FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
2000
2000 - 1175.PDF
SPACSFU&HT Cosmonauts board Mir as USA raises money concerns TIM FURNISS/LONDON RUSSIAN COSMONAUTS Sergei Zaletin and Alexander Kaleri docked with the Mir space station on 6 April after their launch on a Soyuz TM spacecraft from Baikonur on 4 April. It is the first manned mission to the ageing sta tion since it was abandoned in August 1999. The crew must assess whether the station can be returned to ser vice to support more manned mis sions if the privately owned international MirCorp can raise funds. The immediate tasks will be to restore the internal pressure of Mir and find the source of a leak which has caused pressure loss. The MirCorp organisation, which has invested up to $20 mil lion to support the flight of Soyuz TM30 to re-activate Mir, hopes to raise funds for more missions to keep the Russian station opera tional. "We have begun intensify ing our efforts to create a commercial structure that will per mit the continued presence of people aboard Mir," says Jeffrey Mamber, MirCorp president. Mamber has appointed the William Morris Agency to identify mass media and entertainment merchandising opportunities for Mir. He says that discussions with potential investors are ongoing. Possible customers include "the son of a US astronaut and a repre sentative of the world of entertain ment", says Mamber. The continued operation of Mir is worrying space officials in the USA. "How can the Russians maintain a serious involvement in both Mir and the International Space Station [ISS]? They are so cash-strapped, I don't see how they can do it," says Rep Dave Weldon, the vice-chairman of the House Science Committee's Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. He maintains that Russia is "not seri ous about the ISS". NASA is also concerned about Russia's ability to support the ISS. NASA expected Mir to be out of action and de-orbited by the sum mer. It also fears that government money allocated for the ISS may support Mir. The TM30 mission, which may be extended beyond its planned 45 days, will also conduct pharmaceutical, electronics and Earth observation experiments. The crew will also operate a new digital imagingMOMS-2P modu lar optical electronic multispectral scanner and evaluate a refrigerator- radiator module for future space power units. • Software fault caused Sea Launch failure SEA LAUNCH believes there is "strong evidence" suggesting that the failure of its third launch vehicle, resulting in the loss of the first ICO Global Communications satellite on 12 March, was due to a ground software logic error. The error seems to have resulted in the failure to command a valve to close in the second stage pneumat ic system, which performs several functions, including operation and actuation for engine steering. Data indicate that the system lost 60% of its pressure, leading to a significant deviation in attitude, triggering the automatic flight ter mination system at T+8min near the end of the second-stage burn. Sea Launch, the Boeing-led US, Russian, Ukrainian and Nor wegian consortium, says the inves tigation into the failure will be completed in mid-May. U X-38 prototype makes longest glide flight THE X-38 small-scale prototype of the Crew Rescue Vehicle (CRV) for the International Space Station made its longest glide-flight from the highest altitude to date on 30 March. The craft was dropped from a NASA B-52 at 39,000ft (11,895m) and landed the craft by para chuting to the desert floor near the NASA Dryden Research Center at Edwards AFB, California. It was the fifth flight in the $85 million programme. The future of the X-38 is uncertain, however, due to NASA's five-year $4.5 billion Space Launch Initiative, designed to lead to the development of a privately developed next-generation launch vehicle. This programme is expected to delay to about 2002 the decision on whether to proceed with the CRV. NASA shake test error damages HESSI satellite THE LAUNCH of NASAs High Energy Solar Spec troscopic Imager (HESSI) set for July has been delayed until at least January next year by a pre-flight test error at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The $65 million HESSI space craft was undergoing launch vibra tion testing on a shake table, but was shaken 10 times harder than the intended 2g. For 200 milliseconds, the spacecraft endured vibration 2 0 times greater than intended. As a result, at least two of the four solar panels on the HESSI satellite were cracked and tests are being con ducted to see whether the craft has been damaged internally. The 385kg (8501b) Spectrum Astro-built satellite is designed to explore the basic physics of particle acceleration and the energy release of solar flares from its 576km (360 miles) orbit. • Pan AmSat continues its expansion plan PANAMSAT IS continuing its expansion and satellite rede ployment plan with the delivery of the third of seven new satellites to Kourou, French Guiana, for launch on an Ariane 4 in mid-April. Galaxy IVR, the third new satel lite to be launched to serve the North American market in four months, will be located at 99°W in geostationary orbit (GEO). The satellite is a Hughes HS- 601 High Power model with 24 C-band and 24 Ku-band trans ponders. The next four satellites in the firm's expansion plan are PAS-1R and PAS-9 for the Adantic region, PAS-10 to serve the Indian Ocean region and Galaxy IIIC to serve the USA and Latin America, bringing to 24 the number of PanAmSat craft in orbit by mid-2 001. As die new seven-satellite fleet is established for the US market, PanAmSat will redeploy the Galaxy VI, Vlland XI spacecraft to new locations in GEO. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 11 - 17 April 2000 27
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
