Jun 24 1980
From The Space Library
INTELSAT said that its board meeting in Bogota approved use of time-division multiple-access equipment with its global communications satellite-system; the new devices, to be installed in the 1980s, would offer three times more telephone channels on INTELSAT satellites than available from frequency-modulation (FM) equipment. now in use. (INTELSAT Release 80-11-I)
ESA said that the six groups investigating the malfunction at the Ariane L02 launch ended four weeks of study on one of the four first-stage engines. They reported that the suspect engine recovered from the sea [see June 17] had a foreign body at the injector level: an identification plate was found near the injection orifices, and they were trying to determine if it was there at launch or got there during the engine's immersion in the sea.
Analysis of engine noise showed differences from results recorded at ground tests in Europe; also, engine start-up parameters (combustion-pressure build-up time) showed abnormal dispersions, but researchers had not been able to link them to observed phenomena. ESA said that the L03 test flight originally set for November 1980 might not occur until February 1981, and the fourth test flight by midyear, to qualify the rocket for operational launch. (ESA Info Bltn 17)
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