henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (09/22/87)
[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.]
[More to the point, here's the first in a series of recommendations about
sources of information. The single best space periodical is not AW&ST
or Space World or anything else you might guess easily. The best is
Spaceflight, published by the British Interplanetary Society. It covers
all the space programs, not just the US one; its coverage of the European
and Soviet space programs in particular is much better than any US source.
The bulk of it is understandable even to a beginner. It publishes overviews
and historical material as well as current events. Its "Satellite Log" is
the only easily-available source I know of with a paragraph or two of
information on each and every satellite launch anywhere (as you would
expect, these days it's almost solid Soviet launches). Its "Space At JPL"
section includes a lot of fascinating material about the US program that
is seldom seen in US sources. (A particularly-interesting sample appears
below.) Easily the most comprehensive space magazine anywhere. The cover
price is L1.25/US$3.25, but it's not common on the newsstands. Although I
think it can be had by ordinary subscription, the normal way to get it is
to join the BIS. This costs about US$35, with lower rates for new members
under 21 or over 65. Several other publications are available, and one or
two optional membership grades. Write for full information first. The
British Interplanetary Society, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ,
England.]
[First item today is from Spaceflight, not AW&ST.]
JPL is studying a Lunar Polar Orbiter that could be launched from a
Getaway Special can. It would be carried into low orbit by the shuttle
or almost any expendable; it only weighs 150 kg. Once in orbit, it unfolds
a couple of long solar panels, locates the Sun, spins itself up to a few
RPM for stability, and fires up a pair of solar-powered xenon ion thrusters.
Average thrust is only about three times atmospheric drag in the beginning,
but that's enough. LGAS (Lunar GetAway Special) spirals out from Earth
over about two years, and then spends another six months spiralling down
to a 100-km lunar polar orbit. Payload is a 10-kg gamma-ray spectrometer,
which will settle the question of whether there are frozen volatiles at the
lunar poles, while also extending the Apollo elemental-abundance survey of
23% of the lunar surface to the entire surface. It will also give the
gamma-ray astronomers another triangulation point for locating gamma-ray
bursts, and precision tracking of LGAS will improve mapping of the Moon's
lumpy gravitational field. Transmitter power will be 1 watt, with 1.5
megabits of RAM storing lunar-farside data for delayed transmission to Earth.
The spacecraft design would have other uses; in particular, with a launcher
like Delta that could start it from a higher orbit, it could fly missions
to near-Earth asteroids. A major side benefit is that it tests solar-ion
propulsion *in space* at low cost and risk, clearing the way for its use
on more ambitious missions. The JPL group hopes to arouse enough interest
to turn LGAS into an approved project; earliest launch would be July 1991.
[Back to AW&ST]
USSR now has six "crew-related" spacecraft, all different, in orbit: Soyuz,
Mir, Kvant, the tug that brought Kvant up, Salyut 7 (mothballed but still
alive), and the Cosmos 1686 module docked to Salyut. Seven if you count
the Progress tankers.
JPL may add a second UV spectrometer to Galileo; it's a spare from Voyager
that could be added easily while Galileo is being rebuilt for its latest
mission plan.
Shuttle thermal protection in the wing/elevon cove area being redesigned
for better protection; there has been serious reentry damage here in the
past. The area between the nose cap and the nosewheel door is also being
worked on, for the same reason.
Mitsubishi refuses to sell McDonnell-Douglas the LE-5 oxyhydrogen engine
(used in the H-1's upper stage) for use in a Delta upper stage, because
of Japanese restrictions on military use of space technology. [McD-D hoped
to use the H-1's upper stage to soup up the Delta. So much for that...]
Fletcher meets with White House Chief of Staff in hopes of better White
House NASA support and reinstatement of the cancelled Soviet-space-program
briefing for Reagan. Meeting was "short and inconclusive".
Soviets launch 15-20-ton Earth resources platform, largest civilian Earth-
survey spacecraft in history. It resembles the sort of thing the Ride
report recommended as a major goal for NASA. [Also of note, in Spaceflight
I think, is the observation that its orbit matches those used for some
Salyut flights.] Rep. Bill Nelson: "The Soviets manage by objective --
not by budget."
Visiting Soyuz crew returns from Mir, with Alexandrov replaced by Laveikin.
Laveikin developed a heart abnormality in orbit on Mir, so Soviet mission
control decided to replace him with Alexandrov. He was not ill and was
working normally (after a difficult adaptation to free-fall), but bringing
him back down was felt to be safest. [Here we have the first unscheduled
space-station crew rotation, done as a matter of routine.]
Hughes teams with Lockheed and Pratt&Whitney for the ALS competition.
