NASA officials have confirmed the basic mission profile and technology plan for the first launch in the agency's New Millennium program and selected the mission's primary industrial partner and its team leader.
The first of three deep space missions to be flown by the year 2000 under the New Millennium technology validation effort will feature a 1998 launch of a small spacecraft destined for a flyby of an asteroid and a comet.
Spectrum Astro, Inc., of Gilbert, AZ, has been selected as the primary industrial partner on the first mission team, which will be led by David Lehman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA. Lehman most recently served as technical manager of the attitude and information management subsystem on the Mars Pathfinder, a NASA Discovery program mission due for launch in December 1996.
Final decisions on the details of the first New Millennium mission -- such as its exact launch date and the target asteroid and comet to be visited -- will be made following several weeks of intense systems design work by the mission team, due to begin in early October.
The proposed 220-pound spacecraft will demonstrate a variety of advanced technologies that help enable many ambitious deep space and Earth-orbiting missions envisioned by NASA for flight early in the next century. The spacecraft also will be the first to rely on solar electric propulsion for its main source of thrust, rather than conventional solid or liquid propellant-based systems.
Technologies likely to be demonstrated on this first flight include a miniaturized deep space antenna and related telecommunications equipment, advanced solar arrays and lithium ion spacecraft batteries, and low-mass spacecraft structures.
The spacecraft's science instrument payload will include a miniaturized imaging spectrometer that will make chemical maps of the target asteroid and comet. New mission operations techniques will give the spacecraft independent decision-making abilities that are unprecedented for such a deep space mission.
"These technologies represent significant leaps over the existing state of the art for deep space vehicles," said Kane Casani, New Millennium program manager at the JPL. "We'll have a very capable yet very advanced flight computer as well as a prototype multispectral science instrument that is at most 1/10th of the mass of similar instruments on the Voyager probes. The autonomous navigation capabilities will deliver performance equivalent to sailing a ship across the Atlantic Ocean hands-free while arriving at the port in Europe a few steps away from the dock."
The propulsion-related technology for the mission is currently under development by two separate programs run by NASA and the U.S. Air Force Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The first New Millennium spacecraft will serve as the host for this hardware.
Thrust during the mission will be generated by one 11.8-inch diameter "ion-drive" thruster, which expels a high-velocity beam of xenon gas from the spacecraft that has been ionized using the electricity produced by the solar arrays. Ion-drive systems are much more efficient than chemical propulsion systems, which typically require two or more chemical propellants for fuel and oxidizer. Smaller versions of such thrusters have been used occasionally on Earth-orbiting satellites for adjusting spacecraft attitude or executing small orbit changes, but no space vehicle has yet employed solar electric propulsion as its primary means of thrust.
"This idea has been around for decades, and the dramatic benefits of ion propulsion for a wide variety of deep space missions are well known, but NASA science mission managers have never felt that the technology was mature enough to be used for the first time on their mission," Casani said. "With important contributions from other technology development programs, New Millennium will take on this challenge and bring full-scale solar electric propulsion out of the lab and into space once and for all."
Depending on the launch date, the primary asteroid and comet flyby mission will last 12 to 18 months. "Spacecraft health permitting, an extended mission of one to two years should be possible, allowing the spacecraft to pass by one or more additional small bodies in the solar system," said Rex Ridenoure, New Millennium program architect at JPL.
Citing a number of malfunctions in recent tests, European Space Agency officials announced September 26 that the first launch of their new Ariane 5 booster had been delayed until at least April 1996.
A board of inquiry, looking into a recent incident in a test of a Vulcain cryogenic rocket, found problems with a high-pressure oil system which needs to be corrected. Engineers have also spent time repairing leaks in oxygen and hydrogen lines in the booster.
The heavy-lift booster, designed to compete with the American Titan 4 and the Russian Proton, was scheduled for its first launch in late 1995. The delay in the first launch has also delayed the second launch until September 1996.
CNES, the French space agency, is in charge of the booster project. An estimated $5 billion has been spent on the program to date.
An Ariane 42L booster launched an AT&T communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit September 23, replacing a satellite lost after launch a year ago.
The TELSTAR 402R satellite, built by Lockheed Martin Astro Space, successfully reached orbit. The 3,400-kg (7,500-lb) satellite will provide voice, data, and video communications across North America and the Caribbean in conjunction with two other satellites.
