Aug 27 1985
From The Space Library
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger today cancelled the Army's new battlefield anti-aircraft gun, called the Division Air Defense (Divad) gun, saying that tests showed it would give soldiers no significant improvement over existing weapons, the Washington Times reported. Weinberger told a Pentagon press conference that operational tests held from March through June demonstrated the Divad mobile gun system “does not effectively meet the military threat” or justify adding $3 billion to the $1.8 billion already spent for development and production of the first Divads. The cancellation was one of the largest ever made of a weapon in production.
Weinberger said the gun showed poor flexibility and a lack of range against the threat posed by Soviet missile-firing Hind helicopters. The Army declined comment, other than to say it would follow Weinberger's direction. Sources had said, however that the Army fought hard in meetings over the previous several weeks to keep the Divad in production. The Army had planned to buy 615 Divads for a total cost of $4.5 billion and had accepted delivery of 65 units.
Ford Aerospace and Communications Corp. developed and built the weapon, employing 1900 people in its Divad division at Newport Beach, California. Ford Aerospace President Donald Rassier said the company understood the basis for the defense secretary's decision and that the firm had already begun work on new solutions to the growing Soviet threat.
The Divad was based on the 40-millimeter double-barrel Swedish Bofers gun system, designed to be mounted on old M-48 tank chassis that the Army had in stock. Ford Aerospace equipped it with radar from the F-16 fighter for all-weather and nighttime operation.
The Army considered the weapon essential for the defense of quick-moving armored tank divisions, especially in Europe, against both helicopters firing missiles and fixed-wing aircraft. (W Times, Aug 28/85, 1A)
NASA launched Discovery on Space Shuttle mission 51-I today through the worst weather of the Space Shuttle program, the NY Times reported. After two postponements in three days because of bad weather and a computer failure, Discovery barely got off the ground before the darkening clouds moved over the launch pad and the rain descended in torrents.
“We could see large holes in the system 50 or 100 miles across so we prayed for the breaks that would let us thread the needle when the time came,” launch director Robert Sieck said later. “We had two things in our favor: There was no lightning in the cloud cover, and most of the rain was south of the launch pad, not right over it.” Launch directors gambled that rain would not be falling on the pad at liftoff time, which was delayed three minutes to make sure the gamble was the right one. As heavy rain fell on the press site three miles to the west, Discovery roared away from the pad through a hole in the clouds and sped into the air 10 minutes before the pad was pelted with rain.
Commanding the flight was Air Force Col. Joe H. Engle, who commanded the second Space Shuttle test flight in 1981 and on August 26 turned 53. Air Force Lt. Col. Richard Covey was pilot; mission specialists were John Lounge, Dr. James Van Hoften, and Dr. William Fisher.
A malfunction encountered two hours into the flight forced the astronauts to deploy a day early one of the three satellites in the orbiter's cargo bay. During a cargo inspection by remotely controlled cameras, a shield that was to protect Australia's AUSSAT 1 from direct exposure to sunlight stuck in a partly open position. An astronaut then used the Space Shuttle's mechanical arm to nudge the sunshade completely open so they could release the spring-loaded satellite. Any delay of more than six hours could have resulted in radiation damage to the exposed satellite's electronics.
Less than five hours after deploying the Australian satellite, Discovery's crew deployed ASC 1 for the American Satellite Co. The second deployment marked the first time a Space Shuttle crew deployed two satellites in one day. (NYT; Aug 28/85, D18)
The Soviet Union signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) to formalize its relationship with the 109-member nation global satellite consortium, the Washington Post reported. However, neither the USSR nor INTELSAT indicated that the understanding would lead to full-fledged membership for the nation that was the largest nonmember user of the satellite network.
The understanding, which came after seven years of negotiations, laid the groundwork for increased use of INTELSAT's network for global transmission of Soviet voice, data, and TV transmissions. If the Soviets increasingly used INTELSAT, experts said, it would be to expand their broadcasting system to reach Third World countries.
In 1984 the USSR broadcast 441 hours of TV programming over INTELSAT's satellites, representing 1% of the consortium's total TV traffic. By contrast, the U.S. used INTELSAT TV transmission capacity over 6,884 hours, 14% of the organization's TV traffic.
INTELSAT had to accept the membership of any nation that belonged to the International Telecommunications Union, which included the Soviet Union. INTELSAT denied using the Soviet Union as a means to deflect competition the organization was facing from entrepreneurs seeking to launch their own satellite systems. (W Post, Aug 28/85, G1)
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