Hughes's design uses a modular design with the P&W RL-10 oxyhydrogen
engine, now used in Centaur. They will have to stack a lot of RL-10s
together to launch a heavy payload -- its thrust is only 16,500lbs -- and
it's not a terribly efficient engine, but its reliability record is very
good. Hughes is still talking about launching from Palmyra Island.
NASA to power up Discovery, restarting shuttle launch processing cycle.
Various issues remain unresolved; delays from the June 26 launch date are
quite possible. Two problems of note are lingering troubles with the
17-inch feed-line valves (which must be fixed before Discovery goes to
the VAB for stacking, because of their location), and the discovery that
some nuts in the orbiters may have been overtorqued during assembly.
NASA extends space-station crew tour of duty from 90 days to 120 for the
early crews, with a rise to 180 expected after the first year. This will
reduce the number of shuttle missions needed for station visits. NASA
medics think 120 is okay but want to examine 120-day results before approving
longer stays. Other changes are under consideration, notably jettisoning
trash into the atmosphere for destructive reentry rather than taking it
down in the shuttle and building the logistics module with composites
rather than aluminum to reduce its dead weight. There is growing support
for using a heavylift launcher for station assembly, and contractors may
be told to allow for either. NASA is also re-examining the current policy
which provides for essentially no structural spares, which would leave the
program very vulnerable to a launch failure or a major ground accident.
NASA broaches the issue of canceling Phase Two of the station (upper and
lower booms, solar-dynamic power, servicing bay); Congressional reaction
is strongly negative.
British space program down the tubes: Thatcher government reneges on
pre-election promise of expanded British space program, freezing British
space budget and casting doubt on the future of Hotol and the Space
Platform segment of Columbus. [Roy Gibson, head of the British National
Space Center, resigned in response.]
USAF to buy five more early-warning satellites from TRW.
Charles Stark Draper, father of inertial navigation, dies.
India chooses Delta to launch Insat 1D comsat in late 1989; this will be
the first commercial Delta launch, although it's not the first order.
Japan Air Lines to experiment with satellite link to supply north-Pacific
airliners with stock prices and other business information, starting 1989.
Picture of JPL design for aerobraked Mars orbiter/rover.
Video teleconference between Boulder and Moscow on Mars exploration.
Solidest results probably in areas like engineering models of Mars and
standardization of navigation beacons. Soviets are confident that the
prolonged-free-fall problems of a manned mission are solvable, and are
suggesting control of Mars rovers from orbit. Soviets, unlike US, have
not given up on the possibility of life on Mars, and want to look deeper
underground.
France proposes twin-balloon platform to go on early-90s Soviet Mars
lander. One balloon would be filled with helium, the other would be a
solar-heated hot-air balloon. The pair would lift the instrument package
to 6-8 km during the day, letting the winds carry it perhaps 500 km per day.
At night the hot-air balloon would deflate and the craft would land, with
the helium balloon holding the balloons themselves aloft for a clean takeoff
the next day. This will give ten or more landings in widely-separated areas.
A later mission might use the same system to collect surface samples from
many places, with the balloon eventually jettisoned, leaving the payload
and a locator beacon awaiting recovery by a rover mission.
Australia and Japan agree on Australian reception of images from Japan's
MOS-1 ocean-survey satellite.
Australia is studying an Australian Science and Applications Spacecraft,
possibly launched into polar orbit for remote-sensing work and other
applications.
Letter of the week:
"Regarding the Harvard Business School report on commercial
space... this has been common knowledge within industry for
7-8 years at least... Cost, access to space, macroeconomics
(how the US competes...) are issues that Congress and the
various administrations have chosen to ignore, from an
industrial point of view. Creation of capital must be left
to the printing presses, as far as they are concerned, and
launch vehicles are just silly play toys for scientists.
"It is a good thing that they did not think that way about
the railroad and the airplane.
"Now that someone has done a study, what will be done with it?
Can anyone think beyond the next two years?"
"W. David Montjoye, Ohio"
--
"There's a lot more to do in space | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
than sending people to Mars." --Bova | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henryjtk@mordor.UUCP (09/24/87)
[From Henry Spencer's excellent summary of Aviation Week:] > >NASA to power up Discovery, restarting shuttle launch processing cycle. >Various issues remain unresolved... >Two problems of note are lingering troubles with the >17-inch feed-line valves ... and the discovery that >some nuts in the orbiters may have been overtorqued during assembly. > Oh, come now, Henry, that's no way to refer to the Shuttle crew, even if they _are_ getting annoyed at all the delays. :-) Jordin Kare . .