The satellite replaces TELSTAR 402, which was lost shortly after launch last September. That satellite apparently exploded shortly after separating from the booster.
After nearly 22 years of exploration to the limits of the solar system, the Pioneer 11 spacecraft reached the end of its extended mission September 30 when NASA ended daily communications with the spaceraft.
A lack of power generated by the spacecraft's decaying radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) is the cause for the end of communications. The spacecraft no longer has enough power to run scientific instruments and it transmitter. NASA controllers will continue to monitor the spacecraft using the Deep Space Network for about two hours ever two to four weeks. The spacecraft is expected to fall completely silent by the end of 1996.
Pioneer 11 was the first spacecraft to visit the planet Saturn. The spacecraft flew within 21,000 km (13,000 mi) of Saturn's cloud tops in 1979. Pioneer 11 was also the second spacecraft to fly past Jupiter. Its Decemebr 1974 visit, which brought it within 42,500 km (26,600 mi) of Jupiter's cloudtops, came one year after Pioneer 10 flew by the planet.
"Americans should remember Pioneer 11 as a great achievement," Dan Goldin, NASA dministrator, said. "Pioneer 11 is what NASA is all about -- exploration beyond the frontier."
The Kuiper Airborne Observatory, an airplane equipped with an infrared telescope that helped revolutionize infrared astronomy over the last 20 years, flew its final flight September 29.
The converted C-141 transport aircraft, which is equipped with a 0.9-meter (36-inch) telescope in a special mounting, is being retired despite still being in good condition. The shutdown is for financial reasons, as NASA will save $10 million over the next five years as its replacement observatory, SOFIA, is built.
SOFIA, or the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy) is a U.S.-German joint project. SOFIA will be a 747 jumbo jet with a 2.5-meter (100-inch) telescope installed in its side. Funding for the project is expected to begin in the fiscal year 1996 NASA budget, with completion planned for the year 2000.
The KAO, named after pioneer astronomer Gerard Kuiper, has been flying since May 1975. Flying at above 12,000 meters (40,000 feet), the KAO is able to get above most of the atmosphere's infrared-absorbing water vapor. The KAO was used in 1977 when astronomers discovered rings around Uranus, and in 1988 when an atmosphere was discovered on Pluto. The KAO was also used extensively in the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts last year.
The Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), a giant building used to assemble Saturn 5s during the Apollo program and mate shuttle orbiters to fuel tanks and boosters today, harbored a different kind of aerospace vehicle one Saturday in mid-September.
A 60-meter (200-foot) helium balloon, designed for a round-the-world trip, was inflated in the VAB during a test. NASA loaned the VAB to a Dutch balloonist, Henk Brink, to check the balloon for leaks before flight.
NASA donated the use of the building after Brink failed to find another building large enough to inflate his 9,500-kg (21,000-lb) balloon. Brink plans to start his six- to twelve-day journey from the Netherlands sometime after November 1.
"Why should we waste money on space while people are starving on Earth?"
Do you have an answer? A discussion of all the myriad economic benefits that will come from space travel and exploration won't make a dent is such a simplistic anti-space sentiment. Pointing out all the benefits (read spin-offs) that have come from the space program to date will do no good either. In fact, spin offs, no matter their economic worth, are countered by the observation of many anti-space people, "Well, if we had researched that directly, that benefit could have come about more directly and cheaper." On the face of it, that is a very valid counter argument, for virtually every spin off from space research that has occurred would have come about cheaper and faster if there had been directed research to go after the particular benefit or spin off. The mere fact that such directed research would not have taken place doesn't mean much; it could have.
Most anti-space arguments are broad and general, and somewhat philosophical in nature, as the above. Economics, spin offs, and other such materialistic arguments can't sway someone who believes that money is being wasted in space while people are starving on Earth.
Civilization will collapse and the human race will become extinct if we don't expand into space. That bears repeating, so, CIVILIZATION WILL COLLAPSE AND THE HUMAN RACE WILL BECOME EXTINCT IF WE DON'T EXPAND INTO SPACE. Shout it out; a pro-space argument cannot get much more powerful than that, and many anti- space advocates provide us with supporting arguments.
