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Aviation History
1986
1986 - 0520.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT Spot—first Earth images TOULOUSE Less than 48hr after its launch by Ariane 1 on Feb ruary 22, France's Spot Earth-resources satellite began returning pictures of remarkable quality. Among the first to be released by Spot Image is the black-and-white photograph, facing page, of an area 60km by 40km, 20km south of Turin, centred on the city of Savigliano. Resolution is 10m, and the network of roads link ing scattered farms and cities shows up well against snow. A second monochrome photograph, of the French Riveria, left, reveals the urban structure of Nice with a 10m resolution. Spot Image plans to market 50cm by 50cm black-and- white images of 60km by 60km areas at FFr850 for 20m resolution and FFr2,500 for 10m resolution. China eyes Indonesian launch site BEIJING ' China appears to have shelved plans to operate a national direct broadcast satellite in favour of a joint venture with other Far Eastern countries. This would involve a satellite procured from the West and launched by China's own Long March 3 geostationary launch vehicle. China has proposed the construction, in co-operation with Singapore, of an $800 million equatorial launch site in Indonesia. Such a base would increase the effec tiveness and competitiveness of the Long March 3 by taking advantage of the launch assis tance provided by the Earth's rotation. Co-operation between China and Indonesia was first mooted at the Asian Aero space '86 exhibition in Singa pore in January (see Flight, February 1, page 32). An obstacle to such collaboration is that, at present, China and Indonesia do not maintain diplomatic relations. Meanwhile, China has secured its first Western customer for a commercial Long March launch. The Swedish Space Corporation has provisionally booked a piggyback launch in 1987 for its proposed Mailstar elec tronic mail satellite on a Long March 2 used to place Chinese Earth-resources satellites in low-Earth orbit. Soviet men on Mars by 1994? LONDON The Soviet Union could be only seven years away from launching a manned expedi tion to Mars, according to a report prepared by UK consultants Commercial Space Technologies. The analysis assumes that the new Soviet heavylift launch vehicle will be ready in the near future. This vehicle, some 95m tall, is said to comprise a liquid-oxygen/ liquid-hydrogen-fuelled core stage plus four, six, or eight strap-on liquid-propellant (LOX/UDMH) boosters. With eight strap-on boost ers, the heavylift vehicle will be able to place 280 tonnes in low Earth orbit, estimates Commercial Space Tech nologies, which also claims that the vehicle is ready for testing. The Mars mission outlined in a confidential report for the UK Government uses four heavylift vehicles. A Mars lander and its rocket stage would be launched by two such boosters and assembled in orbit before being despatched to Mars, nine months and 300 million miles away. Two more heavylift vehicles would carry a Salyut-class habitable module and its rocket stage into Earth orbit. A three-man crew would then be ferried to the completed vehicle to begin the journey to Mars. Docking of the habitable module (and its return stage) with the Mars lander would take place in Martian orbit. A two-man crew would land on Mars using a vehicle origi nally designed for a lunar landing in the 1960s. After about a month on Mars the vehicle would lift off, rendez vous with the orbiting module and dock, ready for the return. Japan studies mini-shuttle TOKYO ~ Nasda, the Japanese space agency, has included funds for two free-flying space plat forms and an unmanned spaceplane in its 1986-87 budget, to be published in April. One of the free flyers will be used in conjunction with the US Space Shuttle, the other with the US Space Station. It is thought that some $100 million has been budgeted for initial work on these plat forms. The unmanned spaceplane, called Himes, is a highly manoeuvrable winged vehicle 13m long, weighing 14 tonnes and propelled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The vehicle is seen initially only as a suborbital craft carrying sounding-rocket- class probes to altitude, but with the ability to remain at peak altitude for longer than a sounding rocket. Meanwhile, India has approached Nasda with a view to purchasing Japan's LE-5 cryogenic engine design for use in its GSLV launcher. 24 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 8 March 1986 •
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