FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1994
1994 - 2521.PDF
spAsmriMsj? Russia about to launch Elektro RUSSIA'S long-delayed, first geostationary-orbit meteoro logical satellite (GOMS), called the Elektro, is poised for launch aboard a Proton booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 26 October. The 2,400kg spacecraft will be stationed at 76°E. The GOMS programme began in 1975 and severe delays were first acknowledged in 1988. Lack of funding and computer-software problems have been cited as rea sons by Russia's Electromechanics Research Institute. The 6m-high spacecraft, with 12m-long solar panels, will carry a suite of instruments similar to those carried on the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GEOS/Next spacecraft. • Magellan's plunge ends Venus mission THE SUCCESSFUL $900 million mission by NASA's Magellan Venus radar-mapping satellite ended on 12 October as the spacecraft plunged to destruc tion into the planet's carbon-diox ide and sulphuric-acid clouds. Images from the satellite had revealed massive volcanos and a ravaged surface. Before its demise, the Magellan was used to demonstrate the potential for aerobraking, using the atmosphere to adjust the orbit. Aerobraking will be used opera tionally by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, which is to be launched in 1996. • NEWS IN BRIEF • HOT BIRD DELIVERED Aerospatiale has delivered the Hot Bird 1 satellite to Eutelsat for launch on an Ariane booster in December. The satellite will bring to 46 the number of channels available from the organisa tion. The Hot Bird 1 is the sixth of the Eutelsat 2-class spacecraft to be built by Aerospatiale. Docking scare alarms Russia's Mir crew again TIM FURNISS/LONDON AN ATTEMPT to dock the Soyuz TM20 automatically with the Mir 1 space station has had to be aborted when the space craft began to yaw. The spacecraft, launched from Baikonur on 3 October, carrying cosmonauts Alexander Vik- torenko, Yelena Kondakova and German Ulf Merbold, had to be docked manually with the Mir 1 on 6 October. Viktorenko made a well- rehearsed manual docking at the same port where the Progress M24 unmanned tanker had trou ble docking in August. "We certainly don't want dock ings, which used to proceed with out a hitch, turning into a regular ordeal," says a mission controller at Kaliningrad. With three cosmonauts already aboard the Mir and six on the Space Shuttle Endeavour, 12 peo ple were in space. The TM20 was the first European Space Agency (ESA) Euromir mission and was conducted by Merbold. The launch of the Euromir 2 is planned for August 1995 Flight International, 14-20 September). The Euromir project will cost ESA members Belgium, Den mark, France, Germany, Italy, the Soyuz TM20's launch from Baikonur's Pad 1 Netherlands and Switzerland $82 million between them. ESA plans to widen its co-oper ation with Russia, including the use of rendezvous and docking technology on the planned Crew and Automatic Transfer Vehicles. Viktorenko is making a unique fourth Mir 1 mission and Kondakova will be the first woman to make a long-duration flight. ESA's Merbold, who will return to Earth on 3 November with 'the TM19's Yuri Mal- enchenko and Talgat Musabayev, is the first non-US, non-Russian, astronaut to make three space flights and to have flown in US and Russian spacecraft. Viktorenko and Kondakova will remain on the Mir, with Valeri Poliakov, until March 1995. • Shuttle hit by new budget reductions LAUNCH OFFICIALS at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida, have expressed concern about the $140 million cut in NASA's proposed $3.3 bil lion Space Shuttle operations budget for 1995. They claim that the reductions will affect the Shuttle fleet's ability to recover from launch delays. The reductions come on top of the $234 million already trimmed from the 1994 budget. The opera tions budget for the space launch er has now been reduced by over $3 billion since 1989. The latest cuts will affect the Space Shuttle fleet's flexibility, and particularly to pull back launch delays. "These cuts are becoming more and more painful," says oper ations director Brewster Shaw. Six of seven missions planned for this year have been completed, while eight are planned for 1995. The highest annual flight rate of nine was made in 1985, before the Challenger accident. Shaw says that, if there is any sign of Shuttle safety being compromised, future missions will be delayed. Of particular concern at die KSC is the continued reliance on computers and ground equipment developed for the Apollo pro gramme of the 1960s. "A number of our systems need to be upgrad ed...the equipment is not getting mature with age, it just gets older," says launch director Bob Sieck. The latest Shuttle flight, of the Endeavour/STS68, landed at Edwards AFB, California, on 11 October after its 11-day, Space Radar Laboratory mission. Q FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 19 - 25 October 1994
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