To fully delve into this line of reasoning, you first need to be familiar with two related items: Drake's Equation (Greenbank Equation in Britannica) and The Fermi Paradox. Drake's Equation is a scientific way of guessing how many intelligent civilizations might exist in a particular galaxy at any one time. (I use the word "guessing" rather than "estimating", because estimating implies that different groups of people using the same starting point ought come up with answers that are close in magnitude. Such is not the case here.) The Fermi Paradox results from believing that Drake's Equation provides a solution that at any one time for a galaxy is greater then or equal to one. If even one predecessor civilization more than five or so million years older then our own had developed space travel, there would (or should) not only be abundant evidence of them in the skies, but they would (or should) physically be here by now. They are not here. That's the crux of The Fermi Paradox. If you believe that intelligent life is common, then you run into the difficult problem of trying to explain where the extraterrestrials are. Whereas the absence of evidence isn't usually evidence, the absence of evidence in this case where there should be overwhelming presence of evidence is at the least, worrisome.
If you head towards the SETI section of your local library and start researching this area, you'll find that scientists of all stripes fall into two general groups regarding ET's- Those who believe that life is common and that intelligence naturally arises from life, and therefore, ET civilizations are common, and those who believe that intelligence is so exceedingly unlikely that there may even be fewer then one intelligent species per galaxy per universe lifetime. There really is no middle ground; life, and intelligent life, is either common, or very, very rare. Those who believe that intelligent life is common concoct all sorts of explanation, ranging from the truly bizarre zoo hypothesis, in which we, the human race, are a nature preserve to be left in its natural wild state, to the only slightly bizarre, where intelligence and technology are decoupled, and intelligence without technology is postulated.
In all the readings I have recently done on the subject, both camps failed to mention something that is commonly believed and talked about in the pro-space movement, that I think was first put into print by Robert Heinlein: "A civilization or species that fails to develop space travel becomes extinct." This is a self-evident and easy to prove axiom. What is not so evident, and a thought that I haven't seen before in print is this: a technological civilization on the verge of expanding into space is close to the point where it runs out of resources on its home planet. If it runs out of resources before establishing itself in space, the civilization collapses, never rises to the same heights, and soon thereafter becomes extinct.
Civilization is now close to the point of collapse. How close is open to debate. Even if you don't believe this yourself, most national and international leaders believe this, and their actions are shaped by their beliefs. In fact, the coming collapse of civilization is required reading in most school systems. Limits to Growth is the original tract outlining future chaos. The Population Bomb and The Population Explosion outline the same doomsday scenario of the collapse of technological civilization. Anything by the widely-quoted-in-the-press-as-a-scientific-expert Jeremy Rifkin contributes to this belief. Our very own vice-president's book, Earth in the Balance, and all of its 100+ listed references all outline the coming collapse. Not one of these books outlines an optimistic future in which space travel has become routine, In fact, they all offer the same prescription, one which would doom space travel for the human race forever. Reduce the world's population, immediately. Reduce the first world's standard of living, immediately. Create a one world government, even if you call it something else. Deindustrialize, and return to a more balanced way of living with Gaia, the Earth Mother. If you don't believe that these are the universal panaceas, read the books. Most of our political leaders have. They have not read High Frontier, nor are they familiar with terms like single stage to orbit, solar power satellites, or generation ships.
The doomsday argument: space travel or extinction. It may sound extreme, but it is really the only choice of futures. Furthermore, we have only a limited amount of time left to achieve space travel. Extinction is the default choice. If the human race does not actively pursue space development in the near future, the choice of extinction has been made. I have run this argument through several dozen people who are not rabid pro-space advocates like me. They have all understood it; it is a simple argument. None have found serious fault in it; there is none.
If you have read this far and remain unconvinced, educate yourself. Read Al Gore's treatise, and some of its references to see the future being planned for us. Then head towards the SETI section of your local library and read up on Drake's Equation and the Fermi Paradox. The conclusions are obvious, and waiting to be drawn. Let us hope we can convince the rest of the human race before civilization collapses. Monday morning quarterbacking on an issue this big isn't going to achieve a happy future for the human race, and we are not going to get a second chance.
There are those so impatient to return to the Moon that they disvalue any further robotic missions designed to reveal where the richest and most accessible resources lie as "money sink distractions". Yet, to reduce the chances of the first human outpost becoming a ghost town in unseemly short order, the careful selection of a site especially capable of supporting viable economic activity is hardly unimportant. Rather it is impatience that needs to be dismissed. Impatience always backfires. That's a cosmic law. There is no point in deliberately blindfolding ourselves and playing "pin the tail on the donkey" with a Moon map as some apparently want to do.
