January 15, 1997 Vol. 0 - No. 2 By subscription only ============================== THE ORBITAL REPORT ON-LINE ============================== Space Executive's Weekly News Digest This is an experimental issue of Takyon International's latest on-line newsletter. OReOL is intended to cover space industry's news and market trend and provide the necessary background information for immediate analysis. Please feel free to contact us for any comment. === HEADLINES === * NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour was successfully launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 09:27:23 UT on January 12 for the STS-81 mission. The orbiter vehicle, which carries a double Spacehab module in its cargo bay, docked with Russia's Mir space station at 01:54 UT on January 15. The US spacecraft brings 2,710 kg of goods to the station and will retrieve 1,072 kg of materials. Astronaut Jerry Linenger will replace John Blaha onboard the station. He is the fourth NASA astronaut to perform a long duration stay in Mir within the US$400-million Shuttle- Mir program. * France may support a revival of the Cluster mission at ESA's next council meeting in late February, Mr. Francois Fillon, =46rench minister in charge of space affairs, told OReOL on January 14. The four Cluster satellites were destroyed in Ariane 5's maiden flight failure on June 4, 1996, and ESA has issued a plan to recover the mission by building a fifth satel- lite from spare parts with three more brand new spacecraft. France and Italy opposed the concept for budgetary reasons. 'The agency's latest proposal, which does no longer include a signi- ficant increase of the funding contribution from member states, is very interesting', said Mr. Fillon. The approval of the revived Cluster might result in the postponement of some future science missions such as the Far InfraRed Space Telescope (FIRST) and the Cobras-Samba cosmic ray observatory. * AT&T Skynet's Telstar 401 communication satellite (24C, 24Ku) suffered a major failure at 11:15 UT on January 11, loosing all telemetry and communication links whilst performing a station keeping maneuver. AT&T Skynet, owner of the satellite, and Lockheed Martin Astro Space, its manufacturer, are investigating the failure. Services for customers having contracted with safety clauses have been transferred to Telstar 402R. Additional capacity is seek for the other customers in case the service cannot be restored. Telstar 401's twin, Telstar 402, was lost minutes after its launch on September 9, 1994, due to an explo- sion in its attitude and orbit control system. AT&T is in the process of selling its Skynet activity, including four Telstar satellites, to Loral Space. === BUSINESS === * Intelsat has signed a contract worth about US$100 million with Matra Marconi Space (MMS), of Velizy, France, for the procure- ment of the Intelsat K-TV direct broadcasting satellite (30Ku). The 3,250-kg satellite, to be based on MMS' Eurostar 3000 bus, will be launched in late 1998 to a 95=B0E orbital slot. This pro- curement, approved by Intelsat's board in December, was strongly opposed by US operators and satellite industry. * The proposed merger between Aerospatiale's satellite business in Cannes and Daimler-Benz Aerospace's Dornier Satellitensysteme in Friedrichshafen is 'currently on hold', Mr. Yves Michot, chairman & CEO of Aerospatiale, said on January 13. Among the reasons to stop the merger process, Mr. Michot mentioned pro- blems with the missile counterpart of the deal with DASA, as well as the delay in the funding of the German part of the Helios 2 military observation satellite program. * NASA has selected 349 research proposals among 2,367 bids for negotiation of Phase 1 contracts within the Small Business Inno- vation Research (SBIR) program. Contracts worth up US$70,000 each will be awarded for 6-month feasibility studies. Total amount awarded will be about US$24 million. A Phase 2 selection is planned for November. * Orbital Sciences Corp. confirms the signature, on December 23, of a launch contract worth an estimated US$22 million with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to loft the 420-kg Korea Multipurpose Satellite (Kompsat) on a Taurus vehicle in mid-1999. * Pyrospace and Pyromeca, two French manufacturers of pyro- technic devices will merge into a new company to be called PKS. France's state-owned Societe Nationale des Poudres et Explosifs (SNPE), which owns 20% of Pyrospace and 92.2% of Pyromeca, will be PKS main shareholder. === MARKETS === * The launch of the first three Iridium low-Earth orbit mobile telephony satellites, initially planned for January 8, was post- poned four times in four days due to an anomaly in a ground satellite telemetry software, the loss of a microwave link to range instrumentation, problems with the initiation of the launch pad water suppression system and finally the thermal protection blanket on the vehicle's first stage separating from the liquid oxygen tank. The launch is now set for January 19 at the earliest. This initial trio will serve to test satellite command and control capabilities as well as basic hardware and software functionality. Subscriber terminals will be tested later this year when more satellites are available in orbit. The 66-satellite Iridium