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Aviation History
1996
1996 - 0535.PDF
NASA orders inquiry into loss of Tethered Satellite TIM FURNISS/LONDON N; ASA HAS FORMED an independent panel to review the loss of the Italian Tethered Satellite (TSS 1R) from the Space Shuttle Columbia during the STS75 mission on 26 February. A report into its findings will be made avail able within 70 days. "Given the public investment in the Tethered Satellite, it is impor tant to find out what went wrong...to do any less would be a disservice to the American and Italian people," says Wilbur Trafton, NASAs acting associate administrator of the Office of Space Flight. The $440 million, 1.6m-diame- ter, 518kgTSS IRreached 19.7km from the Columbia, 5h after it began its deployment at the end of a 2.54mm-thick, 20.7km-longbraid ed copper, nylon and Teflon tether. Deployment — delayed 24h because of three computer prob lems — began at a speed of 0.012m/s, increased to 2.2m/s and was at lm/s when the problem occurred. The TSS was successfully demonstrating its primary flight objective — planned to last two days — of generating 3,500V through the tether (Flight International, 21-27 February), when the tether snapped suddenly. The satellite and its snaking teth er accelerated at a speed of 24m/s into a higher orbit, from which the satellite will re-enter the atmos phere in about 30 days. The Columbia crew reported that the end of the remaining tether, in its 12m-tall deployment mast, looked singed and discoloured, sug gesting that an electrical discharge may have been involved, caused by the outer layers of the tether being worn, possibly during the unreeling and exposing the copper wire. • The spectre of the Space Shuttle programme's first return-to- launch-site abort hit the Columbia at T+15s after its launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 22 February (Flight International, 3-9 January). The caution-warning alarm was sounded when an errant gauge indicated a 55% loss of thrust in the left-hand Space Shuttle main engine. • Final analysis for Cosmos launches Inertial platform fault to blame for Chinese Long March crash CHINA GREAT WALL Industry (CGWIC) says that telemetry data from its failed Long March 3B booster indicates that the control system's inertial-guid- ance platform failed T+2s after lift off from Xichang on 14 February. The maiden flight of the LM3B carried the Intelsat 708, which was lost in the crash that followed an in-flight explosion at T+25s. Fal ling debris killed four people on the ground (Flight International, 21-27 February). CGWIC has invited representa tives from Asia Pacific Tele communications Satellite (ApStar) and Hughes Space and Com munications to Xichang to review readiness for the launch of the ApStar 1A on about 10 April. The smaller-class satellite will be launched by the workhorse Long March 3 booster. Q Hughes pockets Asiasat 3 FINAL ANALYSIS OF Greenbelt, Maryland, and Russia's Polyot Enterprises, Omsk, have finalised an ag reement to launch a 26- satellite, Iow-Earth-orbit, global digital data-commu nications service using Rus sian Cosmos boosters, flying from the Plesetsk Cosmo drome (above) — subject to US Government approval. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 6 - 12 ASLA Telecommunications Sat ellite (Asiasat) has ordered an HS-601 high-power spacecraft from Hughes to be launched in 1997 as the Asiasat 3. It will be the 61st three-axis-stabilised HS-601 model to be ordered since the world's best-selling satellite series was introduced in 1988. Hughes provided the Asiasat 1 — a modified HS-376 spin-sta bilised model — but the Asiasat 2, which was launched in November 1995, was built by Lockheed Martin. The Asiasat 3 will have 7kW of payload power available and will make use of gallium- arsenide, rather than utilising sili con solar cells. The contract represents anoth er Asia Pacific success for Hughes. Asia Pacific Mobile Communi cations has ordered two HS-601s. Hughes has built 40% of the com munications satellites in operation in geostationary orbit. • SPACEFLIGHT IAI joins Core in imagery venture TSRAEL AIRCRAFT Industries -L(LAI) has formed a joint venture with Core Software Technology of Pasadena, California, to enter the satellite-imagery market. The two companies plan the launch of a low-cost, high-resolution satellite. .The venture will allow IAI to enter the commercial-satellite market after the Israeli defence ministry, under pressure from the US Government, blocked the company from commercially dis tributing images from the Israeli Offeq 3 intelligence satellite. Washington complains that us ing the pictures was unfair compe tition for US companies which have invested money in dedicated Earth-resource satellites. • March 1996 9 NEWS IN BRIEF • LAUNCH DATES The European Space Agency says that the launch of the first Ariane 5 booster from Kourou in French Guiana is scheduled for 15 May. Israel's $200 million Amos commu nications satellite will be launched on an Ariane 4 on 7 May. The first Inmarsat 3 communications satellite will be launched on an ILS International Launch Ser vices Atlas 2A from Cape Canaveral on 1 April. ILS's first Russian Proton launch from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, carrying the Astra IF satel lite, due for 28 March, could be delayed following the Proton launch failure and upper-stage explosion on 19 February. • POLAR BEARER NASA's Lockheed Martin- built Polar science satellite was launched by a Mc Donnell Douglas Delta 2 booster from Cape Can averal, Florida, on 24 Feb ruary. The Polar and its sister craft, the Wind — launched on a Delta 2 in November 1995 — will be used to moni tor solar plasma over the Earth's magnetic poles.
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