At the same time, it is possible to argue that any good site will do to demonstrate the viability of a permanent human presence on the Moon. The task of such a beachhead is to survive the days and nights, the heat and the cold, the radiation and solar storms and micrometeorite rain, the absence of a biosphere rich in organics and volatiles. Next the aim is to begin demonstrating an ability to use the resources that are common on the Moon to provide some continuing support and a respectable part of the wherewithal to expand.
The Moon's major resources (oxygen, silicon, iron, aluminum, calcium, titanium, and magnesium) are distributed rather homogeneously (relative to their very uneven redistribution on Earth). So, the argument goes, we can always pick a second more advantageous site to begin industrial settlement in earnest. Indeed, one might argue, the lessons learned in the initial demonstrator outpost might warrant a fresh start elsewhere, rather than expand upon the trial and error dawn base.
While there is certainly merit to this argument, it is also likely that whether those planning and going on to deploy the first base care or not, additional robotic resource-finding missions are likely to be flown before the first outpost can be erected. In that case, it would be foolish not to take into consideration the knowledge those probes supply.
Some general considerations can be made now. Both from a resource using and a tourist/film-making point of view, it would be stupid to locate the outpost either in the middle of crater-pocked highland terrain, or in the middle of the much flatter maria terrain - when by picking a "coastal" site the mineral and scenic diversity of both (highland and "sea") are present. Happily, innumerable sites fit this requirement.
If early industrial activity beyond oxygen extraction is likely to center on iron as the easiest element to extract and produce, we already have fair evidence of extensive areas that fit the bill. We'd be suicidally foolish to locate elsewhere.
Another point of convergence is maximizing public interest and awareness. This should be important both to those who would like to see a government moonbase (in the mold of Antarctica's McMurdo Sound) and those who would like to see a civilian commercial outpost (like most every for real burg on Earth). One sure way of doing this is to locate the base in an area that can easily be identified by the trained naked eye, or at least in binoculars. Perhaps others in the habit of studying the Moon with the naked eye might not concur, but the feature I find easiest to locate at all phases of the Moon visible in early to middle night hours is the Sea of Crises, Mare Crisium, to the north east of center. This oval Mare, the size of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan together, is clearly distinct from the "chain of seas" that run into each other: Fertility, Tranquility, Serenity, Rains, the Ocean of Storms, etc. I am aware of no one else who is partial to Crisium. Other proposed locations in Fertility, Tranquility, Serenity, Imbrium, the crater Alphonsus etc. can be picked out by the trained eye easily enough in binoculars, but that makes them unidentifiable for the masses. Anyone can learn to spot Crisium immediately. Somewhere along the shore of Mare Crisium, along the highlands separating it from Mare Tranquilitatis or Mare Fecunditatis could make a fair site. Of course, this is only one consideration and must be weighed along with others. Daytime naked eye identifiability is not the only PR trick that promises to build public awareness. A nighttime beacon near the outpost, beaming enough lumens earthward to be clearly picked out, would certainly command much more attention. This would suggest placing the outpost in a part of the Moon that is usually not illuminated when the Moon is above the horizon in early evening hours - in other words, well into the western hemisphere (coastal/shore areas of western Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms, or in the Aristarchus area for example). In contrast, a beacon in any of the eastern seas (Tranquility, Fertility, Crisium, etc.) would not be visible until the waning (post full) Moon that rises later in the evening and would be noticed by far fewer people.
On Earth we distinguish between improved and unimproved sites. The later lack electrical and water utility access. But even unimproved sites on Earth have atmosphere and access to at least some rain. No site on the Moon has as much, every lunar site being radically unimproved.
Yet some sites have assets, beyond minerals, that other sites do not, such as appreciable part-time (and rarely, full time) shade. This can be important in planning thermal equilibrium maintenance with the placement of heat rejecting radiators etc. Rille walls and crater walls and escarpments all provide part time shade depending on the local path of the Sun across the sky. In general such minimally improved sites are scattered everywhere, but are the more densely located the nearer to the poles where the maximum elevation of the Sun over the equatorward horizon is lower. This would seem to directly compete with the landing/take off economy of equatorial sites. But keep in mind, with the Moon's lethargic rate of rotation, the tauted desirability of equatorial sites is grossly exaggerated.
