RSF%SU-AI@sri-unix.UUCP (01/28/84)
From: Ross Finlayson <RSF@SU-AI>
n522 0048 21 Jan 84
BC-SPACE-2takes-01-21
ADVANCE FOR SUNDAY
By Albert Sehlstedt Jr.
(c) 1984 The Baltimore Sun (Independent Press Service)
WASHINGTON - The ailing space telescope project, conceived by
astronomers to explore the far reaches of the universe but hobbled by
cost overruns, management problems and technical gaffes, is now
pointed in the right direction for a mid-1986 launching.
That is the ''cautious optimistic'' view of Dr. Edward J. Weiler, an
astrophysicist and executive at the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration who is riding herd on a team of scientists and
engineers charged with making the 10-ton telescope work.
James E. Welch, another NASA boss who is overseeing the management
side of the $1.1 billion program, scid ''Our target date is 1 June,
1986, and I don't see anything right now that would cause us to
change that estimate.'' On that date one of the space shuttles is to
carry the telescope to an orbit 320 miles above the atmosphere and
leave it there for a decade or more of astronomical research.
Neither man is congratulating himself at this stage, 10 months after
a House subcommittee pointed to a list of management and technical
problems - and cost increases - that NASA and its contractors have
encountered in the development of the unique instrument.
For example, the original cost for the design, development and
construction of the telescope assembly has soared from a 1976
estimate of $69 million to more than $160 million, according to data
compiled by the House panel, chaired by Rep. Edward P. Boland (D-
Mass.)
Over-all, the cost of the entire program has risen from a 1978
estimate of $435 million to between $1.1 and $1.2 billion today,
according to Welch. And those figures do not include the cost of
launching the telescope.
Without making excuses for past mistakes, Weiler and Welch point out
that the telescope represents an immensely difficult scientific and
engineering endeavor fraught with unknown or unanticipated problems
because it was pushing the ''state of the art'' from its inception.
''We're not building carburetors for Hondas,'' said Weiler. ''Space
telescope represents the single biggest leap in optical capability
since Galileo put his eye to the telescope,'' he said.
And still ahead is the demanding task of integrating the
43-foot-long device with an array of scientific instruments that will
operate in concert with the 94.5-inch primary mirror to help
interpret the hieroglyphics of the cosmos for astronomers from around
the world.
(Astronomers will ''look'' through the telescope electronically,
viewing images of the stars and galaxies transmitted from Earth orbit
to the Space Telescope Science Institute on the Homewood campus of
Johns Hopkins University.)
Another important job facing NASA and its industrial contractors
involves mating the telescope assembly to the metal housing that will
support the scientific package in space.
''We're now getting to the unknown unknowns, and this late in the
program that can really ring your bell,'' Welch said with the joy of
a man half way across a rickety bridge.
An embarrassing problem that seems mercifully behind the NASA
executives involves one of those seemingly obvious precautions that
would occur to any thoughtful seventh-grader working on his first
science project at the Catonsville Middle School.
After polishing the telescope's primary mirror to an almost
unbelievable smoothness with a computer-controlled technique, the
contractor let it get dusty. Smoothness is to telescope mirrors as
youth is to fashion models. And dust equals wrinkles - it detracts
from the overall impression.
The mirror contractor, the widely respected but sometimes tardy
Perkin-Elmer Corporation of Norwalk, Conn., plans to turn the
polished surface up-side-down later this yeap and carefully go over
it with a jet stream of nitrogen gas to remove the dust particles, or
most of them.
''Hopefully, most of the large particles will be blown off,'' Weiler
said. ''It is the larger particles that give you the most problems.''
There was a management problem here, too.
Welch pointed out that the understanding with Perkin-Elmer called
for the mirror to be ''visibly clean,'' a term subject to different
interpretations by different people.
However, Weiler indicated that too much emphasis can be put on
mirror cleanliness because nothing is perfectly clean, including the
space environment where the telescope will operate.
''You needn't clean the mirror on the ground to a point where it
will be cleaner than in space,'' Weiler observed.
Another technical problem has involved 27 latches on the telescope
assembly that hold various instruments, such as the wide-field camera
and the faint-object camera, in the right position.
Latches are, after all, just latches, except these latches must be
stiff enough to endure the vibrations of a rocket launching, hold up
under the stresses of space operations, and keep the cameras and
other delicate devices in place with an accuracy ''on the order of
microns,'' to use Weiler's words. (A micron is an invisible fraction
of an inch.)
To meet these requirements, the latches have had to be redesigned
and strengthened.
The latches are a necessary part of the assembly because space
shuttle astronauts will fly up to the orbiting telescope from time to
time to remove malfunctioning instruments or replace some of them
with with more advanced models.
Another problem has involved slippage in the schedule for
development of the telescope's fine guidance sensors that keep it
pointed in the right direction by locking on to guide stars in the
heavens. (This operation is analgous to a boater guiding his craft
over the waves of the Chesapeake by keeping his eye upon landmarks on
the shore.)
Perkin-Elmer has now assembled the first prototype of a
fine-guidance sensor, Weiler said, and ''it has exceeded
specifications.''
''That gave us all quite a nice Christmas,'' he added.
On the human side, Weiler conceded the telescope program had
suffered from a lack of good communication up and down the line,
adding that the astronomers and other scientists associated wivh the
program also felt they were not getting through to the managers.
''The scientists really felt their voices weren't being heard,'' he
said.
As a consequence, he asked each space telescope scientist last
February to list the problems he or she saw in the program.
''I was shocked by the enormous response I got.'' he said.
Another problem with the telescope project stems from the fact that
it is big-time science.
In the past, NASA headquarters has largely left the management of
space science projects to the agency's ''centers'' (branch offices)
around the country which worked closel with university researchers
and contractors in preparing various missions to the moon and planets.
Conversely, the headquarters people here have always kept very close
tabs on the more costly, and more visible, manned space flight
programs, such as the lunar landings and the space shuttle flights,
exercising many management prerogatives from Washington.
But the space telescope is entirely new.
The old ways didn't work.
In managing complex programs like this, Welch observed after 15
years of triumphs and flops at the Pentagon, ''you learn how to
succeeed by failing.''
''When space telescope is finally launched,'' Weiler said, ''it will
work better than anybody expected.''
END
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