May 1985

From The Space Library

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Current revision

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) personnel were testing the interface of the software in the space telescope data capture facility (ST DCF) with other elements of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) ground system, the GSFC News reported. The DCF, which had arrived at GSFC ahead of schedule and on target with program costs, would accept science data from the telescope's five instruments through the NASA communications (NASCOM) system via the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) and the NASA ground terminal at White Sands, New Mexico.

William Stallings, head of GSFC's data capture systems section and project manager for ST DCF development, said, "Within 24 hours of receipt of the science data stream from NASCOM, the facility will preprocess the data and forward it to the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI) for further processing and use by scientists." The DCF had two identical Gould 32-87 computer systems and special hardware to provide the science data processing requirements.

The DCF had previously demonstrated the ability to capture the 1.024 megabit and 4 kilobit per-second data streams, processing the data into user data sets, and transmitting them to the Science Institute at the daily required volume level of three billion bits of science data. Because the space telescope's science instrument data were packetized, future refurbishment of the space telescope with new instruments would require only table updates in the DCF's software. Also, the DCF had automated quality control that should reduce operational costs. (Goddard News, May 85, 3)

The Canadian government had cut $5 million (Canadian) from the National Research Council of Canada's space sciences budget, eliminating the sounding rocket program and most of the balloon research, Spaceflight reported. The cuts meant the end of nearly a quarter-century of space research with the indigenous Black Brant family of sounding rockets. The council did not cut major satellite and Space Shuttle research projects. (Spaceflight, May 85, 201)

Brigadier General Robert Rankine, Jr., U.S. Air Force, writing in Aerospace about the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), said that, "In the long term, we have confidence that SDI will be a crucial means by which both the U.S. and the Soviet Union can safely agree to very deep reductions and eventually even the elimination of ballistic missiles and the nuclear weapons they carry. This does not represent a shift from the basic deterrent strategy of the U.S., but represents a new means for enhancing deterrence.

". . . A ballistic missile defense capability has the potential of increasing deterrence and adding to stability, by increasing substantially the uncertainties in the success of nuclear attack by an enemy, thoroughly confounding his targeting strategy, thus significantly reducing or eliminating the utility of preemptive attack. The system need not be perfect to accomplish this objective, but most meet three important criteria: — effective against the systems and countermeasures that exist or could be deployed, — sufficiently survivable that it would not encourage an attack on the system itself . . .

— effective at lower cost than any proliferation or countermeasure attempts to overcome it.

". . . Some of the opponents of the Strategic Defense Initiative," Rankine said, "have argued that the research and technology program currently under way is inconsistent with the ABM treaty and conflicts with arms control in general. Quite to the contrary, the initiative it totally consistent with current U.S. ABM treaty obligations. The initiative contemplates only research and experimentation on a broad range of defense technologies to provide the basis for a decision in the future whether or not to develop systems which would provide an effective ballistic missile defense capability." Rankine then described the technical scope of SDI and said the program was broken into five major program elements: surveillance, acquisition, tracking and kill, assessment; directed energy weapons; kinetic energy weapons; systems analysis and battle management; and an assortment of other high-priority technologies that did not warrant separate program elements.

Rankine concluded that the goal for SDI had not changed since the President's March 1983 speech proposing the system, when he "challenged all of us in the scientific community to create a means for rendering ballistic missiles impotent and obsolete." (Aerospace, Spring 85, 2)

Dr. George Keyworth, II, the President's science advisor, released a report of the Aeronautical Policy Review Committee that proposed national goals for research and development in aeronautics, NASA reported. The report stressed that, in the face of strong and growing challenges from foreign interests, the U.S. would maintain lasting aeronautical leadership only by vigorous application of the country's traditional strength-innovative technology. The report also pointed out that there were aeronautical opportunities that could make virtually all of that day's operational military and civil aircraft obsolete before the end of the century.

The report reaffirmed the government's role in supporting research and technology in aeronautics. "From our viewpoint, aeronautical research and technology remain an important investment. Our national interests, in particular our national security interests, dictate continued federal support." The first goal outlined in the report addressed advancement of technologies applicable to a variety of subsonic aircraft including short-, medium-, and long-range transports; rotorcraft; high-speed turboprop engines; all-composite primary structures; high-lift aerodynamics systems, as well as new flight control and guidance improvements.

The second goal concerned higher-speed regimes of supersonic transports. The report noted that the Reagan Administration had made no commitment to supersonic transports, but was laying the groundwork, both in NASA and the Department of Defense, in the fundamental technologies essential for any future efforts in supersonic flight.

The third goal called for capturing the potential payoffs available from super high-speed flight-hypersonic speeds and transatmospheric vehicles. These vehicles would operate from conventional runways, maneuver at the fringe of the atmosphere, and ascend into space orbit when required.

The report concluded that the government could only provide part of the technological base and support to achieve those goals and that private industry must share in the development of new technology and in its application to new projects. (NASA Activities, May 85, 9)

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