Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Sat, 20 Jan 90 01:26:24 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 20 Jan 90 01:25:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #445 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 445 Today's Topics: NASA Headline News - 01/18/90 (Forwarded) NASA Headline News - 01/17/90 (Forwarded) SSX Concept not a 'Steal' F-1 Engine (was Re: SSX Concept not a 'Steal') NASA Headline News - 01/16/90 (Forwarded) Re: booster pollution Voyager Update - 01/19/90 Request for Addition space news from AW&ST delayed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Jan 90 02:46:09 GMT From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@lll-winken.llnl.gov (Ron Baalke) Subject: NASA Headline News - 01/18/90 (Forwarded) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, January 18, 1990 Audio: 202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA headline news for Thursday, January 18......... The flight of Columbia has moved into its tenth day but not without some excitement this morning while the crew was asleep. Erroneous navigation data from Mission Control to the orbiter's automatic pilot led to the firing of small thrusters. They made an unexpected change in columbia's attitude. Mission Commander Dan Brandenstein was informed of the problem. He turned off the autopilot and took over control manually. After monitoring new data the autopilot was turned back on and the crew returned to sleep. This morning the crew spoke with President George Bush and then held an on-orbit news conference with reporters at the Johnson Space Center. In addition, Bonnie Dunbar used the remote manipulator arm to check out waste water dump nozzles...experiments were completed...and orbiter day-before-entry checks were conducted. The weather looks good for an early morning landing tomorrow at Edwards Air Force Base. A storm center over southern California is moving east and should pose no threat. Touchdown of the Columbia is scheduled for about 5:55 A.M., Eastern time, on the concrete runway. NASA has selected 23 new astronauts. The 1990 group includes the first woman to be selected as a pilot trainee. She is Air Force Major Eileen Collins. and...Thomas Sega, the husband of Bonnie Dunbar...now in space aboard the Columbia...was selected as a mission specialist. Mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory report the primary command computer and high gain antenna have been switched back on aboard the Magellan spacecraft heading for Venus. Earlier this month a data error was detected by the computer and the system went into a safe mode. With a command sequence being transmitted today the spacecraft will be back in a normal cruise state. Magellan is now 113-million miles from earth. Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov Jet Propulsion Lab M/S 301-355 | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov 4800 Oak Grove Dr. | Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jan 90 02:39:49 GMT From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@lll-winken.llnl.gov (Ron Baalke) Subject: NASA Headline News - 01/17/90 (Forwarded) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, January 17, 1990 Audio: 202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA headline news for Wednesday, January 17..... The crew of the orbiter Columbia continues to operate a variety of experiments as they near completion of their ten day mission. Astronaut Bonnie Dunbar has completed her participation as a subject in the lower body negative pressure experiment. The device pulls fluids toward the body's lower extremities. Dunbar spent more than four hours in the device after consuming 32 ounces of liquid and eight salt tablets. Hopefully, the technique will help astronauts readapt better to gravity on return to earth. Mission Commander Dan Brandenstein, who celebrates his 47th birthday today, reported sighting a developing tropical storm northwest of Australia. The storm is nicknamed Sam. The latest predicted landing time, Friday, at Edwards Air Force Base, is about 5:55 A.M., Eastern Time. The deorbit burn is scheduled for 4:50 A.M. on orbit 157. In a related story...Associated Press reports that ground-water pumping brought about by a growing population in southern California's Antelope Valley is cracking and sinking the dry lakebed runways at Edwards Air Force Base. U.S. Air Force officials told the California Water Commission last week that the lake bed upon which the space shuttle often lands has subsided three feet in some areas and many fissures on the lakebed surface run for hundreds of feet. Aerospace Daily reports that the first flight test of the Pegasus air-launched orbital booster is planned for no earlier than March. DARPA and the Air Force say a third captive flight of the winged booster carried by a NASA B-52 aircraft will evaluate several fixes to the vehicle. The captive flight, scheduled for no earlier than January 30, will also check out upgrades made in the communications and data transfer systems. Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov Jet Propulsion Lab M/S 301-355 | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov 4800 Oak Grove Dr. | Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jan 90 08:57:54+0100 From: Joseph C. Pistritto Subject: SSX Concept not a 'Steal' To: >Mailer: Elm [revision: 64.9] In several responses to the 'SSX' concept document I posted, people notice the similarity to the Gary Hudson, Pacific Aerospace proposal. Very good people, it's the same idea. In fact, a lot of the same people were involved in selling SDIO on the idea. It stands to reason that some of the initial study money might go to Pacific Aerospace, in that they have done a lot of the concept work so far. Mr. Hudson has confirmed, however, that he doesn't hold any 'rights' to the design that would inhibit it's development by another organization. As to the endurance time of the engines, I believe that this has already been looked into. Because the SSX's engines will operate at a substantially lower chamber pressure than the Shuttle's (~500psi vs. 3000), life will be considerably enhanced. These are similar pressure regimes as used on the Saturn V's F1 engines, which were good for a LOT longer than they actually were used for. I understand that leftover F1s have fired (in bursts) for -hours- of runtime. Remember also that the aerospike can use thrust variation to achieve some level of cross-thrusting, (by varying the thrust of the multiple engines), thereby eliminating the major complication of gimballing the engine/exhaust nozzle. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jan 90 19:39:56 GMT From: rochester!dietz@bbn.com (Paul Dietz) Subject: F-1 Engine (was Re: SSX Concept not a 'Steal') In article <9001190742.AA05456@zit.cigy.> jcp@cgch.UUCP (Joseph C. Pistritto) writes: > Because the SSX's >engines will operate at a substantially lower chamber pressure >than the Shuttle's (~500psi vs. 3000), life will be considerably >enhanced. These are similar pressure regimes as used on the >Saturn V's F1 engines, which were good for a LOT longer than >they actually were used for. The F-1 engine's rated chamber pressure was 1122 psia. The H-1 engine on the Saturn C-1 booster had a chamber pressure of 576 psia. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jan 90 02:34:35 GMT From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@lll-winken.llnl.gov (Ron Baalke) Subject: NASA Headline News - 01/16/90 (Forwarded) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, January 16, 1990 Audio: 202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA Headline News for Tuesday, January 16..... The space shuttle orbiter Columbia continues to perform well during its 10 day mission...and the crew is performing in a highly acceptable manner, too. Aside from a small water leak in a humidity separator and a false alarm from a navigational aid, columbia's systems are operating nominally. Mission specialists Bonnie Dunbar and David Low have been switching as subjects for daily lower body negative pressure checks with a new collapsible pressure check device. A number of other medical experiments are being conducted by the crew. Clear skies over parts of Africa this past weekend also gave the crew good opportunities to shoot pictures of Lake Chad, the Nile Valley and fires in Kenya as part of a photographic survey of the earth's surface. The weather report for landing at Edwards Air Force Base appears favorable for early Friday. Present plans call for landing on concrete Runway #22 at 5:59 A.M., Eastern Time. Early data from NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite supports the Big Bang theory. The information was revealed Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Crystal City, Virginia. The theory traces the origin of the universe to a primordial explosion some 15 billion years ago. The universe today shows that sometime after the Big Bang additional releases of energy must have occurred but COBE results limit the magnitude and character of such a release. Arianespace has rescheduled the launch of a Spot 2 earth resources satellite for January 20 from Kourou, French Guiana . A faulty tape recorder in the spacecraft has been replaced. The Ariane 40 booster has been checked out and found ready for launch. Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov Jet Propulsion Lab M/S 301-355 | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov 4800 Oak Grove Dr. | Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jan 90 09:28:06 PST From: greer%utd201.dnet%utadnx@utspan.span.nasa.gov X-Vmsmail-To: UTADNX::UTSPAN::AMES::"space+@andrew.cmu.edu" Subject: Re: booster pollution In SPACE Digest V10 #444, Paul Dietz writes: >In article <13353@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> kimf@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Kim Flowers) writes: > >>Hey, what about all those HOH molecules them hydrogen-oxygen boosters >>are spreading all over the place! Could be a real problem... :) > >Actually, they could be, if the launch rate is high enough (read: >much larger than now). The upper stratosphere is extremely dry. >If we inject water there, it could form high altitude ice clouds, >especially in polar regions. Such clouds cause net warming by >reflecting infrared radiation. Also, ice clouds in the Antarctic >stratosphere are thought to play a part in the formation of >the ozone hole. > > Paul F. Dietz > dietz@cs.rochester.edu According to somebody (one of the main figures in this line of research, whose name nevertheless escapes me) who gave a talk here some months ago on the subject, high altitude ice clouds play a major role in the formation of the ozone hole. Briefly, CFC's destroy ozone in a catalytic manner, so it doesn't take much of the stuff to do a lot of damage. Ice crystals act as an adsorptive surface for the CFC's which somehow makes them even more active in destroying ozone. The Antarctic ozone hole closes up during southern hemisphere summer when the high altitude ice clouds are not present. ------- Doublethought For Today --------- "...that flag is a symbol of something | Dale M. Greer greater than just the rights | Center for Space Sciences in this country." | University of Texas at Dallas Rep. Lawrence J. Smith of Florida | UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jan 90 02:30:45 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Voyager Update - 01/19/90 Voyager Mission Status Report January 19, 1990 Voyager 1 The spacecraft collected routine cruise science data throughout this period. One frame of high-rate PWS data was recorded on January 8 and a TLC test was performed on January 9. On January 4, Playback #6, containing Uranus Photometry Images 11 through 37, was executed. Due to the DSS-63 antenna failure on December 13, there was no 70-meter DSN support for the playback and the data were lost. Also on January 9, Playback #7, containing Uranus Photometry Images 37 through 47, Neptune Photometry Images 1 through 15 and PWS data was executed. There was also no 70-meter support for this playback and the data were lost. A total of 61:05 of tracking time (exclusive of overlaps) was obtained. Of this, 4:45 was large-aperture coverage. While no significant real-time telemetry outages were experienced, minor losses amounted to 1:01 - 1.7% of the total scheduled support time. Voyager 2 The spacecraft collected routine cruise science data throughout this period. High-rate UVS observations were performed on January 8. One frame of high-rate PWS data was also recorded and a PLS/MAG/PESCAL performed. On January 7, the spacecraft Sun-Earth probe angle had increased to 5x and consequential downlink degradation decreased. On January 8, the AACS AP PW patch was linked and verified by AACS Memory Readout. A PLS/MAG/PESCAL sequence was also executed on January 8. Spacecraft performance for the activity was nominal, however, rain at DSS-43 caused the loss and or degradation of the first half hour of the calibration sequence. A total of 90:05 of tracking time (exclusive of overlaps) was obtained. Of this, 21:35 was large-aperture coverage. Rain caused the loss of two hours and twenty-seven minutes of GS-6 data during the January 8 DSS 43 track and fifty-seven minutes of CR-5 data during the January 11 DSS 45 track. The total of all real-time telemetry outages was 5:25 - 6.0% of the total scheduled support time. Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov Jet Propulsion Lab M/S 301-355 | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov 4800 Oak Grove Dr. | Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: Fri 19 Jan 90 01:56:18-EST From: H. Sommer Subject: Request for Addition Cc: sommerh@a.isi.edu I am interested in topics pertaining to space. Please add meto your mailing list. Thanks, H. sommer (sommerh@a.isi.edu) ------- ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jan 90 19:14:36 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: space news from AW&ST delayed In case anyone is wondering why no AW&ST summaries have been seen lately, just as I got more or less caught up (I consider being one month behind to be normal), they fouled up my subscription renewal. "Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible." :-( -- 1972: Saturn V #15 flight-ready| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1990: birds nesting in engines | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #445 *******************