Feb 7 1985
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The USSR had launched Meteor-2, a meteorological satellite that would obtain global pictures of cloud cover and the surface below in visible and infrared frequencies in both the recorded and direct transmission mode and would observe penetrating-radiation flow in near-earth space, FBIS Tass International Service in Russian reported.
The satellite also carried an earth-orientation system, equipment to automatically align solar panels to the sun, a radiotelemetry system for satellite monitoring, and a radio complex for transmission of data to earth. All equipment was functioning normally, the service reported. (Tass Intl. Service in Russian, Feb 7/85)
NASA Administrator James Beggs told the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee that the agency's launch service's market position had eroded "very severely" and that he had to be "a little bit pessimistic" about NASA's ability to hold a lion's share in the future, Aerospace Daily reported. Beggs made the comment in response to a question about the need for a 5th Space Shuttle orbiter.
During the previous 14 months, NASA had won five new commercial launches; The European Space Agency's (ESA) Ariane, five. Beggs said the Europeans were "coming along very aggressively" in using the Ariane 4 and 5 vehicles to improve launch capabilities and that agreement by ministers attending the ESA council meeting [see European Space Agency, Feb. 4] to further Ariane 5 development "was significant." (AID, Feb 7/85, 1)
Main Engines NASA announced award of a $2,374,800 fixed-price contract to Stearns Catalytic Corp. to modify a test stand at the National Space Technology Laboratories (NSTL), Hancock County, Mississippi, to give NSTL a third test position to static-fire individually Space Shuttle main engines. The structural, mechanical, and electrical modifications would begin no later than March 1985 for completion in a year.
Space Shuttle main-engine testing had begun at NSTL in June 1975, using test stands A-1 and A-2 for single-engine testing of flight and nonflight engines. Later NASA used the B-2 test position to certify the main propulsion system in a series of three-engine cluster firings. The additional test position would support projected increases in main-engine test requirements, including increased turbopump production rates. NASA would initially use the new B-2 position to test new and overhauled engine turbopumps using a test bed engine.
NASA had originally used the B-2 test stand in the 1960s to flight-certify the Apollo/Saturn V space vehicle's first stage. (NASA Release 85-19)
NASA announced it had scheduled the 51-E Space Shuttle mission from KSC for no earlier than March 3, 1985, with landing on March 7, 1985, at KSC.
The 7th flight of the orbiter Challenger would include deployment of the 2nd Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-B) and Telesat Canada's Anik C1 communications satellite and the French echocardiograph and postural experiments.
Mission 51-E crew would be Karol Bobko, commander; Donald Williams, pilot; mission specialists M. Rhea Seddon, S. David Griggs, and Jeffrey Hoffman; and payload specialists Patrick Baudry and Sen. E. J. "Jake" Gam (R-Utah).
Thermal protection system refurbishment [see Space Transportation System/Launch Schedules, Feb. 6] had necessitated the delay from February 20. NASA had yet to accomplish step measurements, gap filler installation, and tile-bond and quality verifications.
NASA said the current 51-E launch date did not affect the planned March 19 launch date of the Space Shuttle 51-D mission. (NASA Release 85-20)
Launch and Landing Facilities
NASA and the U.S. Air Force completed for the first time Space Shuttle vehicle stacking at Vandenberg AFB's Space Launch Complex-6, the Marshall Star reported. Begun January 12, the stacking consisted of inert solid-fuel rocket-motor segments, an external tank, and the orbiter Enterprise. Unlike facilities at KSC where NASA stacked the Space Shuttle in the Vehicle Assembly Building and rolled it to the launch pad, at Vandenberg NASA and the Air Force stacked the Space Shuttle vehicle on the launch mount (pad).
Workers at Vandenberg rolled a mobile service tower and a shuttle-assembly building to the launch mount, then brought booster segments to the launch complex from the booster facility and lifted them into place by a mobile service-tower crane. This first vehicle stacking at the Vandenberg launch complex was part of facility-verification testing before the first Space Shuttle launch from the complex in early 1986.
Col. Walter Yager, commander of the Air Force shuttle assembly task force, said minor problems had occurred, but "that's why we have facility verification. We want to ensure properly working systems before we start handling actual flight hardware." Fit and function checks, payload operations, and launch-processing simulations would complete facility verification. (Marshall Star, Feb 7/85, 1)
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced rules to permit new two-engine jetliners to fly lengthy remote routes that had required three- or four-engine planes, but each airline would have to prove its aircraft and flight crews met FAA standards. The FAA took the action because of the reliability of modern jet engines and because military and business jets with two engines had flown across the North Atlantic safely for several years. The rules also addressed special provisions for airframe reliability, backup electrical and hydraulic systems, maintenance, cargo-compartment fire protection, and crew training.
Under current rules, a two-engine plane could be no farther from an airport than 60-minute flying time on one engine; the FAA proposal would extend that to two-hours flying time on one engine.
When the rules became final, they would allow Boeing's two-engine 767 jumbo jet to fly the most fuel-efficient North Atlantic routes, which would take flights far from airports in Greenland and Iceland. Boeing had pushed hard for the rule change, the Washington Post reported, to expand the sales potential of its 76Z (FAA Release 5-85; W Post, Feb 7/85, A7)
Military Programs In taking actions that would likely aggravate the already eroding launch service's market position of the Space Shuttle, Aerospace Daily reported that the Department of Defense (DOD) announced plans to fly at least two complementary expendable-launch vehicles per year beginning in 1998, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced in its FY 86 budget submission that "three of their satellites have been committed to the Titan II." (A/D, Feb 7/85, 1)
In his "State of the Union" address, President Reagan commented on funding requested for activities in space, the Washington Post reported. "We have seen the success of the Space Shuttle. Now we are going to develop a permanently manned space station and new opportunities for free enterprise because, in the next decade, Americans and our friends around the world will be living and working together in space.
"In the zero-gravity of space, we could manufacture in 30 days lifesaving medicines it would take 30 years to make on earth. We can make crystals of exceptional purity to produce supercomputers, creating jobs, technologies, and medical breakthroughs beyond anything we ever dreamed possible." (W Post, Feb 7/85, A16)
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