[sci.space.shuttle] space news from Jan 9 AW&ST

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (03/20/89)

Cosmic Background Explorer, slated for Delta launch this summer, has now
been loaded with liquid helium in preparation for launch.

NOAA and CNES begin formal negotiations aimed at possible merger of
Landsat and Spot systems.

National Academies of Sciences and Engineering report to Bush says the
space station should be undertaken after, not before, long-term goals
(e.g. return to the Moon, manned flight to Mars) are selected... which
should be a high priority.

Soviets plan two consecutive medium-duration missions to Mir, pending
full analysis of data from the year-long mission.  The current crew
will be up until April or May, followed by a two-man crew which will
stay up until October or so.

Speaking of the one-year crew...  Soviets say:  "We're one step closer
to Mars...  Our initial observations of Titov and Manarov show they are
in great shape..."

Soviet Mars-mission planning is moving ahead.  One approach would be
launch of living quarters on one Energia, followed by the Mars lander
and the Earth return module on another, followed by fuel and nuclear-
electric propulsion systems on several more.  The total crew would be
four, with two going down to the surface.

AW&ST visit to Baikonur sees second Soviet shuttle orbiter nearing
completion, as well as test models of it.  Two test models had a
pair of unusual pods, resembling jet-engine nacelles but not in
the same place as the jet pods used on the atmospheric-flight-test
model (which also had the mystery pods).  The Soviets refuse to
explain.

Soviets comment that six people is really too many for Mir -- when it
had that many recently (the two one-year cosmonauts, two visitors,
Dr. Poliakov, and Chretien), it had trouble with temperature and
humidity buildup.  They say this will be remedied when the long-awaited
expansion modules are added.

Glavkosmos signs definitive marketing agreement with Space Commerce
Corp. of Houston [this is Art Dula's bunch], giving the latter
exclusive US marketing rights for Soviet space services, hardware, and
data.  SCC has been marketing Soviet launch services for some time, but
will now also handle Mir payload space, payloads on unmanned recoverables,
Soviet comsats, data from navigation and ocean-sensing satellites, images
taken from Mir, and Soviet space-program technical literature.  In the
past, customers like Payload Systems Inc. (which is flying payloads aboard
Mir) have dealt direct with Glavcosmos.  SCC is also arranging inspection
trips to Baikonur for businessmen interested in Soviet launch services;
there is considerable interest in public tours.

Trials of telephone service from trans-Atlantic airliners, using Inmarsat
satellites, will start soon.  Two British Airways 747s will be the trial
aircraft; the price will be about $10/minute.  Experiments are also
underway to evaluate automatic position reporting for aircraft via
satellites, which could greatly simplify oceanic air-traffic control.
Position reporting is easy to do because it needs little bandwidth
and cheap antennas (voice is harder, with current satellites).  The
major obstacles to satellite-based oceanic traffic control are not
technical but political:  traditionally, responsibility for traffic
control over oceans rests with the nearest country, to get the best
use out of limited communications range, and a more efficient scheme
using satellites and a few consolidated control centers would mean
loss of revenue, employment, and prestige for some countries.

First Pegasus launch (scheduled for July) will probably carry a Glomar
experimental message-relay satellite for DoD and a pair of gas-release
canisters for NASA ionospheric research.  Launch will be into polar
orbit from off Vandenberg.  The original payload plan was a cluster
of small store/dump comsats, but they have been postponed due to the
slight element of risk in using the first launch of a new booster.
This will be the second Glomar (an earlier one went up on a shuttle
in 1985); they are aimed at demonstrating feasibility of using small
satellites to relay data from (and commands to) small military sensors.
A particular application is data relay from antisubmarine-warfare
sensors scattered on the Arctic ice, to help track Soviet submarines
under it.  NASA jumped at the chance to use the rest of the Pegasus
payload for gas-release tests, several of which had to be dropped from
the NASA/DoD CRRES satellite when it was shifted from the shuttle to
an expendable.  This will replace one of two planned Scout launches
with canisters, which would have cost more and taken longer.
-- 
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu