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Aviation History
1986
1986 - 3090.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT Europe offered mini-spacelab PRESTON A space recovery vehicle (SRV) based on General Elec- tric's US photo-reconnais sance film re-entry capsule is being marketed to micro- gravity users as an autono mous, low-cost alternative to recovering and delivering materials processing systems from orbit to the user, reports Tim Furniss. NIS Space has an agree ment with GE to market, build, and launch SRVs for Europe and Scandinavia while GE markets its vehicle in the USA, appointing companies like NIS Space to handle marketing elsewhere in the world. Flight understands, but NIS is unable to confirm, that ESA, like Nasa, has shown interest in the SRV as an emergency vehicle for space station crew recovery and as an alternative to Shuttle free- flyers such as Eureca. It is known that Nasa is conduc ting a review of possible emergency vehicles that could be incorporated into the base line design of its Space Station. NIS Space says that inter est in the SRV in Europe as a materials processing labora tory is "absolutely phenom enal", and the company is reviewing all the launch options including low-cost, low-Earth-orbit boosters such as the US Scout, Conestoga, and Amroc, as well as riding piggyback on Ariane. NIS expects to make a major announcement on the SRV programme, including a launch service agreement, customer service and pricing policy in mid-December. NIS will either lease flight time on an SRV or will sell it to a customer. So far, 38 custom ers have expressed a firm desire to fly experiments. The major market for the SRV is in providing a unique environment for materials processing experiments to be carried out on unmanned, booster-launched, automated mini-labs, capable of returning materials to Earth at short notice, within hours rather than weeks for a Shuttle-retrieved free-flyer. NIS would tailor the SRV to the user's exact requirements, RETRO-ROCKET THRUST CONE HEAT SHIELD INNER -RECOVERABLE CAI'SULE -PROGRAMMER SPACE STATION, SHUTTLE OR EXPENDABLE VEHICLE LAUNCHED Q±b SEARCH AND ATTITUDE STABILIZATION RETROFIRETO DEORBIT REENTRY ORIENTATION AND STABILIZE SRV PARACHUTE DEPLOYMENT SRV CONTROLLED TERMINAL DESCENT AND RECOVERY General Electric's proposed space recovery vehicle (SRV) is based on its recoverable film re-entry capsule for US military photo- reconnaissance satellites. SR V is being marketed in Europe by Lancashire-based NIS Space, which reports "phenomenal interest" in the device as a low-cost laboratory for microgravity research retaining confidentiality. Users who have shown inter est include those involved in pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering, organic crystals, thin films, and lubricants. Apart from being an emer gency re-entry vehicle for a space station crew, an SRV could be used to return mate rials processing samples from the space station, or astro nauts' blood samples, and even serve as a waste manage ment vehicle for the station. The optimum size of the SRV is being decided. User interest indicates that capsules between 76cm and 152cm base diameter will become standard. These would weigh about 600kg with experiments. As an "austere last-resort lifeboat" for up to six crew wearing pressure suits and emergency oxygen the SRV would weigh about 35,000kg and measure 3m in diameter. Deploying a parachute at 16,000m, the SRV makes a controlled landing within a 15m-radius target. It can be refurbished in days and fly up to 100 missions, each usually lasting about a week. The film-return capsule on which it is based has made more than 500 returns from orbit. More Cosmos launches MOSCOW The Soviet Union launched two more Cosmos satellites on October 31 and November 4 respectively. Cosmos 1789 and 1790 bring the number of satellites launched by the Soviets this year to 91 in 75 launches. This compares with 16 launched by the rest of the world in ten successful launches. On October 3 Cosmos 1731, a fifth-generation photo- reconnaissance satellite, was deorbited after a lifetime of 238 days, the longest oper ating time of any Soviet observation satellite, space analyst Phillip Clark tells Flight. Clark believes that the triple launch of Glonass navi gation satellites Cosmos 1776-1780 on September 16 could have been made by an operational medium-lift launch vehicle or, as usual, by a Proton, but flying a differ ent profile. The Soviets have announced that the flight by a Bulgarian cosmonaut to the Mir space station will take place in 1988. Frenchman Jean Loup Chretien's Mir mission the same year has been codenamed Aragats, after the highest peak in Soviet Armenia. The manned Syrian Intercosmos flight to Mir will take place in 1987. Meanwhile, Soviet trade agency Litsenzintorg has "started negotiations" on the commercialisation of the Pro ton launcher, claiming that companies in more than 20 countries, including Britain, Belgium, Italy, France, and Finland have expressed inter est. Thailand is the latest coun try to show interest in the Proton. The Soviets have offered to launch a US-built RCA communications satel lite for Siam Satellite, empha sising that production tech nology secrets will be guaranteed. As far as Western countries and companies are concerned, however, the ' danger of state-of-the-art technology transfer will forever prevent the use of Soviet launchers. 2H FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 22 November 1986
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