Shuttle Discovery is on Pad 39A awaiting its August 7 launch of the
CRISTAS-SPAS mission. The Mass Memory Unit No. 1 has been replaced and
loaded. Hypergolic propellant pressurization is underway. Aft compartment
closeouts are also underway. The crew of Brown, Rominger, Davis, Curbeam,
Robinson, Tryggvason will arrive on August 4 and payload doors will be closed
for flight on Aug. 5 (NASA).
The crew of STS-86, the 7th docking mission to Mir, has been changed. Wendy
Lawrence, who was scheduled to replace Michael Foale on Mir, will return to
Earth on the Shuttle. This is the second time she has been bumped from the
Mir. In 1995, she was determined to be too short at 5'3" to fit into the
Soyuz seats. Restrictions have eased on height, but the new situation on Mir
made an American with EVA experience more desirable. Her berth on Mir will
now be occupied by Dr. David Wolf, Lawrence's backup. The change is due in
part due to Wolf's EVA experience and training. Additionally, Wolf more
closely fits into the physical profile of the Orlan space suits available on
Mir. The mission may be delayed by 10 days to accommodate Wolf's Russian
space walk training (NASA; Flatoday).
A relatively quiet week on the Russian space station. With most of the
systems operational, the crew has been concentrating on repairing two of the four non-functional gyrodynes. The station's attitude is currently being
controlled by eight functional gyrodynes.
The repairs will give the station additional pointing margin and capability.
While the remaining solar panels and batteries are providing enough power for
most on-board systems, the recently repaired Elektron oxygen-generating system
has been taken off-line to conserve power--oxygen is being provided by tanks
in the Progress resupply vessel. The Vozdukh CO2 scrubber remains in
operation. Because thermal control and ventilation systems in the Priroda and
Kristall modules were turned off to conserve power, the remaining ventilation
system had to be reconfigured to cut down on condensation in the two modules.
American/British astronaut Mike Foale continues to conduct Greenhouse and
colloidal gelation experiments. Mustard seeds were reported to have sprouted
over the weekend. Commander Vasily Tsibliyev's heart condition appears to
have resolved itself. He remains on some medication, but is no longer
restricted to low-stress physical activity. The Russian crew is now preparing
for the August 7 arrival of their replacement crew (NASA; Flatoday).
The first astronaut crew evaluation of the airlock for the International
Space Station was conducted by Mike Gernhardt and Claude Nicollier in the
Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL) in Houston. The underwater evaluation, used to
train astronauts and refine procedures, went well. The airlock is slated to
be launched in Aug. 1999 on flight 7A (NASA).
NASA status reports indicate that aspects of many of the ISS assembly missions are well behind schedule. Further, these are American contributions and not related to the schedule slip caused by the Russian economic situation.
Mission 2a Node Control Software Release 15 final qualification testing has
fallen from 3/12/97 to 11/19/97. For Mission 3A the PMA 3 was to be outfitted
by 6/30/97 and on the dock at KSC by 9/30/97--now to be outfitted by 10/8/97
and on the dock by 12/11/97. The Standoff/End Cone Installation for Mission
5A was to be completed by 11/27/96, now it is slated for 11/1/97--a year
later. The lab acceptance test for the same mission was to be completed by
6/29/98, but is now targeted for 3/1/99 which is only two months before launch.
Proof pressure testing of the airlock was to be completed by 2/25/97, but is
only now being completed. Several other critical systems and hardware are three to four months behind schedule. However, at a meeting to discuss risks to the launch schedule, four previously-identified risks, including the Service Module, were found to have improved. Program Reserves, US Lab Schedule, Node Control
System Software Development and 1A-8A Software ICD Part 2 were found to have
higher risk to disrupt the schedule (Rich Kolker HCSF)
In the past week the rover and lander have been busy amassing
data on the geology and weather of Mars. Rocks visited include Mini
Matterhorn and Mermaid. A missed wake-up call and a software glitch put the
Rover out of business for half a day as it waited for further instructions.
