Feb 8 1984
From The Space Library
Because of the failure of two telecommunications satellites launched by the Space Shuttle, the insurance industry would receive more than $200 million in claims, and premiums would skyrocket when underwriters resumed writing satellite risk policies, the Washington Post reported. Analysts said that it was too early to determine what impact the satellites' failures would have on their manufacturer, Hughes Aircraft Company, or McDonnell Douglas Corporation, which built the rocket motors that apparently failed on the two satellites.
Western Union, owner of one satellite, was insured for $105 million to cover the cost of the satellite and potential revenue; Indonesia, owner of the other satellite, had $75 million in insurance to cover the cost of building and launching the payload. Robert J. Tirone, vice president of the large insurance broker Alexander & Alexander, said that underwriters would likely hold off issuing any new policies until they found out what went wrong with the two satellites. "Something went wrong," he said, "and it went wrong twice." A spokesman for McDonnell Douglas said that the company was puzzled by the apparent failure of the rockets that were supposed to lift both satellites into stationary orbits about 22,300 miles from Earth. The rockets, payload assist modules (PAM), had been successfully used in 16 previous commercial satellite launches-5 from the Space Shuttle and 11 by missiles.
At the end of 1983, the insurance industry had collected $205 million in premiums and paid $210 million in claims. As a result of the two recent failures, claims would rise to about $420 million. An insurance broker, who asked not to be identified, said that he expected premiums to quadruple as a result of the loss of the two satellites. (W Post, Feb 8/84, D-2)
The Soviet Union launched today a three-man crew on board the Soyuz T-10 spacecraft, which successfully docked with the Salyut 7 space station on February 9. The crew consisted on Col. Leonid Kizim (commander), Vladimir Solovyev (flight engineer), and Oleg Atkov (cosmonaut-researcher). It appeared that only Kizim had previous space experience, having commanded the Soyuz T-3 in 1980 in the first three-man mission to test and dock the upgraded Soyuz-T and the Salyut 6.
Because of the greater amount of instrumentation and power then in place, TASS noted that the current mission "will have broader possibilities for research than any of the previous ones." Scientific, technical, medical, and biological studies were on the schedule of the current mission, and the cosmonauts were reactivating life support, power supply, and heat control systems and were inspecting on-board equipment as part of their "demothballing" process [See Oct 2/84 for return of crew]. (NASA Dly Acty Rept, Feb 14/84; FBIS, USSR Feb 9/84, Ul)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
