Oct 26 2000
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(New page: NASA announced the findings of an investigation into the 16 June incident involving the Space Shuttle's main engine. The team, headed by Robert L. Sackheim, Assistant Director for Spac...)
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NASA announced the findings of an investigation into the 16 June incident involving the Space Shuttle's main engine. The team, headed by Robert L. Sackheim, Assistant Director for Space Propulsion at NASA's MSFC, had determined that 24 square inches (155 square centimeters) of tape had fallen into the Shuttle engine's fuel system and that nobody had noticed the tape before the engine's test firing. The tape's location had caused the engine's temperature to increase rapidly, beyond normal operating limits, damaging some components of the engine's fuel pump. According to Sackheim, the engine controller had performed according to its design, shutting down the engine 5 seconds into the planned 200-second test when it sensed a temperature exceeding safe limits. Sackheim's team had concluded, "the handling of, accounting for, and inspecting for loose materials, used to process and rebuild engines during normal operations, were inadequate." The test had been a "temperature margin" demonstration, undertaken as part of the developmental phase of a more robust Pratt & Whitney Advanced Technology High Pressure Fuel Turbopump. The engine had not been in flight configuration but had been a unit in a testing process aimed at validating the prototype engine's ability to operate at higher-than-normal temperatures.
The Russian government earmarked funds to send two Progress cargo spacecraft to the Mir space station, announcing that it would wait until February 2001 to make a final decision about the station's fate. Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya I. Klebanov had explained that the decision the Russian government had been wavering about for more than a year rested on the availability of private funds to keep the station in orbit. Executives from MirCorp had promised the Russian government that the company would raise between US$ 100 million and US$170 million by next year, but Russian space officials were skeptical of MirCorp's ability to meet this commitment. MirCorp had yet to pay the US$ 10 million it owed Russia for the 17 October launch of a Progress cargo spacecraft delivering fuel to Mir.
NASA announced that it planned to implement a new Mars Exploration Program over the following two decades. NASA planned six major missions during the next 10 years, launching the Mars Odyssey orbiter mission in 2001, twin Mars Exploration Rovers in 2003, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter a, powerful scientific orbiter-in 2005. Additional plans included the development and launch, possibly as early as 2007, of a "long-range, long-duration mobile science laboratory," which would "pave the way for a future sample return mission." NASA also proposed to create a new line of small missions called Scout missions, involving airborne vehicles or small landers. NASA would select designs for the Scout spacecraft from proposals submitted by the scientific community. Besides sending additional scientific orbiters, rovers, and landers to Mars during the second decade of the program, NASA announced its plans to launch its first sample-return mission in 2014, with a second mission in 2016. The new program incorporated "lessons learned from previous mission successes and failures" and built on recent scientific discoveries. Although NASA led the revamped program, the Mars missions also included international participants, particularly France and Italy, whose space agencies had agreed to conduct collaborative scientific orbital and surface investigations, as well as to contribute sample collection-and-return systems, telecommunications assets, and launch services.
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