🚀 go-pugleaf

Satellite controllers fired Gstar-3's thrusters for a total of 48 hours
in Jan and Feb to move it closer to Clarke orbit (it was placed in the
wrong orbit last fall by a motor failure).  It's now in an orbit where
it may be of some use:  Geostar (the commercial navsat firm) hopes to
begin using its part of the satellite this fall.

Soviet Union delays launch of the first Mir add-on module, due to delays
in completion of the second add-on, which must follow the first fairly
quickly to keep the configuration symmetrical.

Quayle makes favorable noises about Brilliant Pebbles SDI concept.

Discovery lands after highly successful mission.  NASA had hoped to
conclude the mission with a crosswind landing, but the winds didn't
cooperate and NASA instead used the concrete runway at Edwards so
that hard-surface braking tests could be run.  [Radical, innovative
thought:  if they want landing and braking tests, why not dust off
Enterprise and run some more 747 drop tests?  Nah, too simple and
effective.]  NASA says the orbiter is in good shape, with tile damage
much reduced from what Atlantis took on the previous mission.  A small
leak in the #1 engine's cooling system was found, which permitted a bit
of hydrogen to leak into the exhaust; it definitely was not there before
launch.  The engine will be replaced before Discovery flies again in
August.  There was an earlier pinhole leak in a similar area of an engine
flown on STS-26, although the two do not seem related.  The next mission
(Atlantis) is not expected to be affected.

Space Services readies "Consort 1" commercial sounding rocket mission for
launch at White Sands; the customer is NASA, on behalf of a microgravity
research consortium including U of Alabama and several companies.  The
two-stage Starfire rocket uses a first stage from Morton Thiokol [boo]
and a second stage from Bristol Aerospace [yay] [Canadian content here].

Pictures from the late lamented Phobos 2, including one quite striking
one of Phobos against the Martian horizon.

Intelsat will buy three Ariane launches and two Atlas launches for the
Intelsat 7 series, starting in 1992.

Italian Space Agency to buy a 1993 Atlas launch for the SAX X-ray satellite.

NASA picks Atlas as the baseline launcher for the NASA/ESA solar
heliospheric observatory ("Soho"), set for launch in 1995.

[Sounds like a good year for General Dynamics.]

Atlantis moves to pad 39B March 22.

Stephanie Lee-Miller, top public affairs official at Dept of Health and
Human Services, named to head Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
Commercial space people were sort of hoping for someone with experience
in (a) business, (b) space, or (c) high technology; no such luck.

Intel 386 flies in space [gag barf puke excuse me a moment...] [...okay,
I'm back and will try to be brave... :-)] as NASA evaluates an updated
version of the Grid Systems laptops that it has been using on shuttle
missions since 1983.

Letter from Richard Anglin of Los Angeles, saying that NASA is overlooking
the fundamental problem leading to its personnel crisis:  the lack of
leadership and vision in NASA's upper levels and in the White House.
The people now being lost joined during "the Kennedy era -- a time of
vision and commitment to leadership and excellence".  "The Reagan era
was filled with empty words about space.  There was no vision and
certainly no commitment to leadership or excellence.  Whether President
Bush chooses to overturn the legacy of his predecessor remains to be
seen."
-- 
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu