Jan 25 1994

From The Space Library

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Current revision

NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, Texas, selected Pioneer Contract Services for a five-year, $42 million cost-plus-award-fee contract for logistics support, such as all handling of property, warehouse, and bondroom operations. (NASA Release C94f)

NASA announced the crew of the STS-60 mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, scheduled for flight from February 3 to 11, 1994: mission commander, Charlie Bolden; pilot, Ken Reightler; mission specialists, Jan Davis, Ron Sega, Franklin Chang-Diaz, and Sergei Krikalev, Russian cosmonaut with two long-duration flights aboard the Mir Station. His flight will begin a new three-phase era of cooperation: 10 Shuttle-Mir missions, joint work on the core Space Station, and expansion of the Station to all other partners.

The STS-60 will deploy the first Wake Shield Facility (WSF) to grow semi-conductors. The WSF is a $13.5 million, 12-foot-wide satellite that was to float free of the Shuttle for three days. If the vacuum-grown film yielded optimum growth, future fleets of shields might grow crops of such film. This would also mark the second flight of the 1,100-cubic-foot SPACEHAB facility for biotechnology and other payloads and the 100th Get Away Special (GAS) since its 1982 start, with five payloads. The crew also was to communicate with students in the United States and Russia with the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment-II (SAREX-II). STS-60 was scheduled to be the 18th flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery and the 60th flight of the Space Shuttle system. (NASA Release 94-11; H Chron, Jan 20/94; H Chron, Jan 21/94; NASA Note to Editors N94-9; AP, Jan 26/94, P Inq, Jan 28/94; USA Today, Jan 31/94; AP, Jan 30/94; AP, Jan 31/94; UPI, Jan 31/94; B Sun Feb 2/94)

The University of Houston (UH) was scheduled to take over from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as home for a rocket laboratory researching the feasibility of charged plasma propulsion for future interplanetary flight. The facility was to be called the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory. Astronaut and plasma-physics expert Franklin Chang-Diaz was appointed the facility's director. Chang-Diaz hoped to create a small test rock-et to release from a Shuttle. (H Post, Jan 21/94)

Carl Pilcher, who works on advanced planning issues in NASA's Office of Space Science, told the agency's Space Science Advisory Committee that top NASA managers were drafting a 12-20 page strategic plan giving highest budget priority to the Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE). The MTPE was due to the insistence of Vice President Gore, reflecting messages NASA Administrator Goldin was receiving from the White House in response to his submitted proposals. (Def Daily, Jan 21/94)

NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) scheduled the launch of their joint project, the Deep Space Program Science Experiment, dubbed Clementine, on a Titan IIG rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. This first U.S. lunar mission in two decades was scheduled to spend two months in polar orbit of the Moon every five hours, photographing it from as close as 250 miles with its three cameras (two infrared and one ultraviolet/visible) and LIDAR (laser image detection and ranging) unit, and then was to go on to photograph the near-Earth asteroid Geographos.

The 933-pound craft was built by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which was to also oversee ground command; it was to be tracked by NASA's Deep Space Network. Its main goal: to test five sensors designed to detect and track missiles. The project's other goal was to aid in the design of light-weight and low-cost components usable in a fleet of missile-defense satellites or guided missiles, which could be tested without violating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This reflected the project's roots in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or Star Wars, now called the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

Despite Apollo and later missions, NASA officials noted that the Moon, especially the far side, had never been mapped completely nor explored with modem instruments. The Clementine Program could provide the overall picture that researchers have always wanted. (Orlando Sentinel, Jan 24/94; W Post, Jan 24/94; H Post, Jan 24/94; B Sun, Jan 26/94; NY Times; Jan 26/94; W Post, Jan 26/94; USA Today, Jan 26/94; W Times, Jan 26/94; AP, Jan 26/94; B Sun, Jan 27/94)

The media reported that Pratt & Whitney and Rockwell International were negotiating a potential $1 billion deal with Russian aircraft manufacturer Ilyushin to produce jetliners. The project could involve the initial purchase of 20 aircraft by Aeroflot Russian International Airlines and create $1 billion in U.S. exports. Pratt & Whitney would provide the engines and Rockwell would provide the avionics. The II-96M is a four-engine wide-body craft that carries 300 passengers. (P Inq, Jan 22/94)

Japan scheduled the launch of the H-2 launch vehicle, its first rocket built without U.S. technology, whose development has taken 10 years and $2.4 billion. A consortium of 74 Japanese companies built it and formed the Rocket Systems Corporation to market it. (C Trib, Jan 23/94, NY Times, Jan 26/94, WSJ, Jan 31/94, Reuters, Jan 30/94, Reuters, Jan 31/94, Reuters, Jan 30/94; CSM, Feb 3/94)

NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin had an extensive interview with U.S. Black Engineer (USBE) Magazine on his past and current experience, commitment, and achievements in promoting minority advancement in the aerospace field. He detailed how in his long career in rising through the field he had worked for minority progress.

At TRW he worked with Hank Wilfong of the National Association of Small and Disadvantaged Businesses (SDB) in setting aside $250 million and searching the country for the top 30 minority-owned businesses, and he succeeded in contracting high-tech electronics projects with them.

