FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1997
1997 - 3166.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT JES*" Global Surveyor mission delayed RUSSIA'S MIR 1 space station is operating at 85% electrical power after two spacewalks carried out on 3 and 6 November were used to install a new solar panel. Cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradev removed an old solar panel on the station's Kvant 1 module and replaced it with a new panel which unfurled fully only after some tugging by the spacewalkers. Eight of the station's ten solar panels are now working. The old Kvant panel is inoperable and one of four panels on the Spektr moAvAt was damaged in the collision involving the Progress M34 tanker in June. The other three panels on the depressurised Spektr were reconnected to the Mir's power system earlier. The next spacewalk is scheduled for 5 December and will be con ducted by Solovyov and US astro naut David Wolf, who will retrieve a NASA experiment. Solovyov and Vinogradev will begin spacewalks to repair the leak on the Spektr in January 1998. The work will be regarded as an engineering test, gaining experi ence for International Space Station operations, as the Spektr is unlikely to be occupied again. During the 3 November space- walk, Solovyov - who deployed a scale model of the Sputnik 1 into orbit to celebrate die 40th anniver sary of the first satellite's launch - became the world record holder for spacewalks. His sortie on 6 November - his 12th excursion - increased his spacewalk time to 63h, compared with the US record of 29h held by astronaut Tom Akers. Q ILS earns Intelsat deal ILS International Launch Ser vices has confirmed its receipt of a contract to launch the Intelsat 901 satellite on a Russian Proton booster, with an option for five fur ther launches. The 901 will be the first Intelsat satellite to be launched by Russia. Two commercial ILS launches of the Proton remain scheduled for this year, and nine missions are planned for 1999. Q TIM FURNISS/LONDON NASA HAS REVEALED a year's delay - to March 1999 - of the mapping mission to be undertaken by the $250 million Mars Global'Surveyor (MGS). The announcement came almost simultaneously with the news that the Agency's successful four-month Mars Pathfinder- Sojourner mission had ended. The delay results from an extended period of aerobraking manoeuvres needed by the Lockheed Martin MGS to enable it to reach its originally intended operational orbit around Mars. The delay will cost NASA "sev eral million" dollars. The new regime was forced on NASA after a solar array malfunc tion ended the first aerobraking campaign Flight International, 29 October-4 November). Aerobraking uses the solar pan els as "brakes" against the drag of die upper atmosphere, resulting in orbital alterations. One of the craft's two solar panels became unlatched, and there were fears that it could break off completely or that the MGS would have to be operated in a different orbit, degrading the expected scientific results. After studies, NASA decided that the panel was strong enough to survive a more gentle, extended aerobraking regime, which will result in a six-month hiatus in manoeuvres in 1998 while Mars moves into the correct alignment with the Sun for global mapping. The mapping will be conducted from the originally planned Sun- synchronous, 400km, circular orbit, but with the spacecraft imag ing on a south-to-north pass over the equator at 02.00 rather than north-south at 14.00 Mars time. Scientific observations and images will be obtained during the extended aerobraking regime, however. The MGS has already returned high-quality images. Further solar-panel problems would cause the mission to be degraded, however, because the MGS would have to be operated from an elliptical orbit. • NASA carries out tests on laser-propelled craft THE US AIR Force Research Laboratory's Propulsion Dir ectorate, Edwards AFB, Cali fornia, has conducted two test flights of a prototype of the Light- craft laser-propelled spacecraft, in a laboratory at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. The first test reached a distance of 4.2 m, and the second achieved 121m horizontally. Flights to an altitude of 1 km are now planned. The 50g, 150mm-diameter solid aluminium prototype was propelled by a ground-based 10k W Textron high-energy, pulsed car bon-dioxide, infra-red laser. The Lightcraft - intended originally as a Strategic Missile Defense Initiative microsatellite - is designed to convert kilojoule puls es of laser energy, focused ten times a second onto a parabolic mirror at Test flights to an altitude of lkm are now planned its base, into propulsive thrust. The laser energy is concentrated to extremely high intensities, suffi cient to burst inlet air momentarily into highly luminous plasma (10- 30,000°K), with up to ten atmos pheres pressure, providing thrust. An operational Lightcraft, with onboard propellant, would fly to Mach 5 on an airbreathing engine and then shift to laser-propelled rocket mode. J •,Ui,!:l^,dll„JUII No Date Spacecraft 58 5 Oct 59 5 Oct 60 9 Oct 61 15 Oct 62 17 Oct 63 23 Oct 64 23 Oct 65 24 Oct 66 30 Oct Type Progress M36 Tanker Echostar 3 Foton Cassini ApStar2R STEP 4 Lacrosse 3 DSCS Maqsat/ Teamsat Comsat Biomed Planetary Comsat Technology Recon Milcoms Technology Launcher!*) Soyuz U (6) Atlas (6)? Soyuz U(7) Titan 4B (2) LM3B (2) Country!*) Russia (19 USA (27) Launch site!*) Baikonur (12) Canaveral (10) Russia (20) Plesetsk(7) USA (28) China (5) Pegasus XL (4) USA (29) Titan 4A (1) Atlas (7> Ariane 5 (1) USA (30) USA (31) Europe (9) Canaveral (11) Xichang (4) Air launch (4) Vandenberg (7) Canaveral (12) Kourou (9) * Indicates total number of orbital launches by this launch vehicle, country and launch site in 1997. >Atlas2AS(4),Atlas2A(2) Last Satellite Launch Log: Flight International, 22-28 October Aerospatiale contract AEROSPATIALE HAS won a contract from Eutelsat to build a fourth Eutelsat W communica tions satellite. Three similar satel lites were ordered in 1995- The Spacebus 3 000-series craft, with 32 high-power Ku-band transpon ders, will be launched in 1999. Aerospatiale has delivered its fifth Spacebus 3000 satellite, the Sinosat I, to the German-Chinese Eura- Space consortium. • 26 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 19 - 25 November 1997
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