More significant an asset than shade is true "lee" vacuum, where there are surfaces never exposed to the lunar sky, and thus always protected from cosmic radiation, solar ultra-violet, solar storms, and the micrometeorite rain as well as wild day-night sunshine-shade temperature swings. Such areas will be ideal for warehousing and garage space and unpressurized industrial op erations. They exist underground.
The Moon has no limestone caves made by running and dripping water. But it does have lavatubes on the order of many tens of meters wide and high, many tens of kilometers long. These substantial lee voids are currently known only from indirect, yet indisputable evidence. Winding valleys, aka sinuous rilles, are a related feature, made from rivers of very fluid lava. Many rille valleys have bridged sections that suggests the visible valleys are near-surface lava tubes with collapsed roofs and that the "bridges" are intact tube sections. Elsewhere we see winding chains of rimless craters that can only be collapse pits where parts of a largely intact lava tube below have fallen in. The inference is that elsewhere, there are wholly uncollapsed lavatubes. As the mare basin-filling lava sheets were laid down in distinct episodes with lava tubes likely forming in each layer, there may be many intact lavatubes well below the surface layers in some lunar seas.
Where are these lavatubes and their "lee vacuum" to be found? In the maria, mostly near coastal areas! While we are a long way from identifying all such features, we can locate a base in a coastal region with partially collapsed rilles in the likelihood of finding usable intact tube sections nearby.
Quite a different consideration is ease of surface transport between a base site and other major areas of the Moon with comparable assets. A coastal site on one of the "chain" of mare basins on the Nearside seems best (leaving out Crisium and other highland-locked seas). On Earth, some locations seem born to host major towns. To give a few examples, straights and narrows (Singapore, Detroit), major river confluences (St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Wuhan), major harbors (San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, New York), lakeheads (Duluth), lake ends (Buffalo) and interlake constrictions (Niagara Falls), places where water routes and overland routes converge (Chicago), etc.
Now on the Moon, we have no bodies of water or waterways. But we do have a chain of Seas or maria across which the going is easier -- at least in general. Here and there on the maria, lava flow front scarps and rilles and occasional craters block arrow-straight travel, forcing bypasses. Places where such obstacle negotiation becomes easier recommend themselves as strategic sites. Coastal highland promontories and headlands (e.g. the cusps of Sinus Iridium in NW Mare Imbrium) are also route narrowing spots. There are "straights" and channels through which traffic must move, like the Alpine Valley that links northern Mare Imbrium and Mare Frigoris.
Craters with breached walls have interior assets more easily accessible than those of others. Passes through scarps and mountain chains also lure the town planners. Similarly, if highland-locked seas seem to include otherwise desirable townsites, there will be spots along their coasts from which a route through adjoining highland areas may be relatively easier to negotiate. Such spots too would claim attention.
One site is not "just as good as" any other -- except to one grossly unfamiliar with the Moon. We could know more than we know today before making a final selection. But if we carefully weigh all we now know about variously advantaged locations, we can pick a good site viable long term, even if the main thrust of industrial lunar activity occurs elsewhere.
It is perhaps decades too early to tell whether some twist in lunar development will add a strong tilt to this or that location, perhaps even despite a low score on the test points above. A "go" for lunar solar power arrays on the east & west equatorial limbs would be one such all-bets-off eventuality.
Eventually there are sure to be a good plurality of developing settlement sites around the Moon. Our point then, is not to be sure to pick the very best site for the first outpost, but just to pick a site good enough to remain actively occupied well into the future. We need to take the task seriously, but not so seriously that we lose sleep agonizing over it.
SETIQuest Magazine Volume 1, Number 4 is now available. SETIQuest is the publication of SETI and bioastronomy research. Subscription information follows.
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SETIQuest Vol. 1, No. 1 is available for FREE by sending your *postal* address to the following net address: sqinqnet@pixelacres.mv.com. It contains subscription information.
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The results of the NSS Board of Director's election are as follows. The top eight at-large seats are winners. Congratulations to all candidates!
David Criswell 1000* Charles Divine 232 Michael Fulda 308 Bill Gardiner 56 Mark Hopkins 983* Max Hunter 484 Kirby Ikin 785* Hans Mark 541 Karen Mermel 446 Fred Ordway 622* Chris Peterson 829* Majel Roddenberry 1078* Lauri Rohn 720* Jim Spellman 255 Bill Weigle 249 Annette Wood 350 Greg Worden 194 Bob Zubrin 1087*
Karen Savage 120* Michael Wallis 66
Marianne Dyson 82* Henry Vanderbilt 53
Chuck Schlemm 166*
Bennett Rutledge 200*
Our September lecture was given by Boston University professor Chip Cohen, author of Gravity Lens and Mysteries of the Milky Way. His topic was "The Frontiers of SETI."
Professor Cohen began his talk with a discussion of the problems inherent in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and the big question: is there life in the universe?
His answer represented a statistical best guess. If there are 100 billion galaxies in the universe, and each of those have 100 billion stars, then we can estimate that the universe has 10 (to the 22nd power) stars. If one assumes pessimistically that only 1 star in 10 billion has life, then that still leaves 1 trillion stars in the universe with life... But we mean intelligent life, right? Chip Cohen sketched out Drake's Equation to show that number could dwindle, when one began multiplying the probabilities of stars with life, times those stars with planets, times those planets that support life, times the probability that life was intelligent. With such initial tough odds for success, SETI is not an endeavor for the faint at heart.
In addition to acknowledging that the number of planets with intelligent life is not large, Professor Cohen also talked about the limitation of our own technology to search across the heavens to find that intelligence. At this point, we can only pick up the strongest of signals, which limits our reception to civilizations with technology to send very strong signals, equal to our output or better.
One note: any signal we do receive will be thousands of years old, at least. If we choose to respond, it will be many thousands of years before it is received.
Extraterrestrials signalling intentionally would encounter the same atmospheric 'noise' as we do, and would probably figure out that a band-width of 1/10 hertz and a frequency of 1-10 gigahertz has the least interference. This still leaves us with a wide array of frequencies to monitor - probably the biggest problem in SETI.
Not just one to sit around and talk about the problems, Chip Cohen showed us an amazing, one-inch fractal antenna that he has designed. It augers well for SETI reception as well as the cellular phone world.
Currently, Paul Horowitz's "Beta Project" is doing some SETI work in Harvard, Massachusetts using an 84-foot dish connected to computers with custom, sophisticated array processors. The "Project Phoenix" migrated from receiver to receiver, just finishing up 6 months of search work using Australian dishes. At one point, their staff were investigating 250+ objects (stars, mostly) in the Large Magellanic cloud, but nothing was found.
One of the problems in false signals is that some of the signals come from us, distorted by a thin plasma, to appear as incoming transmissions. These can be identified by a broadened signal (up to 2 Mhz) that fades (multipath). The hardware-intensive solution to avoid these "red herrings" is to search for multiple frequencies at once. Work done in the field currently is comparing the monchromatic multipath vs. the polychromatic multipath approach.
Funding and hardware technology are the main impediments to SETI-work today. Only the Beta Project and Project Phoenix are operating today, with no new projects on the horizon.
This is a series of comic tragedies caused by poor communications, lack of knowledge, and the need of firm direction by NASA, which ended in a farce. I will let the audience decide if it was a tragedy, or a comedy. When I worked on it, I found it to be humorous.
Speaker to be determined
Bruce Mattson, the Flight Director at the Challenger Learning Center at Framingham State College, will give a presentation. More information on the subject of his presentation will be provided in a future issue of SpaceViews.
David Kang, who has developed the "MITy" miniature autonomous rovers, will discuss and (logistics permitting) provide demonstrations of current work in robotics will applications to space exploration.
PASA meets regularly for a business luncheon and formal meeting from 1-3 pm, the third Saturday of every month at Smart Alex Restaurant, Sheraton University City, 35th & Chestnut. 2 hours of free parking with validation.
N.B., Oct. 10 and Oct. 21 meetings rescheduled.
Scheduled activities: Sat., Oct. 14, formal meeting. Wed., Oct. 25, 6-8 pm, informal dinner meeting. Wed., Nov. 8, 7:30-8:30 pm, Jim Chestek/Don Cox presentations (see details elsewhere). Fri-Sun., Nov. 17-19, Philcon (exhibit & presentations). Sat., Dec. 2, trip to Franklin Institute. Call Michelle for details.
September 16th meeting: Jim Chestek gave a Cheap Access to Space (CATS)report on NASA budget, and recommended writing your Congresscritters re. support for two versions of X-33 for a fly-off. Hank Smith gave a Science Fiction report on Philcon, including a call for presentations. There will be no PASA party at Philcon this year.
Michelle Baker discussed the planned presentations by Jim Chestek on CATS and Don Cox on Space Colonization. The presentations will be on Wed., Nov. 8 from 7:30-8:30 pm at the Camden Co. Library in Voorhees NJ, across from the Echelon Mall. Mitch Gordon gave an NSS report on the latest Inside NSS publication.
Oscar Howard Harris gave a report on the Temple Science Fair. He and Mike Fisher Plan to judge the student entries this year.
The C.I.S. manned space station Mir with Mir-20 (call sign "Uran") cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko, Sergei Avdeyev and Thomas (DF4TR / DP0MIR) Reiter and will be appearing in the mid-western US pre-dawn skies September 20th to October 10th. and then re-appearing in the evening skies October 15th to November 6th, 1995.
Amateur radio operators can log into the Mir "Packet" (R0MIR-1) BBS on 145.550 simplex and 437.775 downlink / 435.775 uplink MHz. The cosmonauts also use the frequencies 145.200, 145.550, 145.800 145.850 to talk with amateur radio operators on the ground during their off-hours. The 70 cm equipment, SAFEX II, will be installed during the mission. It is capable of FM voice and FSK 9600 Baud packet modes on 437.925, 437.950, and 437.975 MHz
For exact times and locations to see the space station over your backyard call MN MIRWATCH Coordinator Ben Huset at (612) 639-9109. This info is also available on the MN SFS computer BBS at (612) 459-0892 (300-14,400 baud).
Look for MIRWATCH and other great space stuff on my web page at http://www.skypoint.com/members/benhuset
Here are some clips from the EUROMIR '95 web pages...
The launch of the Russian SOYUZ spacecraft, carrying the European (German) Astronaut Thomas Reiter and two Russian Cosmonauts (Yury Gidzenko and Sergei Avdeev) to the MIR Station has occurred on the third of September 1995.
The docking to the MIR Station complex was on the 5th of September and the contact between the two spacecraft occurred at 12:29:54 CET, the crew has opened the hatch at 13:01:12 CET and the crew of SOYUZ TM 22 and MIR joined in orbit. Thomas Reiter was first followed by commander Gidzewnko and Engineer Avdeev. Presents were exchanged. Thomas brought an ESA Flag and the EuroMir 95 decal. The crew then staged for a video conference with the control center.
A day on-board MIR usually starts at 08:00 ZUP time (SCET+1) when the crew is woken up by a alarm clock. After a period for checkout of the MIR systems, the crew then has time allocated for their morning toilet, followed by breakfast. This time is sometimes overlaid by experiments involving the human body as a subject.
Depending on the actual orbit of the station, there are ground contacts to various Russian ground stations (and sometimes relay-satellites). These contacts are used to exchange verbal information between the ground personal and the crew, including information's about their medical status as well as personal matters and in majority information about the experiments to be set up or are presently conducted.
The working day (the crew nominally works 5 days per week and has two weekend days for free disposal) is then filled by experiments, station maintenance and physical exercise. Lunch is scheduled for mid-day and the dinner is usually around 20:00.
After dinner the crew has time for personal disposal and the night (sleep) on-board starts at 23.00.
Here are some upcoming events aboard Mir:
Saturday October 7th, "Space: fiction and real". During the Space Festival taking place at Disneyland Paris, over 500 children from all ESA member states and Russia will spend a morning at a "space class" with specialists from the worlds of space and fiction, culminating in a live link-up with the crew on board Mir.
Friday October 20, 1995 "EVA day by the ESA astronaut" Beginning at 13:00 hrs Moscow time, with a planned duration of 5 hours.
Thursday November 2, 1995 "Launch of STS-74 " at 11:25am EST docking at Mir 3 days later.
Thursday November 9 "Art & education" Twenty works of art selected after a worldwide contest (Ars ad Astra project) will be 'exhibited' both in the Mir station and at the Euro Space Center in Belgium, from where a live link and discussion with the crew will be organized for European children accompanied by some of the artists on the theme "Space and Humanity".
Tuesday January 16, 1996 "Landing Mir-20" (13:36 hrs Kazakhstan time)
SOYUZ TM-21 LANDS: The crew of the 19th Main Expedition to MIR, Solovyov and Budarin, made a safe landing in Kazakhstan, 302 KM northeast of Arkalyk on September 11, 1995 at 06:52 UTC. The Soyuz TM-21 came down "far away from the aiming point". The rescue parties found the crew in excellent condition. I have yet to hear as to why they came down off course.
The STS-69 mission was successfully completed on Sep 18.
