Jul 12 1978
From The Space Library
NASA announced it had awarded TRW Defense and Space Systems Group, Redondo Beach, Calif., a contract for the materials processing in space (Spacelab) program at an estimated cost of approximately $9.7 million. TRW would be prime contractor for various aspects of the Materials Processing in Space (MPS)-program, the contract to cover the initial phase of the MPS Spacelab-payloads project expected to begin in September 1978 and continue through 1981. TRW would develop (and support the operation of) specialized and general purpose payload systems that would accommodate a variety of different materials processing experiments during recurring earth orbit missions of the Space Shuttle.
NASA had selected the first series of experiments from among proposals by scientists from the U.S. and numerous foreign countries. Objectives of the MPS program were to study new or improved processes and to identify candidate products of initial commercial interest: electronic materials, metals, glasses, and certain chemicals produced by processes such as crystal growth, solidification, and containerless processing. MSFC would manage operational aspects of the program. (NASA Release 78-103; ARC Astrogram, July 27/78, 3)
Cosmonaut Valery Kubasov had spoken of the possibility of joint experimental flights by the USSR's Salyut-type orbital station and the U.S. Space Shuttle, according to a Tass report. Kubasov noted that such flights could use the joint approach and docking procedures worked out for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and tested during the joint Soviet-U.S. flight of Apollo and Soyuz in July 1975. A new agreement between the USSR and the U.S. on cooperation in space research for peaceful purposes had came into force the previous May, Kubasov pointed out. He added that millions of Americans, like the citizens of the USSR, had viewed the Soyuz-Apollo program as a display of goodwill by the two nations and the beginning of great cooperation between nations in space.
However, Av Wk reported that any U.S. Space Shuttle/Soviet Salyut space station joint mission was in deep trouble, if not already dead, because of increased U.S. concern over technology transfer to the Soviets and the current abrasive political climate between the two countries. A NSC interagency committee had reevaluated the entire joint mission idea, while U.S./Soviet discussions on the project were in limbo. The project probably would have been discussed during a planned technology-oriented trip to the USSR by presidential science adviser. Frank Press, but the White House had canceled the trip in disapproval of the Soviet treatment of dissidents. (FBIS, Tass Intl Svc in Russian, July 12/78; Av Wk, July 17/78, 13)
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