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Aviation History
1991
1991 - 1438.PDF
OPERATIONS: SPACEFLIGHT Soviet cosmonaut logs record 541 space days BY TIM FURNISS Soviet cosmonaut Musa Manarov, flight engineer of the Soyuz TM11 which returned to Earth on 26 May with com mander Viktor Afanasyev and British astronaut Helen Shar man, has amassed a record 541 days space experience. The 175-day Soyuz TM11 mission aboard the Mir space station by Manarov and Afa nasyev was the seventh-longest manned spaceflight. Manarov also flew as flight engineer on Soyuz TM4, which recorded the longest manned spaceflight of 365 days 22h 39m between 1987-8, also on Mir. Twenty- eight Soviet cosmonauts have amassed over 100 days space experience each compared with the 84-day record of three US astronauts in 1973-4. Of the Soviet cosmonaut corps, eight have logged over 200 days in space, six 300 days plus and one more than 400 days, as well as Manarov's 500 day-plus mark. Sixteen Soviet missions have now exceeded the US 84-day Skylab flight time. Sharman's personal success during her almost eight-day Juno mission, launched on Soyuz TM12, was not matched by the Juno organisation in ensuring British scientific par ticipation. Alexei Leonov, deputy chief of the cosmonaut detachment says: "I'm afraid that this has not added to the prestige of our space research programme al though Helen did of course work magnificently and showed herself to be a really grand lass". As a commercial mission it generated only $1.7 million for the Soviet Energia organisation, compared with the $12 million to $25 million paid by other countries such as France and Germany. "We took the right decision to fly Juno irrespective of whether we have all the com mercial advantage, not only for the sake of politics but also for good relations," a Soviet space official says. Leonov has also revealed that valuable ecological data col lected by instruments aboard the Mir space station were lost Insurance claims mount GTE Spacenet's ASC 2 com munications satellite, launched by a Delta on 12 April, has lost three of its six Ku-band transponders. The company intends to claim up to $16 million insurance for the partial satellite loss. The satellite, which also has 18 C-band transponders, pro vides services to all 50 US states and Puerto Rico. The company discovered the problem during in-orbit checkout, when a lower than required power output in the three transponders was monitored. GE Astro Space, the satellite's builder, is investigating the problem and "...it is unlikely that the transponders will be usable", says GTE Spacenet. This partial satellite loss will mean that claims on the space insurance market in the last 16 months could total more than $730 million. Japan's BS2X and BS3H were lost in Ariane and Atlas failures. The country's BS3a is also a partial loss after electrical problems. Another Japanese satellite, Superbird B, was lost in the Ariane failure. Superbird A was rendered inoperable by a thruster failure and the French TDF 1 and Indian Insat ID satellites have been classed as partial losses. Canada's recently launched Anik E2 could also be a classed as a total loss if the C-band antenna-deployment problem cannot be overcome. • 4 -A^ \£&^k British cosmonaut Helen Sharman is helped down from Soyuz TMl 1 when the recoverable capsule attached to the unmanned Pro gress M7 spacecraft failed to be recovered after its re-entry last month. It was the second recov erable capsule flown on a Pro gress mission. The first was recovered successfully. Soyuz TM12 commander Anatoli Artsebarski and flight engineer Sergei Krikalyov, meanwhile, plan to remain on board Mir until 10 October. They will be replaced by the Soyuz TMl3 crew, Alexander Volkov and Alexander Kaleri, who will be flying a commercial cosmonaut, Austria's Franz Fiebek, for a six-day stay on the space station. D Modifications delay Ariane launches Ariane launches have been delayed until at least mid- July by the need to modify the hydrogen feed line on the third- stage engine of the Ariane 4 vehicle and to conduct qualifi cation tests. The problem emerged during the V39 mission last April when there were variations in pres sure in the feed line, which were also noticed on a ground- test engine. Arianespace and French space agency CNES decided to modify the component and submit the engine to qualification test at manufacturer SEP's Vernon plant before committing further vehicles to flight. As a result, the European Space Agency's remote-sensing satellite, ERS 1, which was scheduled to have been launched on Ariane V40 last month, will be delayed. • Bush blocks US launches in China President Bush has decided to block US companies from participating in further satellite launches with the People's Re public of China because the country is believed to be trans ferring M-ll ballistic missile technology to Pakistan. His decision, if ratified by Congress, could halt the Long March 2E launches of the US- built Australian Aussat 2 com munications satellites. The Pres idential decree could also thwart plans by a US company, Alpha Lyracom, to negotiate cut-price Long March launches of follow-on satellites to Pan- amsat 1. China has already lost two commercial launches it thought it had negotiated successfully. Indonesia's US-built Palapa B4" will fly a US Delta and the partly US-built Arabsat 1C will fly Ariane. D 14 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 5-11 June, 1991
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