The Wake Shield Facility carried out its free flight from Endeavour from Sep 11 to Sep 14. The WSF satellite overheated and was placed in safemode at 1200 UTC on Sep 12 but was reactivated at 0800 UT on Sep 13. Four of the thin film high-vacuum manufacturing experiments were completed during the flight.
By 1230 UTC on Sep 14 Endeavour completed its rendezvous with WSF and began a series of experiments to study the contaminating effect of thruster firings on the satellite. At around 1330 UTC the Orbiter began the approach to WSF. It was grappled by the RMS arm at 1359 UTC on Sep 14 and was then reberthed on the carrier at 1518 UTC. The orbit was lowered later that day to 338 x 346 km. WSF was unberthed again from around 0700 to 1200 UTC and maneuvered around the cargo bay to measure the electric field in the vicinity of the Orbiter.
On Sep 16 at around 0820 UTC Voss and Gernhardt began a 6h 46m spacewalk to evaluate procedures and hardware for Space Station assembly. The astronauts worked at the task board on the starboard side of Bay 3, testing out foot restraints and assembling connectors; and flew at the end of the robot arm in cold conditions to check modifications to the spacesuit for cold weather conditions. The airlock was repressurized at 1502 UTC.
Endeavour returned to Earth on Sep 18 with a deorbit burn at 1035 UTC. Main gear touchdown was at 1137:56 UTC on runway 33 at Kennedy Space Center; wheels stop was at 1138:52. Mission duration from launch to main gear touchdown was 10 days 20 hr 28 min 56 s. Total flight time for OV-105 Endeavour over 9 flights is 2255h 21m.
The external tank for STS-74 was connected to the solid rocket boosters on Sep 11. Examination of the STS-69 solid rocket boosters confirms that the joint repair was successful; no erosion was seen. The next Shuttle launch is mission STS-73 with orbiter Columbia, due on Sep 28.
The EO-20/Euromir-95 crew of Gidzenko, Avdeev and Reiter remain aboard the Mir complex. Next major events are the launch of the Progress M-29 supply ship and a spacewalk on Oct 20.
Kosmos-2319 is now in geostationary orbit at 80 deg E. The slot has been used by both military communications and early warning satellites; Kosmos-2319 may be a Geizer communications satellite.
Longitudes of Kosmos satellites operating in GEO:
JCSAT 3 has lowered its orbit to geostationary. On Sep 10 it was in a 35718 x 42951 km x 0.25 deg orbit; by Sep 14 it was in a 35704 x 35921 km x 0.1 deg orbit at 128.2 E drifting 0.4 deg W per day. On Sep 11, N-Star a was at 132.0E; the Mugunghwa-ho (Koreasat) satellite is on station at 116.0E.
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Aug 2 2359 Prognoz-M2 ) Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43/3 Science 39A
Magion 4 ) Science 39F
Aug 3 2358 PAS 4 Ariane 4 Kourou ELA2 Comsat 40A
Aug 5 1110 Mugunghwa-ho Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Comsat 41A
Aug 9 0121 Molniya-3 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 42A
Aug 15 2230 Gemstar 1 LLV-1 Vandenberg SLC6 Comsat FTO
Aug 29 0053 JCSAT 3 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 43A
Aug 29 0641 N-STAR a Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 44A
Aug 30 1933? Kosmos-2319 Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Comsat? 45A
Aug 31 0650 Sich-1 Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Rem.sensing 46A
FASat-Alfa Comsat 46A
Sep 3 0900 Soyuz TM-22 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 47A
Sep 7 1509 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 48A
Sep 8 1643 Spartan-201 OV-105, LEO Astronomy 48B
Sep 11 1125 WSF 2 OV-105, LEO Micrograv. 48C
Sep 4 Progress M-28 Deorbited Sep 6 Kosmos-2314 Deorbited Sep 11 Soyuz TM-21 Landed in Kazakhstan Sep 18 Endeavour Landed at KSC
Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due
OV-102 Columbia LC39B STS-73 Sep 28
OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 OMDP
OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 STS-74 Nov 2
OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 3 STS-72 Jan 11
ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks
ML1/
ML2/RSRM-51/ET-74 VAB Bay 1 STS-74
ML3/RSRM-50/ET-73/OV-102 LC39B STS-73
A complete hypertext version of the calendar is available on the WWW at: http://newproducts.jpl.nasa.gov/calendar/
* indicates changes from last month's calendar