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, 8 Dec 1990 01:52:16 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <8bM8pym00VcJ8IU05b@andrew.cmu.edu> Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 8 Dec 1990 01:51:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #638 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 638 Today's Topics: WUPPE Status for 12/05/90 [AM] (Forwarded) Shtttle status at 1/10:46 amet Re: NASA's Manned/Unmanned Track Record (Re: Another Russian first) Status of Astro at 2/11:00 MET Re: Another Russian first STS-35 SAREX Status Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Dec 90 03:37:54 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: WUPPE Status for 12/05/90 [AM] (Forwarded) UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON WUPPE STATUS REPORT NO. 7 AM, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 5 Working through the night and into Wednesday morning, the WUPPE science team was able to make a total of eight observations, including three primary observations. The WUPPE primary observations were of HD197770, an object observed twice by the Wisconsin instrument for a total of 21 minutes, and the variable star EZ Canis Majoris, observed for approximately 10 minutes. HD 197770 is a bright blue star reddened by a cloud of interstellar dust and gas. The star is being used by the WUPPE team as a flashlight to shine through the cloud of dust and gas. The interstellar medium is of interest to astronomers because of the role it plays in the life cycle of stars. The dust and gas clouds studied by the Wisconsin telescope are probably the remains of stars that exploded millions of years ago. In time, the clouds will collapse to form new stars and begin the stellar cycle again. By looking at how the starlight passing through the cloud is polarized, a unique capability in the ultraviolet of the WUPPE instrument, astronomers can determine how the elongated grains of dust in the cloud might be oriented by interstellar magnetic fields. They can also learn more about the chemical makeup of the dust and gas in the clouds. The second primary target observed by the WUPPE science team, EZ Canis Majoris, may be a new type of Wolf-Rayet star. The star exhibits light variations every 3.7 days, but the variations do not always repeat exactly. Astronomers think that there may be an unseen companion star, possibly a collapsed star causing this periodic variability. WUPPE will test whether there is a flat, rotating disk of material surrounding the compact companion star. The WUPPE instrument continues to perform well. The sensitivity of the telescope is better than expected, meaning that even abbreviated observations are providing the Wisconsin team with high-quality data. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 90 17:35:54 GMT From: uvaarpa!murdoch!news@mcnc.org (Greg Hennessy) Subject: Shtttle status at 1/10:46 amet There is a problem with the Imaging Pointing System (IPS) on the shuttle. The IPS is not stable, and has large drifts. This means that the planned calibrations of the HUT and WUPPE have not been done. Software patches have been developed, and uplinked, had at this time 11:30 AM Central Standard Time, Monday Dec 4th, the calibration of HUT and WUPPE is being redone. Currently the science plan is about 12 hours behind schedule, and probably will end up about 18 hours or so behind schedule. The impact on the science will be less than just the simple loss of time, since all of the high priority targets will be rescheduled. BBXRT has an independent pointing system, and after the alighnemt of their instrumetn, they will be able to observe independently. The observation needed for the alighment has been done, and the results of that calibaration are being checked currently. The UIT telescope is waiting for the IPS to start working before taking data. The instrument is fine, and if the IPS is not fixed in the next shift, UIT will just open its shutter and take pictures of random peices of the sky. Since the field of view of UIT is so large (40 arc minutes, twice the area of the full moon) theree will always be SOMETHING in teh field of view. The only concern is a very bright star in t he field of view may damage the camera. -- -Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA Internet: gsh7w@virginia.edu UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 90 18:56:37 GMT From: swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucsd.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: NASA's Manned/Unmanned Track Record (Re: Another Russian first) In article yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes: >So here's an interesting question: Why are NASA's unmanned missions >so successful while NASA's (recent) manned missions have suffered from >so many setbacks? A combination of luck and selective publicity. NASA has mounted relatively few major unmanned missions lately and has not yet had a major failure in one of them. And failures in the manned program get front-page headlines, while unmanned failures are Just One Of Those Things You Have To Expect. NASA got very lucky with Galileo, which would assuredly have been the most expensive unmanned failure in NASA's history if it had been launched on schedule. The disastrous design defects in its thrusters were discovered, totally accidentally, during the post-Challenger hiatus. Incidentally, is there some reason why you don't count the Hubble telescope as an unmanned mission? The GOES satellites, owned by NOAA but built by NASA, are not exactly a sparkling example of success, with one satellite after another dying due to the same design defect, and the new replacement series delayed by mirror problems (unrelated to Hubble's) and massive cost overruns. Viking Lander 1 died due to exactly the same problem as the USSR's Phobos 1 -- human error on the ground -- but by chance it happened late in the project rather than early. Aren't you forgetting Seasat? -- "The average pointer, statistically, |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 90 18:17:40 GMT From: haven!uvaarpa!murdoch!news@louie.udel.edu (Greg Hennessy) Subject: Status of Astro at 2/11:00 MET The outlook for getting science out of ASTRO is starting to look up. There was an estimate on the nature of the error in the star tracker. The star tracker is apparently more sensitive then expected, so more stars were being seen. Last night, at 01/23:00 Mission elapsed time, a patch was uploaded to the star tracker, and it immediatley passed its OPCAL, which is the calibration of the star tracker. The next object viewed was steady to 0.8 arcseconds. (The nominal value was 1.2 arc seconds, so the star tracker was better than expected.) The star tracker was fixed by a "patch" to the software. However, an additonal patch intended to clear up a related problem was applied to the wrong computer, which caused said computer to crash. This crash wiped out the patch, the program stored in permanent memory being incorrect. The patch had to be reloaded, and the calibration repeated, which was a loss of about 12 hours of data. The UV instruments are proceeding cautiously, but appears that scietific observations are being taken. The cameras are taking data from the LMC. BBXRT (Broad Band X-ray Telescope) was aligned yesterday, and achieved first light on the star Capella. There is no reason to expect that BBXRT will not start routine scientific data. The LMC is of intense interest to BBXRT, due to the presence of SuperNova 1987A. After the observation of the LMC, BBXRT will be observing the Crab NEbula. Other objects scheduled to be observed in this shift include Betlegeuse, The Cygnus Loop, The Perseus cluster, and M92. -- -Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA Internet: gsh7w@virginia.edu UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 90 03:25:55 GMT From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!mailer.cc.fsu.edu!prism!ccoprmd@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Matthew DeLuca) Subject: Re: Another Russian first In article <1990Dec4.030007.23891@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> sfn20715@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve "il-Manhous" Norton) writes: >How about : > First billion dollars wasted on broken telescopes -- Hubble It's only somewhat broken...and it can be repaired. > First spacecraft explosion to kill all on board due > to ground problems (faulty management) -- Challenger > First spacecraft launch delayed more than six months -- Columbia > >Any more? How about some Soviet firsts? First loss of life in spaceflight. Longest string of failed space probes in history. (Mars missions) Might I suggest that this thread is degenerating rapidly? Both nations have done some amazing things, and both have had catastrophic failures. Focusing on what is good, while rectifying that which is bad, will get you a lot farther. -- Matthew DeLuca Georgia Institute of Technology Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, Office of Information Technology for they are subtle, and quick to anger. Internet: ccoprmd@prism.gatech.edu ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 90 17:21:41 GMT From: censun1!lescsse!gamorris@uunet.uu.net (Gary A. Morris) Subject: STS-35 SAREX Status Houston 4 Dec 90 - 17:00 UTC There have been some success and some problems with SAREX (Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment) on STS-35. On the first inflight test of the bridge system (2 Dec 90 0316 UTC) we were unable to make any contact with Ron. We have confirmed that he had a weak voice contact sometime before the bridge test time with a station in Florida. On the second bridge schedule, which was to be a realtime connection between Ron, WA4SIR, and a classroom of children on school, we were unable to establish two way contact with Ron during the pass over Sao Paulo, Brazil. We did hear him for about 10 seconds of the 10 minute pass but couldn't establish conact. The most likely cause of the weak signal is the orbiter attitude during the contact. The SAREX antenna is in the right side window on the flight deck and at the time of the Sao Paulo pass the orbiter was tail down. The orbiter attitude is determined by needs of the primary payload. A second bridge system test was scheduled for a pass over Australia but Ron was unavailable at the time of the pass (4 Dec 90 0205 UTC) and no contact was made. Ron was also asked to attempt direct contact with W5RRR on orbit 30. This contact was successful, Roy Neil talk to Ron for about 7 minutes as he passed south of Houston. Ron said that he had heard us full quieting on the pass over Sao Paulo but we couldn't hear him. The orbiter attitude was good for this pass which confirms that the orbiter attitude is important. This pass had only a 6 degree maximum elevation in Houston, we believe elevation and range are not significant factors in making a contact with the shuttle. The amateur radio voice contact with the Mir space station is uncertain at this time. The first close conjunction (53 km) with Mir was to occur today (4 Dec 90) but the Mir crew is unavailable for radio contact due to the docking with the Soyuz and arrival of the new crew. The next close conjunction (57 km) is about 4 hours after the SAREX stow time on Dec 11. This contact can only take place if mission controllers approve delaying the stow of SAREX and the mission is extended the extra day. Vance Brand has been brushing up his Russian language skills which he learned for the Apollo-Soyuz mission. The packet robot has been operating on schedule (included below). As of this morning (4 Dec 90 1600 UTC) over 400 contacts have been made with amateur radio operators using packet. If you experience weak signals on the downlink, it is likely that the orbiter is in an unfavorable attitude for you. It can improve or degrade as the orbiter passes depending on which side of the orbiter is facing you. The attitude is constantly being changed to support the telescopes, so if you experience weak signals, try again on later orbits. Packet Robot Operating Schedule 03 Dec 90 03:19 - 16:19 UTC 04 Dec 90 03:19 - 15:44 UTC 05 Dec 90 03:19 - 15:34 UTC 06 Dec 90 03:19 - 15:49 UTC 07 Dec 90 03:19 - 15:34 UTC 08 Dec 90 03:19 - 15:44 UTC 09 Dec 90 03:19 - 15:34 UTC 10 Dec 90 03:18 - 15:04 UTC 11 Dec 90 02:49 - 14:34 UTC (only if mission is extended one extra day) The element set (below) is from JSC based on orbiter state vector, the NORAD data is different by about 7 seconds on equator crossing times. The JSC 2 line set has 00035 for the object number, whereas the NORAD set has 20980. If you had set JSC-012, there is really no need to update to this one, the difference is small (about 10 seconds). Keplerian Element Set STS-35 1 00035U 90337.58101852 .00031000 00000-0 22174-3 0 130 2 00035 28.4623 355.6417 0008957 294.4128 292.2542 15.72222895 229 Satellite: STS-35 Epoch time: 90337.58101852 (03 Dec 90 13:56:40.000 UTC) Element set: JSC-013 Inclination: 28.4623 deg Space Shuttle Flight STS-35 RA of node: 355.6417 deg Keplerian Elements Eccentricity: .0008957 from NASA Tracking Ephemeris Arg of perigee: 294.4128 deg Mean anomaly: 292.2542 deg W5RRR Mean motion: 15.72222896 rev/day NASA Johnson Space Center Decay rate: 3.10E-04 rev/day^2 Epoch rev: 22 -- Gary Morris Internet: lobster!lescsse!gamorris@menudo.uh.edu Lockheed (LESC), A22 UUCP: lobster!lescsse!gamorris Space Station Freedom NASAmail: gmorris/jsc/nasa Houston, Texas Internet: gmorris@nasamail.nasa.gov ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #638 *******************