Jan 24 1985

From The Space Library

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Current revision

NASA launched today at 2:50 p.m. EST the Space Shuttle Discovery mission 51-C with its five-man military crew to carry out secret military objectives, the NY Times reported. NASA, which had delayed launch due to subfreezing temperatures [see STS/Launch Schedules, Jan. 23], did not announce liftoff time until nine minutes before launch. One and a half hours after launch, Houston Mission Control reported the Space Shuttle had reached its intended orbit, the altitude and position of which were secret.

How long the astronauts would remain in orbit was unknown; although most Space Shuttle flights lasted five to eight days, the apparent Discovery mission to launch a single satellite might limit it to three or four days.

Discovery carried a 32,000-lb. propulsion, inertial upper stage capable of boosting a large satellite to 22,300 miles above the equator south of the USSR. This was the first test of the rocket system since a predecessor had misfired on a Space Shuttle mission in April 1983.

Many newspapers had already published reports, based on information in the aerospace trade press and other unclassified documents, that the secret payload was an electronic spy satellite. Both the U.S. and USSR had engaged in electronic eavesdropping from orbit for several years, and the USSR had obtained many of the plans and engineering information for the earlier U.S. electronic reconnaissance satellite Rhyolite. The Carter administration had cancelled an advanced version of Rhyolite, the Argus, but the Reagan administration had revived the project. Most reports described the Discovery's payload as the most advanced and sensitive form of orbital electronic spying.

The Air Force began an investigation to find the officials or contractor employees who had provided information about the secret payload aboard Discovery, the Washington Post reported. Inquiries were not aimed at news organizations, Michael Burch, a Department of Defense (DOD) spokesman, had said. When questioned about a photo of an early-warning satellite published on the cover of Aviation Week, Burch said the picture should not have appeared. However, the Pentagon later acknowledged that the Air Force had given the photo to the magazine after determining it was unclassified. Burch refused to say what action the government would take if it could identify those who leaked information on the Space Shuttle mission.

Brig. Gen. Richard Abel had previously warned reporters not to speculate about the Space Shuttle's cargo. After the Washington Post had reported it was an intelligence satellite intended to eavesdrop on the USSR, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger had said the story might have given "aid and comfort to the enemy." Abel later had told a Univ. of Georgia journalism class that little or nothing in the Post story was not available from public sources.

Aviation Week's January 21 issue had described the Pentagon's next generation of early-warning surveillance satellites, which would monitor missile and spacecraft launches from Soviet territory and be protected against Soviet laser weapons. (NYT, Jan 25/85, Al; W Post, Jan 25/85, A3)

Large Space Systems

Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) announced that a December 1985 experiment, EASE or the experimental assembly of structures in EVA (extravehicular activity), aboard Space Shuttle flight 61-C would provide information about humans working in space. In the experiment, two crew members would move six aluminum beams, each 12 feet long and four inches in diameter, into space from the Space Shuttle payload bay and assemble them into a tetrahedron shape and then disassemble them. This experiment would demonstrate human ability to build strong, practical structures in space. During the experiment videotape and still photographs would record crew member movements to link beams by special connectors at the beam tips.

This building approach was a technique in the Large Space Structures program called an "erectible" method, as opposed to a "deployable" method that would not be demonstrated until 1986 or 1987 when NASA would orbit a structural-assembly demonstration experiment. MSFC had conducted tests similar to EASE in its neutral buoyancy simulator, a million-gallon water tank that gave a sense of weightlessness to submerged people working in space suits. Researchers would compare assembly and disassembly times recorded in the space test with results found in the neutral buoyancy tank. However, MSFC's Ed Valentine, experiment manager, noted, "We'd like to be able to measure a human's productivity in space scientifically, and we're not really sure if time measurements are all that are needed to gauge that, so we'll be examining other possible criteria to use in the future." A Langley Research Center structural assembly experiment would accompany the MSFC experiment. (MSFC Release 85-3)

NASA announced that its anonymous and voluntary Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), managed by Ames Research Center, had evaluated some 42,000 incident reports in eight years and had issued 805 alert bulletins and 28 research reports to improve airway safety. Designed and implemented by NASA in 1976 at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), ASRS gave pilots and flight controllers a means of reporting incidents that would otherwise have passed unnoticed, resulting in revisions to both air traffic control procedures and FAA regulations. NASA served as a neutral third party in operating the system, protecting the confidentiality of those who reported. In addition, FAA could grant participants limited immunity from disciplinary action except in cases of accident or criminal conduct.

The system had identified, for example, the need for more flight-controller help to general aviation pilots operating at night over unfamiliar terrain and restriction of cockpit conversation and activity in transport aircraft flying below 10,000 ft. The system had also produced a number of changes in airline, military, and general aviation pilot flight training based on real flight data. Reports in the ASRS data base had become a major resource for human-factors research and behavior models.

ASRS received about 500 incident reports a month; experienced pilots and controllers screened these to identify existing safety problems and forecast future problems and trends, and NASA used the data for safety research for FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board, Department of Defense, and other government agencies. ASRS issued a monthly safety bulletin and also alert bulletins for hazards needing rapid response. (NASA Release 85-12)

• 1985
• January

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