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Aviation History
1991
1991 - 3351.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT Satellite contract value increased A$28 million contract awarded to MPR Teltech of Canada to design, build and test a ground-based secure satellite communications prototype for the Department of National De fense (DND) has been increased in value to $33 million. The prototype system, called Fassett, will operate in the ex treme high frequency (EHF) band, and will be installed at the. Defense Research establishment, Ottawa, to be used by DND scientists and engineers for test ing and evaluating the commu nications performance. Team members are Raytheon Canada and COM DEV. • Argentina plans new satellites Argentina is planning to de velop a $300 million domes tic communications satellite system called Nahuel, compris ing two satellites and ground- control equipment. The C- and Ku-band spacecraft will also provide services to Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Para guay. The satellites are planned to be launched in 1994. • Up to seven new satellites are to be ordered by Intelsat in September 1992. Bids from po tential suppliers have been in vited and the deadline is 14 February. Launches could begin in 1995. • Galileo's antenna is still stuck The high-gain antenna on the $1.4 billion NASA Galileo spacecraft remained stuck on 16 December after the fourth at tempt to unfurl the umbrella like structure fully by "shaking" during an extended "cold soak" at a distance of 480 million kilokmetres from Earth. It appears that three of the 18 ribs of the 4.87m-diameter an tenna are jammed in the closed position, preventing the full de ployment of the vital high-data- rate instrument. The spacecraft was com manded to point its antenna away from the Sun for 50h, reducing temperatures to -274°, which it was hoped would con tract the 1.98m-tall central mast of the antenna, freeing the jammed ribs. Scientists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Cali fornia believe that, as Galileo was driven to and from the Kennedy Space Center during flight delays after the Challenger accident, dry lubricant coating STS42 TO CARRY A SPACELAB LABORATORY STS42, the first of a possible nine Space Shuttle missions in 1992, is to carry a pressurised Spacelab laboratory and a crew of seven to conduct the week-long International Microgravity Laboratory (IML) mission. IML, seen here in the operations and checkout building, will investigate the effects of microgravity on material-science and life- science processes. STS42 is due for launch from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on 22 January. Roll-out to the pad from the Vehicle Assembly Building was scheduled for 18 December. Progress M solar sail test planned AProgress M tanker craft de parting from Mir after leav ing supplies, will deploy a solar sail, 25m in diameter, which will be used to propel the spacecraft during a demonstration test for the Regatta programme. During the trial, planned for October 1992, Progress will ma noeuvre several kilometres from Mir, using solar energy interact ing with the sail before conduct ing its usual re-entry. A Regatta satellite with a full scale, 200m-diameter solar sail is scheduled to be launched in 1993-4, followed by three other projected missions. On board Mir, meanwhile, cosmonauts Alexander Volkov and Sergei Krikalyev continue a regime of experiments. They are due to return to Earth on 25 March, 1992, with German re searcher Klaus Dietrich Flade. They were launched on 17 March aboard Soyu3, with TM14 Alexander Viktorenko and Alex ander Kaleri who will remain on board Mir. TM15, scheduled for June or July 1992, will carry Frenchman Michel Tognini for a commercial 12-day flight, with commander Anatoli Solovyov and flight engi neer Sergei Avdeyev. Gennai Ma- nakov and Alexander Po- lishchuk are training for TM16. • Japanese electronics manufac turer Fujitau will fly a protein- crystallisation experiment aboard Mir during a'two-month commercial mission, organised by US company Payload Sys tems. The experiment will be flown to Mir aboard a Progress M on 21 January and return to Earth in March. • on the closed antenna was eroded. This is the only one of 17 failure possibilities from which the spacecraft could re cover, says NASA. Without the high-gain an tenna, scientific data during the planned 1995 exploration of the planet Jupiter by a descent cap sule and the main spacecraft in orbit will be lost. Relying on only two low-gain antennas, NASA's planned re ceipt of 50,000 images from Jupiter could be reduced to as little as a few hundred. The ability of the low-gain antennas was demonstrated by the suc cessful return of images of the asteroid Gaspra. Although Galileo will be mov ing back towards the Sun during 1992, before its final gravity assist manoeuvre using an Earth fly by in December, further "cold soaks" are planned and NASA has not lost hope that the mission can be saved. • NASA's Hubble Space Tele scope was restored to normal operational duty following a 24h stand-down after computer problems caused an incorrect command to be sent. • EUVE is delayed for six months The launch of NASA's Ex treme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) will be delayed until May 1992, following a decision by the US Air Force to refurbish a badly corroded Delta 2 launch pad at Cape Canaveral. EUVE's launch had been planned for December before the refurbishment work was sched uled to begin, but was delayed to late January, then March by minor technical problems. Another NASA spacecraft, the Upper Atmosphere Research Sat ellite meanwhile, has discovered violent, continent-sized wind storms between 48km and 96km altitude. Wind waves, spiralling up wards through the stratosphere hit the thin air in the meso- sphere, like a wave hits a beach, in turbulent 320km. D FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 25 December, 1991 - 7 January, 1992 15
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