Nov 21 1985
From The Space Library
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) requested proposals for a 12-month study of an advanced high-thrust, high-performance liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen rocket engine that could be used for the advanced launch vehicles being examined in NASA/Air Force Space Transportation Architecture Studies (STAS), which included heavy lift launch vehicles, Defense Daily reported. NASA considered the advanced LOX/hydrogen cryogenic engine and a new LOX/hydrocarbon engine to be key elements to advanced transportation systems. MSFC said it planned to award up to three parallel firm-fixed-price contracts for the study of the Space Transportation Main Engine (STME).
During the study, the contractors would prepare parametric trade-off data for engine requirements and configurations that might be employed in future launch vehicles. NASA would compare these engine configurations to the Space Shuttle main engine (SSME) for application to new launch vehicles. The contractors would identify candidate engine configurations, compare their features, and then recommend engine configurations that would best satisfy the requirements of future launch vehicles.
The three principal contenders for the STME study were Rockwell's Rocketdyne Div., prime contractor for the SSME; and Aerojet Technologies and United Technologies's Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, who conducted component improvement studies for the SSME. (D/D, Nov 21/85, 105)
The Soyuz T-14 spacecraft carrying three Soviet cosmonauts made an unscheduled return to earth today because its commander, Vladimir Vasyutin, was ill and needed hospital treatment, the Washington Post quoted the official news agency Tass as saying. The illness forced the crew to leave the Salyut 7 orbiting laboratory, the first time in either the Soviet or U.S. programs that a spaceflight was curtailed because a crew member became sick in orbit, the Washington Times said.
Vasyutin, who was making his first flight, landed after spending 65 days in space. He, Viktor Savinykh, and Alexander Volkov, who were both reported feeling well, had been conducting scientific experiments aboard Salyut 7. Tass gave no details of Vasyutin's illness, but western space experts said it was unlikely he was suffering from a simple case of space sickness-the inability to acclimatize properly to conditions in space. The Tass report quoted doctors who performed a preliminary examination on Vasyutin as saying his condition was satisfactory.
The unscheduled return of the cosmonauts left the Salyut 7, which had been in orbit since April 1982, unmanned for the first time since June.
Almost a week later, the Post reported that officials at Johnson Space Center said that cosmonauts who stayed in touch with U.S. astronauts had said Vasyutin caught a cold that grew worse and spread to his sinus cavity and lungs. The sources said Vasyutin had a fever that refused to break and may have come down with viral pneumonia, which was untreatable with the antibiotics the cosmonauts carried. (W Post, Nov 22/85, A26, 27/85, A3; W Times, Nov 22/85, 2A)
U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Donald Kutyna said today that the Defense Department had decided to proceed with a $500 million program to design a hypersonic plane capable of flying around the globe in less than two hours and of flying in the highest reaches of the atmosphere and to provide a low-cost method for launching satellites and other equipment critical to President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, the NY Times reported. Speaking at a Colorado Springs symposium on space technology, Kutyna said construction of the plane itself could cost $2 to $3 billion.
"It is something we are very serious about, and we think the technology is now within reach," said Kutyna, who coordinated the Air Force's research and development of space systems. "We have been examining the principles for some time, and now we are ready to head into the next phase." However, in Washington an aide to George Keyworth II, the President's science advisor, said, "Funding for the project's next phase is not assured." He noted Congress would have to approve the program. "This is all a little premature," the aide noted. "We have not yet presented the plan to President Reagan." But on November 20 Keyworth and top officials on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and NASA presented details of the plan to members of Congress interested in aerospace issues. Unlike the Space Shuttle, which was launched vertically with rocket boosters, the aerospace plane would take off like an ordinary airplane, but would not have jet engines with heavy compressors, making the aerospace plane a light-weight vehicle. "Once you reach about Mach 3," or three times the speed of sound, Kutyna said, "the air streaming through the engines begins to compress itself. Some studies indicated that the plane could attain speeds of Mach 20, although there were experts who said half that speed would be more reasonable.
If successful, the project could solve a key problem for the military: drastically reducing the cost of placing satellites and defensive space weapons in orbit. (NYT, Nov 22/85)
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