CNES, the French space agency, has launched an inquiry into the deaths of two workers killed during preparations for a test of the new Ariane 5 booster on May 5.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that Luc Celle, a CNES employee, and Claude Dhainault, a CNES subcontractor, were asphyxiated when they inhaled air with an abnormally-high nitrogen content while inspecting an umbilical mast on the Ariane 5. The excess nitrogen has been traced to a faulty exchanger in the umbilical mast.
The four-member inquiry board, headed by Mathias Trotin, a former director of operations at CNES and Arianespace, was announced on May 10. Its purpose is to discover why the exchanger released nitrogen. Possible causes include a malfunction in the exchanger, a design flaw, or improper use. The committee is scheduled to submit its findings to CNES and ESA on May 18.
The impact of the accident on the Ariane 5 program remains unclear. The test area was sealed for several days during the investigation, however, Arianespace officials remain optimistic and have even announced a launch "guarantee" program for Ariane 5 customers (see article below). The accident and investigation should not impact plans for an Ariane 4 launch of an Intelsat satellite, scheduled for May 16.
Russian cosmonauts worked beyond the recommended limits for spacewalks when they spent over six hours moving equipment on the exterior of the Mir space station in preparation for the arrival of the Spektr laboratory module next week.
Mission commander Vladimir Dezhurov and flight engineer Gennady Strekalov spent six hours and 15 minutes outside Mir last Friday (May 12), moving a solar battery and cables. The spacewalk took an hour longer than planned and exceeded the recommended Russian limit for spacewalks by 15 minutes.
The spacewalk was the first of four that will be performed as part of preparations for the arrival of the Spektr module. The next spacewalk is scheduled for Wednesday May 17.
The Spektr module is scheduled to be launched from Baikonur on May 21. The module carries extra solar panels to improve the station's power supply, as well as advanced American biomedical research equipment to be used by American astronaut Norm Thagard during the remainder of his stay aboard Mir. Thagard did not take part in Friday's spacewalk.
McDonnell Douglas's DC-X returns to flight this week at White Sands, more than ten months after its last test was aborted by an explosion that damaged its aeroshell.
The first flight, scheduled for around May 16, will be similar to the aborted mission last June. The DC-X will rise 1,300 meters (4,300 feet), travel 350 meters (1,100 feet) downrange and 250 meters (825 feet) back uprange before landing.
There are an additional three to four tests planned for the DC-X. These tests will include flights to higher altitudes and testing of the "flip" maneuver required to move the spacecraft from the nose-first reentry attitude to the the tail-first landing orientation. The test sequence is expected to conclude in July.
The DC-X was last tested on 1994 June 27. On that test, an explosion took place which damaged the aeroshell but caused little internal damage. The explosion was traced to hydrogen gas that had pooled underneath the vehicle and ignited during launch.
McDonnell Douglas entered the heavy-lift launch market last week by announcing the development of the Delta III, an upgraded version of the Delta II, capable of placing up to 3,600 kg (8,000 lbs.) in geostationary orbit. At the same time, McDonnell Douglas announced it has firm contracts for at least ten launches on the new booster.
The Delta III will be based on the highly-successful Delta II, but will feature a cryogenic-fuel upper stage to be developed by Pratt & Whitney, Aerojet, or Rocketdyne. The Delta III will also feature larger fuel tanks and larger solid rocket motors. These changes will increase the booster's geostationary payload to 3,600 kg from the Delta II's current 1,850 kg (4,100 lbs.). First launch of the Delta III is scheduled for 1998.
Hughes Telecommunication and Space is the first customer for the new booster. It has agreed to buy ten launches, with options for an unspecified number of additional launches. Hughes will use these launches for its HS 601 communications satellites. The contract, including the options, is estimated to be worth $1.5 billion.
Arianespace, the French company that builds the Ariane series of launch vehicles, has made the unprecedented move of guaranteeing its new Ariane 5 booster, promising that any spacecraft that are lost due to launch failure will be reflown free of charge.
According to the plan, spacecraft lost due to an Ariane 5 launch failure would be reflown on a priority basis at no additional charge. The customer would still be responsible for the cost of the replacement satellite and insurance.
Arianespace officials hope that this will make their new launch vehicle more attractive to potential customers by making launch insurance less expensive. According to one analyst, this policy could save $8-10 million in relaunch premiums per launch.
A German corporation has reached an agreement with the Chinese Great Wall Industry Corporation to launch a European communications satellite on a Chinese booster in 1997, giving a needed lift to the sagging Chinese launch industry.
Daimler-Benz Aerospace, the main contractor of the satellite, said they chose the Long March 3C booster because of its cost and a lack of native European launch capacity. The launch, estimated to cost $50-60 million, is 15 percent cheaper than any other European or American offer. Daimler-Benz officials also stated that a lack of capacity on the Ariane boosters made them look elsewhere. The satellite will provide telephone and television service for Latin America.
The agreement is a vote of confidence in a launch program littered with launch failures. Earlier this year, a Long March 2E booster, carrying an American-built communications satellite, exploded after launch. The debris from the explosion landed in a village and killed six members of the same family. Two years before, a Long March booster launched another American-built communications satellite, only to have it be lost in space.
Russian plans to build a new launch facility in the Russian Far East that could replace the current launch facilities in Plesetsk and/or Baikonur were put on indefinite hold last week due to a lack of money.
Plans had been developed to convert the Svobodny-18 rocket base, 6,000 km (3,700 mi.) east of Moscow, into a new launch facility. The facility would initially be used to launch the new Angara-24 heavy-lift booster staring in the year 2000. With the freeze in place, the date has been pushed back to at least 2005.
Another cause for the freeze of the launch facility plans was the ratification of a lease for the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The lower house of the Russian parliament agreed last week to a lease that will pay Kazahkstan $115 million a year for 20 years. Russian officials have stated that they will continue to use the facility unless Kazahkstan tries to change the terms of the lease.
NASA Headquarters has barred a group of "renegade engineers" at the Marshall Space Flight Center from participating in the X-33 experimental reusable launch vehicle selection process, after the engineers sent a study of a particular option to companies involved in the competition.
The order, expressed in a memo from Jack Mansfield, the Associate Administrator for Space Access and Technology, to Marshall Director Porter Bridewell, prohibits a group of Marshall engineers who worked on a study of reusable winged launch vehicles from participating in the selection process. This move cam after the group distributed the results of the study, a 5-inch thick report, to competition participants.
The move is seen as attempt to improve NASA's credibility. NASA had previously announced that it would not allow any internal biases shape the development of the X-33 project. The release of the report was sharply criticized by many space activists, who saw NASA breaking its original promises. The engineers, however, claim that the report was just the first of a series looking at various reusable launch vehicle options.
Astronomers at the University of Wisconsin have provided a possible explanation for the rapid velocities of pulsars by showing that these stars expel jets of gas than can extend for up to 20 light years, propelling them across the cosmos and slowly altering their spins.
Hakki Ogleman and colleagues discovered a jet emanating from a pulsar 1,600 light years from Earth in the constellation Vela. They believe that the expulsion of gas that makes up the jet may be enough to speed pulsars up to 500 km per second (300 mi. per second). The jet may also be an explanation for the gradual slowing down of the spin of pulsars, if the jet carries away angular momentum from the pulsar.
The high speed of pulsars had previously been explained as a kick from the supernova explosions that create pulsars. Other have pointed out that the featured observed by the Wisconsin astronomers has yet to be independently confirmed as a jet, and that no other jet-like features have been seen in other pulsars.