Most recently Pathfinder scientists have identified a metallic cone from the
landing system (NASA).
On July 28 an Atlas IIAS (AC-133) launched the $100 million
Japanese communications satellite Superbird-C from the Cape Canaveral Air
Station Complex 36B. This was the 31st consecutive successful launch of the
Lockheed-Martin Rocket from Cape Canaveral and marked the 40th anniversary of
the launch system. The rocket placed the 6,902 lb Hughes-built satellite into
a supersynchronous transfer orbit--thrusters will eventually place the
satellite into its geostationary orbit at 144 degrees East longitude. Despite
the threat of thunderstorms in the area, the launch was actually delayed from
Friday because of problems with two retraction clamps on the launch tower.
Saturday the launch was delayed by weather (Flatoday).
Orbital Sciences successfully launched its OrbView-2 satellite into
low-Earth orbit on a Pegasus XL rocket. The rocket was dropped over the
Pacific Ocean from a L-1011 carrier jet out of Vandenberg AFB on Aug 1 at 4:20
p.m. EDT. The OrbView-2 satellite separated from the rocket nine minutes into
the flight. The satellite is the second of Orbital Imaging Corp's commercial
imaging satellites. It will provide commercial and scientific multi-spectral
images of ocean and land surfaces. NASA is the sole customer for the
satellite, utilizing data from the Sea-Viewing Wide Field of View Sensor built
by Hughes. The purchased data is part of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth
program. The next scheduled Pegasus launch will be the U.S. Air Force FORTE
satellite in mid-September (Flatoday).
The upcoming launch of Japan's Communications and Broadcasting
Engineering Test Satellite (Comets) has been postponed to allow full
investigation of the June 30 collapse of the solar array paddle on Japan's
Adeos satellite. Following recommendations from the Committee on Technical
Assessment, the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) has delayed the Aug
18 Comets launch to assess whether its solar arrays could be at risk (SN).
Upgraded shuttle arm 303 was shipped July 30 from the Spar robotics
facility in Canada to the Kennedy Space Center. This is the second of four
Canadarms in the NASA shuttle fleet to be upgraded. The arm will be placed on
Shuttle Columbia for its November STS-87 flight and will be used to deploy the
Spartan 201 space craft (Flatoday).
Boeing: The shareholders for Boeing and McDonnell Douglas have completed
voting on the merger of the two businesses. Boeing votes came in at a little
above 99% for the merger while McDonnell Douglas votes were tabulated at 75.8% in favor of the deal. The main dissenting vote came from James S. McDonnell
III, both a company director and descendent of the founder, primarily because
McDonnell Douglas would not be used in the new corporate name (Flatoday).
CAI: CAI Data Systems Inc. has applied to the FCC to develop a $180 million
Ku-band satellite system to provide two-way video, voice and data services
within the continental US (SN).
Celestri: Motorola has applied to the FCC for five more GEO slots for the
broadband Celestri system. This brings the total number of GEO slots for the
system to nine with an additional sixty-three LEO satellites. The development of the system is expected to cost $12.9 billion (SN).
GEOS-10: Overcoming several technical problems, controllers of the
Geostationary-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite-10 (GOES-10)
weather satellite have been able to reverse rotate the craft's solar panels to
track the sun. Forward rotation of the panels is blocked by an unknown
obstruction. Three tests of the satellite were successfully conducted with
the panels reverse rotated. The configuration will allow the craft to
function normally, albeit upside down. On-orbit testing of systems will
continue this week (SN).
Iridium: Controllers at Motorola have not yet been able to determine the
cause of the July 17 communication failure of one of the Iridium satellites
launched on July 5 on a Delta 2 rocket. Unable to communicate with the craft,
it remains in a parking orbit. It will be eventually be replaced as the
66-satellite constellation is completed. Tests on the orbiting Iridium
satellites have begun with the first satellite-to-ground mobile paging and
radio communications links established. Motorola sent hundreds of messages to
prototype pagers during an orbital pass. On July 7, links were established
between satellites and prototype handset phones (SN; Flatoday).
