Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Sun, 16 Dec 1990 02:18:24 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <0bOlySe00VcJI3s04k@andrew.cmu.edu> Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sun, 16 Dec 1990 02:17:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #668 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 668 Today's Topics: NASA Headline News for 12/10/90 (Forwarded) Japanese/Soviet space crew successfully lands Galileo Update - 12/06/90 Ulysses Update - 12/03/90 Galileo article space news from Nov 5 AW&ST Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Dec 90 20:05:43 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 12/10/90 (Forwarded) Headline News Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters Monday, December 10, 1990 Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788 This is NASA Headline News for Monday, December 10, 1990 Shuttle mission controllers at Johnson Space Center this morning decided to bring Columbia and its seven-person crew home tonight. The decision to come home tonight was based on expected unacceptable weather conditions at Edwards Air Force Base for both tomorrow and Wednesday. The planned deorbit maneuver for tonight's landing will occur at 11:49 pm EST with an Edwards landing on runway 22 at 12:51 am tomorrow morning. The Astro-1 crew will spend the rest of today stowing equipment, including the payload bay telescopes, closing the payload bay doors, testing the ship's reentry systems and, in general, making Columbia shipshape for its return. Astro-1 science activities this morning consisted of joint observations with all three ultraviolet telescopes of several galaxies and the nearby supergiant star Betelgeuse. The X-ray telescope observed several binary star systems and a quasar during this same period. The science management team, at this morning's press briefing, remarked that they consider the mission a complete success and expect the science gain from this Spacelab flight will exceed all previous such science flights. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The final report of the Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program was presented at a press briefing at 11:00 am today from the Old Executive Office Building. Participants included Vice President Dan Quayle, Committee Chairma7hNorman R. Augustine, and NASA Administrator Adm. Richard Truly. Admiral Truly later today will conduct a press briefing at the NASA Headquarters Auditorium to discuss the report 's findings. The briefing will be held at 4:00 pm and will be carried live on NASA Select TV. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Honorable James Baker, Secretary of State, and the Honorable Eduard A. Schevardnadze, Foreign Minister of the U.S.S.R, will both be guests in JSC's Mission Control Center this afternoon at 1:50 pm EST. The two are in Houston for a continuation of the arms limitation discussions and will take this opportunity to observe shuttle mission activities. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Galileo Earth 1 gravitational assist flyby went according to the plan this past Saturday. At 3:35 pm EST, Galileo flew above the Earth, over the Carribean Basin, at an altitude of 597 miles. Columbia was on an ascending pass moving toward the coast of Chile at that time. Galileo gained about 10,800 miles per hour during the flyby. A photo of the moon and another of Australia were downlinked within minutes of the flyby. More than 2,000 images of the Earth and moon are scheduled to be downlinked in the next few days. Hubble Space Telescope flight controllers at the Goddard Space Flight Center expected to have the spacecraft up and running again today following the failure of a redundant gyro which placed Hubble in a safe mode since last Monday. A preliminary assessment as to the cause indicates a possible wiring fault in the electronics associated with gyro 6. Following the entry into safe mode, Goddard controllers brought one of the two backup gyros on line and began gyro alignment activities and a routine recovery from safe mode. An inquiry board has been established to define the most probably cause of the failure and to provide recommendations concerning further actions. The gyro is one of many on-orbit replaceable units and planning to permit the inclusion of a replacement pair of gyros on the 1993 orbital servicing mission. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Kennedy Space Center named a new director of engineering development last week. Walter T. Murphy, formerly deputy, was named director last Wednesday. He replaces Jim Phillips, who recently retired. Murphy has previously been manager of all shuttle engineering activities at Vandenberg and prior to that was manager for the checkout of shuttle avionics. Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select TV. All times are Eastern. **indicates a live program. Monday, 12/10/90 11:00 am **Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program report from Old Executive Office Building. 1:00 pm **Galileo status report from JPL. 4:00 pm **Adm. Truly press briefing on Augustine committee report from NASA Headquarters. Throughout the day mission coverage of the STS-35 Astro-1 mission will continue live, except as noted above. All events and times may change without notice. This report is filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12:00 pm, EST. It is a service of Internal Communications Branch at NASA Headquarters. Contact: CREDMOND on NASAmail or at 202/453-8425. NASA Select TV: Satcom F2R, Transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees West Longitude, Audio 6.8, Frequency 3960 MHz. ------------------------------ From: glennc@cs.sfu.ca Date: 10 Dec 90 12:18 -0800 To: SVAF524%UTXVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu, biro%css.dec@decwrl.dec.com, isg@bfmny0.bfm.com, klaes%wrksys.dec@decwrl.dec.com, lepage%vostok.dec.com@decwrl.dec.com, space-editors-new@andrew.cmu.edu, yaron@astro.as.utexas.edu Subject: Japanese/Soviet space crew successfully lands The USSR successfully landed the Japanese/Soviet Soyuz TM-10 mission today (Dec. 10th) from their Mir space station according to Radio Moscow and Radio Japan. On board were Gennadi Manakov and Gennadi Strekalov (who were launched Aug 1'90) and Japanese journalist Toyehiro Akiayama (who came up with the Soyuz TM-11 crew on Dec. 2). After leaving Mir they made the planed two orbits before reentry. The capsule landing time was not stated but the Radio Moscow announcement came long after it should have on the original schedule, so there may have been some delay in leaving Mir. After landing in the snow in Soviet south central Asia Akiayama thought that space flight helped one see the world as a whole. Also he really appreciated the return to gravity (Akiayama suffered badly from space sickness - something that one cannot predict from ground tests). Manakov and Strekalov have spent 138 days in orbit, rather low by current long duration missions (about 4.6 months rather than the normal six months). Most of the work concentrated on materials processing in the Krystal module. Space walks to repair the Kvant 2 airlock failed because damage to the hinges was larger than expected. The replacement crew of Musa Manarov and Vikor Afanasyev will remain until May '91. Manarov, who spent 365 day on Mir in the Soyuz TM-4 flight of Dec. '87 - Dec. '88 is set to create a new space record. In that previous flight Manerov and Alexander Titov became the first people to spend one full year in orbit, exceeding the previous record of 326 days (set by Yuri Romanenko in 1987) by some 39 days. Now by Feb. 4 '91 he will become the human with the most zero G experience exceeding that of Romanenko whose lifetime total is 430 days, while Leoind Kizim (of Soyuz T-10B in '84, Soyuz T-15 in '86) becomes third with 373 days, and Titov is fourth with 367 days ( Soyuz T-8, 2 days aborted mission in Apr. '83 in addition to the Soyuz TM-4 year). If Manerov stays until May '91 he will total in excess of 510 days (a significant number as the Soviets only consider important space records that exceed the previous by 10%). For some comparison the experience of the most active US astronauts: John Young at 34 days and Paul Weitz (Skylab 2 & STS-9) with 33 days. All other US astronauts with higher experience levels (eg. the Skylab 4 crew with 84 days) have retired (some possibility of error here as my recent records of US astronauts totals are not complete for the last year). Actually the French cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chretien also has 34 days (Soyuz TM-7 Dec. '89 and Soyuz T-6/Salyut 7 in June '82). This last flight did some interesting work, but the next crew will be breaking records. Just as important, consider whether the existence of their own cosmonaut help promote space exploration in Japan? Glenn Chapman School of Engineering Science Simon Fraser Univ. Burnaby, B.C. Canada glennc@cs.sfu.ca or glennc%cs.sfu.ca@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 90 04:34:13 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@apple.com (Ron Baalke) Subject: Galileo Update - 12/06/90 GALILEO STATUS REPORT December 6, 1990 Yesterday, in preparation for the Earth flyby, the Galileo spacecraft attitude control system was successfully commanded from cruise mode to inertial mode using gyros for control. Also yesterday, the VE-11 (Venus-Earth 11) Earth 1 Encounter sequence program was successfully transmitted and received by the spacecraft. The encounter sequence will become active at 8 a.m. PST tomorrow. Tomorrow a command will be sent to reset the Command Loss Timer to 3 days, its planned value for this mission phase. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 90 04:08:38 GMT From: julius.cs.uiuc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@apple.com (Ron Baalke) Subject: Ulysses Update - 12/03/90 ULYSSES STATUS REPORT December 3, 1990 As of 10 AM (PST), Monday, December 3, the Ulysses spacecraft is 33,066,892 miles (53,216,005 km) from Earth, and 411,796,739 miles (662,722,612 km) from Jupiter. The spacecraft is traveling at 80,203 mph (129,074 kph) relative to the Sun, and 26,908 mph (43,304 kph) relative to the Earth. The Solar Aspect Angle has reduced from 35.6 degrees on November 26 to 26.3 degrees on December 3. The Sun-Probe-Earth angle has also reduced to 35.3 degrees to 27.1 degrees. The spacecraft is currently spinning at 5.2 rpm, with a small increase of spin rate noted during the past week. A precession manuever was performed on November 26 to maintain the on-board antenna to be Earth-pointing for S-band communications. A further precession manuever was carried out on November 30. The observed nutation-like motion has been closely monitored. The general trend is for the motion to decrease in amplitude. The first tape recorder operations were carried on November 29 and 30. However, in order to acquire the maximum of real-time data, continuous 34 meter has been obtained until December 10. A further request has been submitted for maximum coverage until the end of the year. Following more data analysis, it has been determined that the nutation-like motion is more complex than was originally assumed. There is a nutation of the spacecraft of the order of 1.5 degrees half cone but this nutation is precessing about the angular momentum on a circle of about 1.5 degrees radius. This produced an effective overall nutation of between 2-3 degrees half cone. However, as the week progressed a systematic reduction of nutation has been observed. The current value of effective nutation is centered around 1.7 degrees half cone. The stepper motor for the axial boom was turned for a period of 30 minutes on November 29 as a further experiment in the investigation of the nutation-like motion. A 20% decrease in the nutation level was observed, which built up again to a new level, still slightly lower than the level existing prior to the stepper motor turn-on. On Monday, December 3, the X-band downlink was switched on. The ground station successfully acquired the downlink and telemetry routed over this link has been successfully processed. Tape recorder operations will continue for several days. On December 5, the KEP (Energetic Particles and Interstellar Neutral Gas experiment) EPAC RAM load will take place. On December 7, the GLG (Solar Wind Ion Composition experiment) PAPS will be increased to 22.87 KV. The ground segment performance remains nominal. The incidence of data dropouts is less than in previous weeks. The switchover to routine operations has been delayed until the end of the month. The DSN (Deep Space Network) is providing tracking passes to fill existing tracking gaps, including the holiday period. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 90 04:45:04 GMT From: usc!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@apple.com (Ron Baalke) Subject: Galileo article Christian Science Monitor -- 12/10/90 "Galileo Gets Earth Boost for Jupiter Trip" "Earth received its first confirmed interplanetary visitor Saturday as the spacecraft Galileo came within 590 miles of its home planet's surface, scientists said." The Monitor reports that the Earth greeted the visitor by giving it a hefty boost to its solar orbit velocity, raising from 67,000 to 78,000 miles per hour, and assisting it toward its eventual goal of Jupiter. The paper quotes Galileo project manager William O'Neil as saying "we are having a great day today. Galileo just completed a virtually perfect Earth gravity assist. We hit our target altitude to within five miles, and our arrival time to within a half-a-second. That's not bad for a 14-month trip or two-thirds of a billion miles." The paper reports that, as Galileo leaves the vicinity of the Earth, the spacecraft will send back first-ever pictures of the Earth and moon together as well as views of the dark side of the moon. It will also measure the methane in Earth's atmosphere, according to the story. (editor's note. Voyager 1 took the first ever picture of the Earth and moon together, and there is no "dark" side to the moon, there is a "far" side.) ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 90 05:58:32 GMT From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo!henry@apple.com (Henry Spencer) Subject: space news from Nov 5 AW&ST OSC and Hercules get the 1990 National Air and Space Museum Trophy for Pegasus. House+Senate endorse USAF/NASA proposal for a joint buy of four IUSes, for a small cost saving. Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies studies a recoverable spacecraft to carry a 300kg payload into orbit for two weeks, using existing boosters. Orbital Sciences posts its first after-tax profit, with five Pegasus launches sold to date (all to DARPA). First Inmarsat 2 launched, by Delta from the Cape, Oct 30. This was the 200th Delta. House/Senate appropriations funding for Milstar, which directed a major re-orientation to tactical needs, also criticized the Pentagon for the lack of a comprehensive DoD comsat plan and asked that one be produced as part of next year's budget. Details of the five categories into which SDI funding is now split. Of particular note is that the "Phase 1" category is required to cover all Brilliant Pebbles work. [Evidently Congress is not buying SDIO's claim that Brilliant Pebbles is the answer to everything, including defense against limited attacks.] The Pentagon cannot move more than 10% of a category's funding around without Congressional approval. Hatch-repair spacewalk on Mir fails. This is considered annoying but not disastrous. Story on SDIO's single-stage-to-orbit project. The basic objective of the project is to demonstrate an SSTO vehicle, in a suborbital flight, in 1994. The assumption is that current technology (including materials developed for the X-30) is sufficient to make a non-airbreathing SSTO spacecraft practical. In August, small study contracts (circa $3M each) went to Boeing, General Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas, and Rockwell, for reports on basic designs and critical technologies by mid-Dec. After six months of "risk reduction", investigating said technologies, two companies will be picked to build prototypes for 1994 flight. An operational vehicle could fly 2-3 years after that. The SSTO companies have been asked to look at all three combinations of takeoff and landing: vertical/vertical, vertical/horizontal, and horizontal/horizontal. Some takeoff assistance, e.g. trolleys or catapults, is allowed if needed. Delivery of Brilliant Pebbles interceptors was suggested as a model mission, but the contractors have wide latitude to define payload, performance, fleet size, launch rate, and ground facilities. Other hypothetical missions include space-station resupply and maintaining two astronauts in orbit for a four-day mission. Man-rating is required, preferably with a 14.7psi cabin atmosphere and flight-crew escape systems. Another major objective is survival of a single engine failure at any time. The key objective is "aircraft operations", with a turnaround time of 7-10 days with at most 350 man-days of effort. "If you can't reduce turnaround, you might as well buy more [expendable launch vehicles]." SDIO and industry insist that this is not another "paper program", like the SSTO studies to date. The objective is a vehicle, not a report. It is a bit unclear, however, why SDIO is doing this, given that it seems only marginally related to missile defense. The popular theory is that if the early work looks good and money is available, the project will probably be transferred to another organization for implementation, with SDIO involved in getting things going because it is the one major organization with no vested interest in existing launchers. Atlantis launch "postponed indefinitely" due to secret problems with its military payload. The delay looks to be a week or so; apparently the problems were not actually serious, but the bird had to be pulled out of the payload bay for fixes. The nature of the delay in the Titan IV launch, now set to go shortly after Atlantis, has been revealed: lining in a duct providing payload cooling air flaked off and was blown into the payload fairing, which had to be removed for cleaning. The spacecraft itself was not affected. First international conference on waverider aircraft, which fly on a hypersonic shockwave. There is great interest in using such designs for more sophisticated versions of aerobraking, such as using the atmosphere of Mars or Venus to make drastic changes in probe trajectory, more than could be achieved by orthodox gravity assists. [You can use aerodynamic lift to hold the spacecraft *down*, rather than having to rely on the relatively feeble gravitational field of Mars or Venus, making a much tighter turn around the planet possible.] There is beginning to be real progress again, after very little effort in the 70s and early 80s. The major problem areas are basic aerodynamics -- no waverider has actually flown, at least not that has been admitted -- and heat-transfer technology. Various research projects are now being proposed, including launching a test vehicle from a reentering shuttle orbiter. -- "The average pointer, statistically, |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #668 *******************