Apr 24 1978
From The Space Library
Av Wk reported that the Senate Commerce subcommittee on science and space had become the second congressional group to add another $4 million for a fifth Space Shuttle orbiter to NASA's FY79 budget, challenging President Carter's decision to defer purchase. This equalled the amount provided earlier by the House Science and Technology Committee. Overall, the Senate subcommittee had increased NASA's $4.371-billion budget request by $13 million, but failed to agree with some earlier House changes that had given NASA a $15.5-million increase. Among Senate subcommittee changes were $3 million for advanced manned-space flight programs, $4 million less than the House; language added to stress the importance of continuing lunar exploration; $2 million of $4 million deleted by OMB, restored for Spacelab experiments; and $3 million added for large space-structures work, making a total of $111.3 million for this item. Av Wk, Apr 24/78, 27)
The International Civil Aviation Organization's All Weather Operations Div. announced it had selected the U.S. /Australian scanning-beam microwave-landing system at its meeting in Montreal, following West Germany's withdrawal of its MLS system from the competition. The final 39 to 24 vote (with 8 abstentions) had been secret to ensure that delegates could freely express their preferences.
France had proposed the secret ballot, strongly supported by the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Sweden, all of whom favored the Doppler MLS, as well as others. Asked whether the U.K. planned to continue the battle in ICAO's Air Navigation Commission, which must act on the decision rendered in Montreal, a representative said the U.K. had accepted the decision of delegates from 71 countries.
The meeting had been remarkably free of charges of improper efforts to win delegate votes. Asked if they had been subjected to any political arm-twisting or offers of political plums, delegates from Third World countries acknowledged that they had "intensive technical briefings" but nothing more. In view of the secret ballot, an observer commented that "if any quid pro quos were offered during this bitter battle, the offerer has no way of knowing now whether he got full value in return." (Av Wk Apr 24/78, 23)
The ESA Council had given the go-ahead to produce an initial batch of 5 operational Ariane launch vehicles, and had approved interim funding of approximately $23.8 million for preliminary production-related expenses, Av Wk, reported. Although individual participating countries must approve the expenditures, Council approval had been sufficient to begin production. The first operational launcher should be available by the end of 1980 to launch ESA's Exosat scientific satellite in early 1981. Cost of the 5-launcher package had been estimated at approximately $182.6 million, with an additional 10% proposed as a contingency reserve. Total budget would amount to about $200 million. At West Germany's insistence, the individual satellite programs that would use the Arianes would fund the launcher costs.
Program managers at ESA had sought approval to produce a first batch of 6 Arianes; however, policy of governments involved was to fund production of launchers only for identified markets. Once production buildup was completed, production rate of the Ariane was expected to reach 2 vehicles per year; program officials predicted this could increase rather quickly to 4, or possibly 5, a year to meet market demand. Av Wk, Apr 24/78, 96)
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