Feb 13 1985
From The Space Library
NASA announced that the United Kingdom's contribution to active magnetospheric particle tracer explorers (AMPTE), the UK Subsatellite (UKS), did not respond to commands when it had passed over Chilton on January 16 or since. Efforts to contact UKS by Chilton and the Deep Space Network (with 10 kw-uplink power) were unsuccessful.
British officials said they would continue periodic efforts to contact the satellite, but were not optimistic. In five months of operation, the UKS had supported three chemical releases and had met 70% of the UK-project objectives. (NASA announcement, Feb 13/85)
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) approved plans of a Florida-based undertakers and engineers' consortium to orbit in 1986 or early 1987 a mausoleum [see U.S. Space Policy/Commercialization, Jan. 25] with the announcement that the plan represented "a creative response to the president's initiative to encourage the commercial use of space," the Washington Post reported. The approval was the first granted by the DOT's new licensing authority for commercial space activities and followed checks with the Department of Defense, the State Department, and NASA. The mausoleum's 1,900 mile-high orbit would place the spacecraft in the Van Allen radiation belts, a region of space rarely used by other spacecraft.
The mausoleum would be in the nose cone of a rocket, Conestoga 2, designed and built by Space Service Inc. (SSI), a Houston firm headed by Donald K. (Deke) Slayton, one of the original Project Mercury astronauts. Conestoga 1, a one-stage rocket, had made a successful test flight in 1982. The Celestis Group, Melbourne, Florida, would pay SSI $14 million to put the 300 lb. cargo into orbit and charge $3,900 per cremated body.
A Celestis spokesman said that since announcement of its plans, the group had received hundreds of calls from people wanting to sign up. Slayton said seven or eight other companies had approached him about setting up similar businesses. (W Post, Feb 13/85, A2)
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