Aug 5 1985
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(New page: Astronauts aboard the Challenger on Space Shuttle mission 51-F spent an extra day in space gazing at the sun after the instrument pointing system was back in order, the Washington ...)
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Astronauts aboard the Challenger on Space Shuttle mission 51-F spent an extra day in space gazing at the sun after the instrument pointing system was back in order, the Washington Post reported. The sudden recovery on August 4, as a result of a lucky radio command transmitted on a whim after a jolting rocket firing, of a fourth solar telescope called a solar optical universal polarimeter added to the science data. Most of the August 5 sun observations used that telescope after NASA had considered it a failure.
The telescope initially recorded images of sunspots, dark splotches that erupted through the visible surface of the sun when underlying magnetic fields became convoluted, the Washington Times reported. The astronauts turned the telescope on the sunspot again on August 5, and the TV image was so clear scientists on the ground reported that they could see changes in its penumbra, a surrounding halo-like feature made up of jets of gas streaming out from the dark central area. (W Post, Aug 6/85, A5; W Times, Aug 6/ 85, 2A)
Cosmonauts Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Viktor Savinykh, after completing a docking operation, boarded the Salyut 7 orbital station to discover cold and darkness, FBIS Moscow World Service in English reported. The electricity supply system had broken down, water was frozen, and a crust of ice covered the instrument panels. It took a week and a half of intensive work by the cosmonauts to eliminate the defects and restore electricity and life support systems. Mission planners sent an automatic cargo ferry that delivered instruments, fuel, water, and food supplies. After restoring the station, the crew continued with planned research.
In a report on a Pravda article on the same topic, the Washington Post said the failure of two batteries had paralyzed the Salyut 7 station after the previous three-man crew mothballed the station in October 1984 following a record 238 days in orbit.
A NY Times article noted Pravda mentioned the risky docking took 50 hours, during which the cosmonauts had to rely on visual clues instead of the automatic electronic radar pulses exchanged between the Salyut and their Soyuz T-13 spacecraft.
“They've snatched it back from the brink of death,” the NY Times quoted James Oberg, an American expert on the Soviet space program, saying. “It's a major coup.” Later the cosmonauts made a five-hour space walk in which they replaced two of the ship's solar panels. The excursion gave them a chance to test new semirigid space suits, which were shown on Soviet TV. (FBIS Moscow World Service in English, Aug 5/85; W Post, Aug 6/85, Al2; NYT, Aug 7/85, D19)
Weather satellite engineers from the Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering in the Peoples Republic of China planned to visit the U.S. to seek technological help to complete within the next few years assembly and launch of China's first polar orbit weather satellite, Aviation Week reported.
The institute was building a primary and backup spacecraft for China's first weather satellite mission and had started preliminary design of a Chinese geosynchronous orbit weather spacecraft planned for launch in the early 1990s.
The Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics was working on the imaging system the weather satellites would use to take cloud photos and collect other data comparable to that from the U.S. Tiros weather satellite series.
Ground test data from the Chinese-designed tape recorder system and elements of the gyro system for the new polar orbit weather spacecraft, however, had not achieved a high enough reliability standard. The weather satellite manager planned to visit the U.S. in late 1985 or early 1986 to try to procure a U.S.-built tape recorder that could fly in the satellite in tandem with a Chinese-built recorder to improve reliability of the spacecraft.
A U.S. space team visiting the satellite engineering institute said the satellite was relatively large, about 4 feet tall and 4.5 feet wide. With solar arrays deployed, total spacecraft span was about 30 feet.
The spacecraft would weigh 1,500 lb. at launch and be in a 500-mile-high orbit at 99° orbital inclination. The Chinese State Bureau of Meteorology, Beijing, supplied performance specifications and funding for satellite.
The Chinese weather spacecraft, like U.S. weather satellites, would transmit data continuously. Any nation with the receivers used for U.S. weather data could pick up the Chinese data as well. (Av Wk, Aug 5/85, 79)
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