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Aviation History
1991
1991 - 1345.PDF
OPERATIONS: SPACEFLIGHT UK's Sharman sets sights on ESA Briton Helen Sharman, who boarded the Mir space sta tion on 20 May for a stay of six days on the Project Juno mis sion, is one of three UK can didates submitted to the Euro pean Space Agency (ESA) to join its astronaut corps. Shar- man's co-candidates are Maj Tim Mace, her Juno back-up, and Dr Gordon Brooks, who was one of the four Juno astro naut finalists. As the UK is not contributing funds to the manned Hermes and Columbus programmes, it is likely that it will be repre sented by just one member. As one of the few flight-experi enced European astronauts, Sharman would be regarded as a valuable candidate. Sharman, aboard Soyuz TM12 with commander Anatoli Artsebarski and flight engineer Sergei Krikalyov, was launched from Baiknour on 18 May and routinely entered orbit. The Mir docking two days later had to be performed manually by Art sebarski after yet another Soyuz automatic docking malfunction. Sharman, the first woman on Mir, conducted a series of So viet experiments. These in cluded Vita, an investigation into the effect of microgravity on materials, and Retlotron, a series of biochemical blood tests in which crew members' blood is monitored for cholest erol levels, uric acid, haemog lobin and glucose. Alexei Leonov, deputy chief of cosmonaut training at Star City, has revealed that the TM12 crew would have pre ferred to have flown with Mace, having had a "...very sensitive attitude about working with a woman. The British side de cided that there should be a woman," says Leonov, adding, however: "Sharman earned her place through strength. If only all the men had coped so well. She is an extraordinarily hard working person." Sharman was scheduled to return to Earth aboard Soyuz TM11 on 26 May with Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov, who were launched on 2 De cember with a Japanese journal ist who made a short visit. • Sharman (centre) attracts the attention of the ESA astronaut corps Ariane launch booked for Arabsat 1C Arabsat 1C will now be launched by an Ariane booster, in the latest move in a saga that has baffled the space industry for two years. The satellite has been locked at the Aerospatiale factory while the company attempts to get full payment from the 22-country Arabsat consortium for the pro duction of 1A and IB, launched by Ariane and Shuttle in 1985. Arabsat, meanwhile, negotiated a bargain $25 million launch for 1C on a Chinese Long March 3 booster in 1989, but this was seen as a violation of a Sino-US agreement keeping launch prices at a similar level. China lost the launch con tract when Arabsat failed to gain an export licence, and it was assumed by observers that be cause of the Gulf War, the launch of the original ground spare spacecraft was unlikely to take place. The Arianespace launch has not yet been sched uled, however. The Arabsat contract marks the launch services company's 93rd launch in 11 years. The company's backlog now stands at 35 launch contracts covering a period of four years and worth a total of $2.75 billion. • ST40 delayed by systems failures Three separate hitches dis covered aboard Shuttle or- biter Columbia one day before its planned launch on 22 May on the nine-day STS 40 Spa- celab Life Sciences 1, mission have delayed the flight until at least 1 June. A multiplexer/demultiplexer in the orbiter's aft compartment, responsible for transfering com puter commands to several sys tems including solid rocket booster ordnance devices, failed first. At the same time, technicians expressed concern about a cracked weld in a main engine cryogenic propellant tempera ture transducer, and it was de cided to replace nine of these units in all three of the engines. Finally, Columbia's general purpose computer 5 failed. The seven crew flew back to Hous ton, but the 32 rats and 2,478 jellyfish also scheduled to fly were fed to eagles and other animals at a nearby zoo. • No concerns over Magellan anomaly The NASA Magellan Venus radar mapping satellite, which was scheduled to begin its extended mapping mission on 14 May, experienced a "stroll about" anomaly when it failed to re-establish communications with Earth after a star calibra tion manoeuvre. The loss of contact was simi lar to earlier problems experi enced with Magellan when it first entered Venus orbit in Au gust 1990. As before, contact was regained but telemetry indi cated that the spacecraft was misoriented by about 4°. NASA is not concerned unduly by this now "routine" occurrence. To continue the extended mapping mission, which will map the remaining 16% of the surface of Venus, including its previously unmapped south pole, Magellan will be con trolled by Martin Marietta, which has been awarded an $5.1 million contract from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 29 May - 4 June, 1991
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