Oct 13 1983
From The Space Library
LeRC said that Dr. Henry G. Kosmahl, an electron physicist employed there,. had developed an amplifying system that could double the number of channels on a communications satellite. The system, called a dynamic velocity taper, was a "relatively minor technical modification" of an existing device.
Most nations had been seeking additional output from communications satellites for voice, picture, and data transmission.. However, communications satellites could be spaced around the globe no closer than 2 ° part; otherwise, the signals from one would interfere with those adjoining. The number of possible communications satellites in orbit was therefore limited, and all available slots would be full by the year 2000.
Kosmahl's idea would make each communications satellite able to. handle more traffic without affecting quality of the signals or increasing the power supply. He had applied for a patent on the device, which would be owned by NASA but available to industry. (LeRC Release 83-62)
The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum said that it would build an adjunct facility at Dulles International Airport to house an expanding collection of aircraft, including the Shuttle Enterprise. Estimated to cost $40 million, the facility would replace the restoration site now at Silver Hill, Md., but would not be completed for another 7 to 15 years. Possibilities for Dulles included a group of four buildings to accommodate a Boeing 707, a Boeing B17 bomber, Boeing 727, a Boeing 747, and others; the design and funding were not yet settled.
The collection had outgrown the Mall area, said Walter Boyne, director of the museum: "We are going to get the Space Shuttle and the Concorde," which it would be physically impossible to move to the Mall area. "They are so complex, you can't simply take a wing off and move them." The present museum now has 10 million visitors a year, and Boyne said that people would be as interested in the Shuttle 100 years from now as they were in the Wright Brothers' plane today. (W Post, Oct 13/83, D-1)
October 13-17: Press reports said that NASA might have to delay the first flight of Spacelab on the Shuttle Columbia until the end of November, because a protective liner on the inner surface of the solid-fuel rocket-engine exhaust nozzles might be part of what one official called "a bad batch" A three-inch layer of the carbon-epoxy material was intended to protect the metal nozzles from flaming exhaust by charring, to dissipate heat; about half the layer would normally burn away during the two-minute firing of the booster. On the last mission, one nozzle's lining came within 0.2 inches of burning away completely. Damage to a metal nozzle could send the Shuttle off course; had the flame burned through part of the engine in flight, "it could have caused a catastrophe," said the Washington Post. A test firing October 11 at Thiokol's Utah plant, where the rockets were built, showed that the liner had begun to "delaminate," which would make the Shuttle aerodynamically unstable after two minutes of flight.
If NASA decided to replace one of Columbia's motors, it would have to move the entire vehicle off the pad. Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, head of the Shuttle program, said that chances of staying on schedule for a Spacelab launch between October 28 and November 5 were "diminishing rapidly"; however, he would not set a launch date "with this type of uncertainty." The next possible launch date after November 5 would be November 27: astronomy experiments to be carried on Spacelab had to orbited while the moon was dark.
[Students at Camden, N.J., high schools said that the carpenter ants flown on Challenger in June had died from lack of moisture before leaving Earth.] The New York Times said that NASA might have to delay the next Shuttle mission for one to four months, possibly to next February 6, because of concern about reliability of the nozzles in the Shuttle boosters. Positions of stellar targets would again be favorable for Spacelab observations by next February. ESA and scientists from the United States and Europe were asked to suggest rescheduling that would have the least impact on their experiments.
A later report said that engineers who examined one of the engines recovered from the Atlantic after the mission in August found that the three-inch coating inside the rocket nozzle had burned down to 0.2 inches. Astronaut Daniel C. Brandenstein, pilot of that flight, told CBS News that the lowest part of the engine would have burned through if the engines had fired 2.7 seconds more, which would have "spelled curtains for the crew." A NASA official said that was conjecture, though the agency admitted that a burn-through might have occurred after 20 more seconds.
NASA decided October 14 to postpone the first flight of Spacelab for "at least a month" but would announce a new launch date. Gen. Abrahamson said October 16 that the probable date would be late next February, but the decision would be made jointly by NASA and ESA. He said that NASA engineers still did not know what caused the near-failure of the engine on the eighth shuttle flight in August. Two test firings in the last 10 days had produced confusing results: one engine lining had almost burned through, the other less than halfway, as it was meant to do. NASA had changed the manufacturing process not long ago, he noted, and the change might have trapped gases in the lining instead of baking them out.
With Columbia waiting for Spacelab, the next Shuttle flight would take place in January as planned. Challenger would deploy two communications satellites, and astronaut Bruce McCandless would demonstrate in space a self-propelled manned maneuvering unit that could go 500 to 600 feet from the Shuttle. (W Post, Oct 13/83, A-15; Oct 14/83, A-10; Oct 15/83, A-20; Oct 17/83, A-3; NY Times, Oct 13/83, A-16)
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