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Aviation History
1991
1991 - 3158.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT NEWS IN BRIEF STARFIRE LAUNCH EER Systems' Starfire 1 rocket was launched on its sub orbital microgravity research flight, Consort 4, for the Con sortium for Materials Devel opment in Space, from White Sands on 16 November. The company has contracts for three more Consort launches, with an option for four more, at a cost of about $2 million a mission. HUGHES TALKS Hughes is in final negotia tions with Malaysia for the in-orbit delivery of an HS-376 communications satellite, launched aboard an Ariane 4 in 1994, for an all-in fee of $250 million. US Government agrees to fund Eosat Landsat 7 The US National Space Coun cil has agreed to a long-term plan for the Landsat remote- sensing satellite programme, marketed by Eosat, in which the Department of Defense (DoD) will fund the programme jointly with NASA. Most of the funding will go towards the production and launch, in 1997, of the $250 million-plus Landsat 7, which would be equipped to provide more environmental data for NASA and images of resolution down to 5m for the DoD. Meanwhile, Eosat — estab lished in f985 and owned jointly by Hughes and GE Astro Space — will continue to sell images in a commercial market which can be extended into en vironmental and military areas. Landsat operations are funded by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency, which supports the Eosat effort. Landsats 4 and 5 are still operating — well past their de sign lives — although the the matic mapper is inoperable on Landsat 4. The launch of Land sat 6 on a Titan 2 booster is planned to take place in 1992.D US reconnaissance expert is launched BY TIM FURNISS The first "space" spy, US Army military reconnais sance expert W/O Thomas Hen- nen, was launched into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis on 24 November from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. Hennen, a payload specialist, flew with five NASA crewmen on the planned ten-day STS44 mission, which deployed an infra-red geostationary early- warning satellite attached to a Boeing inertial upper stage. The TRW-built Defence Sup port Programme (DSP) satellite was a third-generation Block 14 spacecraft, designated DSP 16 — the third Block 14 to be launched and the first such model launched from a Shuttle. The spacecraft incorporates a 3.7m-long infra-red telescope, which detects the exhaust plumes of missiles and even aircraft engines on afterburner. Hennen, a leading military image analyst chosen from 700 candidates and a former mili tary-intelligence battalion mem ber, conducted a series of experiments under the code names Terra Scout and M88-1. He used a spaceborne direct- view optical system to assess reconnaissance, from orbit, of prepared sites which have large- resolution panels laid out in grid pattern. Hennen also used the charge- coupled device camera, tested on the previous Shuttle mission, to produce high-resolution digital images that can be stored, man ipulated and evaluated in orbit. Findings were communicated via UHF voice to tactical field commanders seconds after the observation passes over selected Army, Navy and Air Force sites were completed. Atlantis was scheduled to land at the Ken nedy Space Center on 4 Decem ber, completing the sixth and last Shuttle mission this year. • NASA is to attempt a totally automatic landing of the Shuttle at the end of the STS52 Colum bia mission scheduled for late 1992 or early 1993. • GASPRA FEATURES IN SPACE FIRST The first photograph of an asteroid taken by the spacecraft, Galileo, on 29 October from a distance of 15,200km, features Gaspra, one of many thousands of rocky bodies orbiting between the planets Mars and Jupiter. The illuminated part of Gaspra is about 16km x 12km and the smallest craters visible measure about 300m in diameter. This image was returned by Galileo's low-gain antenna and took 80h to transmit. The spacecraft's high-gain antenna is still inoperable. Galileo is en route for Jupiter.In 1995 it will go into orbit about the planet and deploy a descent probe into the Jovian atmosphere. Dornier wins Mars camera contract The German Aerospace Re search Establishment has awarded a DM59 million (S37 million) contract to Dornier to develop a high-resolution stereo camera (HRSC)for a Mars or- biter which is to be launched by the United Sovereign States in late 1994. The spacecraft will return at mospheric science data and sur face photographs from its 200km x 18,000km elliptical orbit, and it will also deploy small instrumented descent cap sules which will return surface data. The HRSC operates in nine channels, one providing mono chrome images with a resolution of 10m. A major subcontractor will be Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena, the former East German com pany, which has joined forces with Dornier. The Mars 1994 mission will involve only one spacecraft, not two as originally planned, and it will not carry balloon sondes or a surface rover. This dual mis sion, also reduced to one space craft, will fly in 1996, with major French participation. • Faults delay launches The launches of the Eutelsat 2-F3, France's Telecom 2A and the Inmarsat 2-F3 satellites have all been delayed by techni cal problems. The first launch of the Gen eral Dynamics commercial Atlas 2 booster, carrying Eutelsat 2, has been delayed for the fourth time. It will take place no earlier than 7 December, because of a faulty navigation unit in the Centaur upper stage. The same problem has also contributed to the delay of the first launch of a Titan 4 Centaur from Cape Canaveral. The planned 3 December Ari ane launch of Telecom and In marsat satellites has been delayed, possibly until next year, because all the fuses on Telecom had to be replaced. Inmarsat 2 has similar fuses, but checks at the Kourou launch site showed that none was defective, al though Inmarsat 2's payload will have to wait for its sister satellite to be repaired. • 16 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 4 - 10 December, 1991
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