Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V12_6/V12_638.TXT

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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:

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 6 Dec 90 03:37:54 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (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![e-mail]  (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:      [e-mail]
 UUCP:        ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 90 18:56:37 GMT
From: swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NASA's Manned/Unmanned Track Record (Re: Another Russian first)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (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| [e-mail]   utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 90 18:17:40 GMT
From: haven!uvaarpa!murdoch![e-mail]  (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:      [e-mail]
 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![e-mail]  (Matthew DeLuca)
Subject: Re: Another Russian first

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (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: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 90 17:21:41 GMT
From: censun1!lescsse![e-mail]  (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![e-mail]
Lockheed (LESC), A22           UUCP:     lobster!lescsse!gamorris
Space Station Freedom          NASAmail: gmorris/jsc/nasa
Houston, Texas                 Internet: [e-mail]

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V12 #638
*******************