constellation is planned to provide global handheld telephony services beginning in late 1998. Iridium LLC, a consortium of 17 investor organizations has raised US$2.65 billion to date to fund the system. Cost to completion is estimated at about US$5 billion. * The 11-year old Spot 1 satellite resumed operational service on January 13, to fill the gap caused by the loss of Spot 3 on November 14, 1996. CNES and Spot Image will operate Spot 1 with Spot 2 until the launch of the improved Spot 4 in early 1998. Recorders have failed on both satellites but they can operate when visible from any of Spot Image's 20 ground stations, cover- ing more than 90% of Earth's lands. * Industry Canada has rejected 'fast-track' DBS license appli- cations from Telesat Canada and Borealis Space Corporation. The two companies were the sole bidders to provide direct broad- casting services from Canada's 91=B0W orbital slot. Telesat Canada has plans to acquire a Tempo satellite from TeleCommunications Inc. (TCI). Borealis was set up by Spar Aerospace in late 1996 to operate a small DBS satellite to be developed with CTA Space Systems. Both will apply again for a second selection round on February 28. * American Mobile Satellite Corp. (AMSC) and Lockheed-Martin Corp. have voluntary dismissed the complaint they filed against Spar Aerospace on November 27, 1996. AMSC and Lockheed-Martin were asking for a US$135-million reimbursement from Spar follow- ing a failure onboard the AMSC-1 mobile communication satellite. Spar provided the satellite's payload. === TECHNOLOGIES === * NASA and CNES, the French space agency, have announced the signature of a MoU, on December 20, regarding the Jason 1 ocean altimetry mission. A follow-on to the Topex-Poseidon mission of 1992, Jason 1 is the first of CNES' Proteus small satellite missions. The 500-kg satellite will be built by Aerospatiale and based on the new Spacebus-L bus. NASA will provide launch service on a US vehicle in late 1999. * The investigation board on the loss of the Clipper Graham technology demonstrator on July 31, 1996, issued its final report on January 7. The document identifies a disconnected pneumatic line as the cause of the demonstrator's failure to deploy its landing gear. The report also pinpoints deficiencies in the launch processing operations with the absence of records and the lack of margin for human error. The board asks NASA to review the concept of rapid prototyping promoted by the Clipper Graham industrial team from the operations perspective. * Russia's Bion 11 satellite carrying two macaque monkeys, Lapik and Multik, together with other living samples (newts, snails, flies, bugs, seeds and bacteria), was successfully recovered on January 7 at the end of a 14-day flight. The US$33.4-million mission included participation from the US, France, Ukraine and Lithuania. Both monkeys were safe at landing but Multik died of an heart attack during medical tests under general anaesthetic on January 8. Results from the Bion mission are expected to improve medical knowledge on anaemia, osteoporosis, muscular atrophy and immune system dysfunction. * Endeavour's Solid Rocket Boosters were recovered hours after the space shuttle launch on January 12 and post-flight inspec- tion began on January 14. They will be shipped to their manu- facturer, Thiokol Corp. of Brigham City, Utah, for a more detailed inspection on January 17. Unusual erosion of a thermal insulation liner has been reported on three SRB nozzles after the last two shuttle launches but the current design has been cleared for flight by engineers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) on January 6. * Aerospatiale has performed a series of tests on the 4-m antenna of NASA's Cassini probe in its facilities in Cannes. The antenna was built by Alenia Spazio and will be mounted on the 5,820-kg probe to be launched on October 6 by a Titan 4B vehicle. Cassini is due to enter orbit around Saturn in 2004. === PREVIEW === * Jan. 16. The first Lockheed-Martin-built Navstar satellite (Block 2R) is due for launch on a McDonnell-Douglas Delta 2 vehicle to replenish US Air Force's Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation. * Jan. 19. First three Iridium satellites are expected to be lofted to low-Earth orbit by a McDonnell-Douglas Delta 2 booster. * Jan. 28. An Ariane 44L (V93) is due to loft GE Americom's GE-2 and Argentina's Nahuel 1A to geosynchronous transfer orbit for Arianespace's first mission in 1997. * Jan. 31. The investigation board on the loss of the Spot 3 satellite is due to release its final report. Next issue is tentatively planned for January 22. The Orbital Report On-Line will be published 40 times per year by Takyon International (RCS Paris B 401 465 398) 34, boulevard Exelmans, 75016 Paris, France Phone: +33 (0) 146 566 490 * Fax: +33 (0) 146 561 355 Editorial hotline: +33 (0) 607 995 056 E-mail: orbirep@worldnet.net Chief Editor: Stefan Barensky Technical Contributor: Samuel Szdat (c) Takyon International - January 1997 Subscription information will be available soon. Takyon International also publishes The Orbital Launcher Report, a monthly space transportation newsletter. ------------------ End of issue Vol.0, No.2 ---------------------
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