avoid. Last Intelsat 5 went up on Ariane Jan 26. DoT sets insurance minima for commercial launches: Martin Marietta and McDonnell Douglas must buy $80M of insurance for commercial Titan and Delta launches, General Dynamics $75M for each commercial Atlas. These numbers are for damage to government property; third-party liability insurance will also be required, but this will be set individually for each launch for now. -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu