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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #79

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 11 : Issue 79

Today's Topics:
              Galileo Update - 02/23/90
              What happened to Pegasus?
           Re:  New private home satellite network
           Re: space news from Jan 15 AW&ST
            * SpaceNews 26Feb90 *
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 Feb 90 04:09:01 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Galileo Update - 02/23/90


                  GALILEO
               MISSION STATUS REPORT
             FEBRUARY 23, 1990

     As of noon Friday (PST), February 23, 1990, the Galileo spacecraft is
43,558,340 miles from the Earth, 4,474,870 miles from Venus and is traveling
at a Heliocentric velocity of 90,700 miles per hour. Perihelion will occur on
February 25. Round trip light time is 7 minutes, 40 seconds. Galileo is in
cruise mode-dual spin with a spin rate of 3.15 rpm as measured by its star
scanner. The spacecraft's attitude sun point angle is at 1.9 degrees. A total
of 1746 real-time commands have been transmitted to Galileo sinced its launch
on October 18.

     The Venus Earth (VE-1) stored sequence became active on February 19, as
planned. This sequence controls spacecraft activities from February 19
through March 26.

     A total of four SITURNS were successfully performed without incident on
February 17, 19, 20 and 22. The SITURNS during this mission phase are nominally
planned to lead the sun by about 2.3 degrees.

     The telemetry downlink data rate was successfully configured to 40 bps
coded, as planned. It is pointed out that the available telemetry rate for all
activities between February 17 and March 6 will be at 40 bps. In fact, between
March 6 and March 26 (near the end of VE-1 sequence), the telemetry data rate
must further be reduced to 10 bps in order to maintain the required link Bit
Error Rate (BER) based on predicted telemetry link performance.

     The eighth RPM thruster "flushing" activity was successfully completed on
February 21. The activity "flushed" the Z, L and S thrusters only.  The
P-thrusters were not flushed since they are used to perform the SITURNS.
Unlike previous "flushing" activities, the thruster temperature profiles for
the Z, L and S thrusters were not available due to the low sample frequency
associated with the 40 bps downlink telemetry data rate. It is pointed out
that successful "flushing" activity was inferred from other spacecraft
measurements/events, including attitude control performance and thruster
counts.

     Telecommunication system elements characterization tests involving the
Command Detection Unit (CDU) and elements of the Radio Frequency Subsystem
(RFS) were successfully performed, as planned on February 21 and 22; no
anomalies or surprises were observed.

     Spacecraft temperatures/pressures are all well within acceptable ranges as
the spacecraft nears perihelion on February 25; no concerns for any hardware
have been identified.  The three fields and particles instruments (PWS, EPD
and PLS), which expressed some limited thermal concern, were powered off, as
planned, post-Venus Encounter and are expected to be thermally safe through
perihelion.

     Science memory readout (MRO) for the DDS, MAG and EUV instruments was
successfully performed, as planned. Periodic MROs allow selected cruise science
data to be returned to Earth expeditiously despite the present low telemetry
data rate capability.

     The AC/DC bus imbalance measurements have remained stable. The AC
imbalance measurement (48.75 volts) has indicated a "hard" short from the low
side to chassis for the last three days.  The DC imbalance measurement has
remained relatively stable varying between 21 and 21.3 volts. It is pointed
out that other power-related telemetry measurements (bus voltages, bus load
currents, shunt current) and subsystem engineering telemetry measurements are
as expected.


 Ron Baalke                       |    [e-mail]
 Jet Propulsion Lab  M/S 301-355  |    [e-mail]
 4800 Oak Grove Dr.               |
 Pasadena, CA 91109               |

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

Date: 24 Feb 90 16:23:57 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!ubvms![e-mail]
Subject: What happened to Pegasus?

Does anyone know what's been going on with the Pegasus launcher
by Orbital Sciences Corp. lately? Were'nt they supposed to launch
soon?

I imagine its been delayed; if it had launched we all would have heard.
But what's the holdup?

Thanks in advance.

                                 Craig Cole
                                 University at Buffalo

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

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 90 11:01:46 PST
From: [e-mail] (Peter Scott)
Subject: Re:  New private home satellite network

maytag!looking![e-mail]  (Brad Templeton) writes:

>NBC and some other cable/media companies are launching a home satellite
>network.  Private 18 inch dish which is easy to install, 102 channels,
>all digital, HDTV and more -- cost around $300/year, plus $250 for
>dish.
>[...]
>What if a private concern, based on some lax-law island, were to get
>together $300 million an launch one of these things?   They could start
>completely uncensored, unregulated TV -- assuming they got somebody
>(the Chinese?) to launch it.
>
>What would happen?  Would governments let it be?  Would they try to jam
>it?  Shoot it down?  Is there any sort of space law or space treaty that
>would govern something like this?

There's some precedent in the "pirate" radio stations that operated outside
the 3- (later, 12-) mile limit around the British coast starting in the
early sixties.  [The only music radio available in Britain was the BBC, which
aired about 30 minutes of popular music per week at a ridiculous hour; people
who wanted to listen to that kind of music had to tune into stations in
Luxembourg and the Netherlands.  Naturally, a demand sprang up...]

Despite suggestions to torpedo the ships (and despite numerous claims of
interference with emergency services, few of which were authentic), the
British government did not take direct action against the ships because
they were in international waters.  [There was an instance where the police
boarded a station on an ex-WWII fort in the Thames estuary as part of a murder
investigation, and a subsequent hearing saw some inventive testimony from
the government designed to bring the fort within territorial waters based on
low tide water levels.]  They did attempt to jam the ships, a largely useless
effort since a ship using a [in one case] 105kW transmitter at sea generated
a more powerful beam due to water reflection than did the 1MW jamming
transmitter on land... and the ships would change their frequencies regularly,
often hanging out close to BBC stations so that the government got complaints
from their listeners that the BBC stations were jammed too.

What they eventually did in 1967 was pass an outrageous law which made it
illegal for any British citizen to support the ships in any way (supply,
employment, advertising, you name it), and all but one ship closed down.
In order to keep going, their deejays were virtual fugitives, living mainly
in Spain, and the supply operations were highly covert, managed from the
Netherlands.   Advertising was bought by overseas offices of companies with UK
outlets.  In order to make a request, you had to write or call an office
in Spain.  There were instances of people being warned by the police for
displaying bumper stickers with the station's name on it and one man was
jailed for selling promotional merchandise.

All this suggests that while direct action against an illegal video
satellite is unlikely, there is an impressive arsenal that a government
could unleash on the ground to hamstring their operations.  I doubt that
the US government would go to such lengths, but the British government for one
is another story (do they still require a transmitter license for
cordless phones?)

Peter Scott ([e-mail])

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

Date: 23 Feb 90 18:47:41 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!uplherc!esunix!bambam![e-mail]  (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: space news from Jan 15 AW&ST

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Henry Spencer):

> [From Flight International, 3 Jan:]

> McDonnell Douglas reports imminent cost overruns on its USAF contract to
> launch Navstars on Deltas.  They're blaming it on half a dozen different
> things, which boil down to minor technical problems plus seriously
> optimistic cost estimates.  [Ah, those cheap expendables with their
> well-known, predictable costs.]

Hercules Inc. posted a $100 million loss this quarter. The first
losing quarter in 70 some odd years. The entire loss was the result of
mistakes made by the Aeorspace devision. Part of the loss can be
explained by the cost of blowing up a brand new solid propellant
mixing plant. But most of the loss is due to grossly underbidding the
fixed price contracts for the Titan IV and Delta II solid boosters.

After so many years of bidding for cost plus contracts they didn't
really know how to bid for a fixed price contract. They don't seem to
know what the real costs are. The actual loss by the Aerospace
division is said to excede $200 million.

Heads are reportedly bouncing all over Magna, Utah as Hercules Inc.
restructures the management of Hercules Aerospace. I've read that
Hercules stock dropped to it's lowest price in decades, reportedly
$30/share, or roughly $10/share below book value.

Even though Hercules has been working hard to get into the commercial
launch business with its Pegasus and Taurus launch vehicles and its
commercial participation in Titan IV and Delta II it is clear that the
change over from defense contractor to space entrepreneur is a long
and dangerous one.

            Bob P.
--
              Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
UUCP Address:  decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet

                      X: Tools, not rules.

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

Date: 24 Feb 90 02:04:15 GMT
From: att!tsdiag!ka2qhd![e-mail]  (John Magliacane)
Subject: * SpaceNews 26Feb90 *


Bulletin ID: SPC0226

                              =========
                              SpaceNews
                              =========

                       MONDAY FEBRUARY 26, 1990

SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, NJ, and is distributed weekly
around the world on UseNet and Amateur Packet Radio. It is available for
UNLIMITED distribution.


* SAREX-2 TESTING CONTINUES *
=============================
Last week, the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment #2 (SAREX-2) packet radio
station underwent extensive testing at the Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, AL according AMSAT Area Coordinator Ed Stluka (W4QAU).  This
testing was being perfomed in conjuction with the training of STS-35 Payload
Specialist Ron Parise (WA4SIR) in the use of the ASTRO-1 experiment which will
be primary payload on that shuttle mission.  The primary payload, ASTRO-1,
will be used to conduct a number of astronomical experiments.  During the
several days of testing this week, radio amateurs in the Huntsville area were
invited to connect to WA4SIR and to receive a QSO number.

This special packet radio station flying on STS-35 on May 9, 1990 will give
each radio amateur who connects to WA4SIR a QSO number confirming their
contact.  When the connecting station sends their QSL card in with this
contact number, they will receive back a beautiful QSL card commemorating this
HAM IN SPACE shuttle flight.  The SAREX-2 packet radio station consist of a
Motorola 2M FM H/T with 5 watts ouput, a Heathkit HK-21 TNC-2, and a GRiD
laptop computer that has a 40 MB hard disk drive to store the calls of all the
stations connecting to WA4SIR during the nine day mission.  The specially
written software which will be running the SAREX-2 packet station is designed
to allow for completely unattended operation and logging of the calls of all
connecting stations.  It will also prevent duplicate QSO numbers being sent!
Although no digipeating will be allowed through SAREX-2, connecting to this
packet station will be like any terrestrial packet contact.  Just use your
TNC along with your 2m tranceiver, and everything else is the same.  After
you have connected and received your QSL number from WA4SIR, on subsequent
orbits you can watch for the SAREX-2 message beacons being sent periodically.
The message beacons will contain information about the flight of STS-35 and
other interesting items.

Look for more information about the SAREX-2 mission in AMSAT News Service
(ANS) bulletins and on AMSAT HF/VHF nets in the next couple of months.  For
more specific information about the ASTRO-1 payload, contact the SPACELINK BBS
at [phone].

[Story via AMSAT-NA News Service]


* MICROSAT OBJECT NUMBERS *
===========================
The following are the corrected Object and Catalog numbers which apply to all
MICROSAT/UoSAT element sets after orbit #260:

SATELLITE      INT'L OBJECT        CATALOG
NAME           NUMBER              NUMBER

UO-14          90-05B              20437
UO-15          90-05C              20438
AO-16          90-05D              20439
DO-17          90-05E              20440
WO-18          90-05F              20441
LU-19          90-05G              20442


* OSCAR-11 NEWS *
=================
Here's an actual computer status information message received from OSCAR-11:

**UOSAT 2 COMPUTER STATUS INFORMATION**

FAD1 Operating System v2.0b
Today's date is 24 /2 /90 (Saturday)
Universal Time is 1 :46 :27
Auto Mode is selected

SPIN PERIOD IS - 278

Z  MAG firings = 0
+ SPIN firings = 33
- SPIN firings = 20
RAM Wash Pointer at D299
WOD commenced 24 /2 /90 at 0 :0 :10
with channels 10 ,11 ,19 ,29 ,
Last cmd was 109 TO 0 WITH DATA 0

Attitude control initiated, mode 1

Data collection in progress

Digitalker active


* FEEDBACK WELCOMED *
=====================
Feedback regarding SpaceNews can be directed to the editor (John) via any
of the following paths:

UUCP   : ucbvax!rutgers!petsd!tsdiag!ka2qhd!kd2bd
PACKET : KD2BD @ NN2Z (Neptune, New Jersey)

MAIL   : John A. Magliacane
         Department of Electronics Technology
         Brookdale Community College
         Newman Springs Road
         Lincroft, New Jersey 07738-1599
         U.S.A.



                 <<< Stay on course......Say YES to Morse! >>>



<eof>

--
AMPR : KD2BD @ NN2Z (Neptune, NJ)
UUCP : ucbvax!rutgers!petsd!tsdiag!ka2qhd!kd2bd
       "For every problem, there is one solution which is simple,
       neat and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken

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

End of SPACE Digest V11 #79
*******************