Inmarsat: On Saturday, July 26, the 4th Inmarsat-3 F4 satellite entered
service by activating its global beam. The satellite's spot beams will be
activated in about two weeks completing the Inmarsat global system featuring
light-weight portable phones (Flatoday).
GPS: Funding for a spare GPS 2F satellite is in doubt. The satellite, one of three, has been taken from the 1998 House defense appropriations bill. The
satellite would have been built by Boeing North American Inc, but there is no
Air Force rocket available for its launch (SN).
MILITARY: Funding cuts in the Air Force has forced the elimination of 168
jobs or 20% of the civil service positions at Cape Canaveral and Patrick Air
Force Base by 2000. While some of the positions are currently empty, half are
to be eliminated by 1998 (SN).
Something happened while we were all watching. A new
frontier was born. Mars Pathfinder has sparked a new way to make money from
space - - exploration as a form of entertainment. As we watched, real money
has been made in associated merchandising.
At its peak on July 8, 40 million hits were recorded on Pathfinder pages -
twice the record one-day total at last year's Olympics. All told, the number
is now in excess of 400 million hits. Further, Mattel is cashing in on
Pathfinder's popularity with a Hotwheels Rover that is apparently the hottest-selling item in its inventory. Stores can't keep them in stock and Mattel is expecting to produce them through the end of the year. T-shirts are being sold (I have one myself) with a drawing of the lander. A portion of each
purchase is donated back to JPL, thereby lowering the net cost of the project.
Every frontier follows upon the heels of governmental exploration of
wilderness and is built upon the infrastructure of previous frontiers. The
California gold rush, often thought of as an independent event, was actually
built upon the infrastructure of the Georgia gold rushes, the Oregon Trail,
the Mountain Man fur trade and the Spanish Mission expansion. So too the new
frontier is built upon the infrastructure of the telecommunication frontier,
the Internet and taps into the economics of America's booming entertainment
industry. However, there is something new here. Instead of following in the
wake of the exploration of the wilderness, the frontier has become an integral
part of the exploration. It is as if 40 million of us were looking over the
shoulders of Lewis and Clark. The ultimate in armchair travelers. All the
joys of experiencing new and exotic locations without the worry of mosquitoes,
dysentery or malaria. Is there money to be made? Just sit back and watch--pay for view.
Like those sturdy pioneers who hitched up the team to the wagon and headed to
Oregon, we too have many of the essentials on hand for our frontier journey.
With our computers and modems we can download and view pictures, movies and
data from the surface of Mars. Information that is often only hours old.
When we put a rover on the Moon, the information will be minutes if not
seconds old.
Nor are entrepreneurs oblivious to the new frontier. Jim Benson's commercial
space exploration company, SpaceDev, LLC, is pushing forward plans for NEAP,
the first privately funded space expedition to an asteroid (Jim Benson;
NEAP Project).
As for me, my own idea for cashing in on the new frontier is to build radio-controlled rovers with real solar cells on top for power and modified radio controlled cars underneath. This will help the exploration frontier, the
rapidly expanding solar cell industry, and of course me. After paying
royalties to JPL, hopefully I can make enough to pay for my Internet
connection. Look for Radio Rovers in stores this X-mas.
For the last two years the frontier line extended out to Geosynchronous Earth
Orbit. However, the slots there are rapidly being claimed and filled. The
frontier has moved onward, outward--to the surface of Mars. Not much money
has been made there yet, but this is only the beginning. Be patient--what
we will see in the coming years will astound us all.
The space population remains at the baseline of three. There are two Russians and one American on Mir. This is the 2777 day of continuous space occupation beginning with the reoccupation of Mir on September 8, 1989.
SHUTTLE
MIR
ISS
PATHFINDER
ATLAS 2AS
PEGASUS
JAPAN
CANADA
BUSINESS
SATELLITES
LEGISLATION
FRONTIER CORNER
COMING EVENTS
(Courtesy J. Ray, L. Cochrane, and R. Baalke)
FRONTIER CENSUS REPORT
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