The interview mentioned government programs, including the President's National Technology Initiative and a congressional bill mandating NASA to do eight percent of its $12 billion in contracted business with minority groups. Mentioned also were set-asides, DoD's mentorship program, and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC).

Coming to NASA, Goldin found only 14 African Americans in the agency's 535 senior executive service (SES) slots. He instituted a hiring freeze until a new SES training program got underway. He also called in the chief executive officers (CEOs) of NASA prime contractors and told them to expand cultural diversity in their subcontractor workforce.

Joseph P. Martino, senior research scientist at the University of Dayton Research Institute, examined space launch costs in a study released by the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation. Because of high costs, he noted that the United States was now farther away from having people on the Moon than when President Kennedy launched the Apollo program. In 1994, it cost $3,500 per pound to put items into orbit. The cost increase started in the 1950s, when high performance of ballistic missiles was needed at any price and has been continued by NASA's policy of developing new technology for each new mission. Launch costs must be lowered and can be by three new approaches: the use of commercial practices for vehicle construction, long production runs of single designs, and designing launchers to be reusable like aircraft instead of producing single-use like missiles. (W Times, Jan 25/94)

Dr. Edward Tagliaferri, a physicist and consultant for the Aerospace Corporation, an engineering firm in El Segundo, California, that helps the Air Force run its many satellite programs, was lead author of a report discussing declassified Air Force studies of meteors and their possible threat. The report is a chapter in a book edited by Dr. Tom Gehrels, a planetary astronomer at the University of Arizona, and published by the university. The potential threat is viewed in the light of occurrences such as the strike in Tunguska, Siberia, and the probable strike in Yucatan, Mexico. (NY Times, Jan 25/94)

NASA's budget was scheduled to face possible major cuts according to top congressional sources. The Space Station, Earth Observing System, international ultraviolet explorer, Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer, Cosmic Background Explorer, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, Mission Operations and Data Analysis, Cassini, AXAF, and two $1-billion wind tunnels for the High Speed Civil Transport program could be affected.

NASA reconfigured its account structure into four parts: space science and aeronautics, Shuttle and Space Station activities, tracking and personnel, and research and program management.

The Space Station, however, had presidential support and was a signature foreign policy initiative, especially in terms of cooperation with the Russians, which may protect it. (Del Daily, Jan 24/94; Sunnyvale Sun, Jan 12/94)

The NASA-DoD National Aerospace Plane (NASP) achieved positive thrust for a scramjet engine at speeds of up to 9,500 miles per hour or Mach 14, according to contractor team member Pratt & Whitney. The tests were made at Calspan Corporation's hypersonic shock tunnel facility at Buffalo, New York. (Def Daily, Jan 24/94)

Retired Air Force Colonel Ken Munechika, former chief of Onizuka Air Force Base's Satellite Test Center, was designated the new chief of NASA's Ames Research Center (ARC). (Sunnyvale Sun, Jan 12/94)

NASA established the Johnson Technology Commercialization Center, modeled on the Austin Technology Center, to promote space technology. The center was scheduled to accept and subsidize a few rigorously screened applicants as "start-up" and will nurture them through the "learning curve" over three years toward their "graduation" to independent operation in the marketplace. The program was part of NASA-sponsored Regional Technology Transfer Centers for technology assessment and licensing. Texas was also part of a 14-state Mid-Continent Technology Transfer Center, under the umbrella of the National Technology Transfer Center. (H Post, Jan 12/94)

NASA's Office of Space Science was scheduled to use the Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Island Flight Facility to manage a Sounding Rocket Program of almost 50 missions worldwide in 1994. One study over Fairbanks, Alaska, was to examine auroras by using eight unguided suborbital sounding rockets at altitudes of 55 to 287 miles. One rocket was to carry a 21-foot-long payload called the Auroral Turbulence Rocket, with 28 instruments on a main payload and two subpayloads. The latter two would he deployed from the main payload in space, and simultaneous measurements from the three spacecraft would permit a study during 9 of the 12 minutes of flight. They were to measure the acceleration process that energizes particles and causes the emission of light called auroras. (NASA Release 94-12)

Dr. Robert Wingate of NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, as chairman of an investigation board appointed by Jeremiah Pearson, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Flight, released a study of the cause of an anomaly on Shuttle Discovery-STS-51. During deployment of the ACTS communication satellite, commands for firing a single explosive cord caused the firing of both primary and backup cords, which ruptured a containment tube and released debris into the cargo bay. The study described the primary and contributing causes-a 10-year-old design flaw and made recommendations for corrections. (NASA Note to Editors 94-8, USA Today, Jan 28/94; AP, Jan 27/94)

Spence Armstrong, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Office of Human Resources and Education, announced its Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This was a three-year, $500,000 annual award to six states as a new initiative to improve their research and competitive capability while expanding education and training opportunities for women and minorities. The funding would enable states to develop an academic research enterprise for long-term, self-sustaining, nationally competitive capability, contributing to the States' economic viability. The involved states were Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

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