Jun 26 1985
From The Space Library
U.S. Rep. George Brown, Jr. (D-Calif.), author of an amendment to prohibit tests of the antisatellite miniature homing vehicle (MHV-ASAT) against objects in space, suggested that in light of the successful ground-based laser test with the orbiting Space Shuttle [see Space Transportation System, Military Applications, June 21], the U.S. should drop the MHV in favor of a laser antisatellite system, Defense Daily reported.
Brown said that ". . . This very successful demonstration raises the question of whether the United States should spend several billion dollars on the technologically less-advanced MHV ASAT system, still in the testing stage, when we could have a more technologically advanced, far more versatile system available for deployment in the same timeframe . . . and probably at a lesser cost." Brown emphasized the significance of the laser test, which he noted had hit a target on the Space Shuttle "less than a foot in diameter, much smaller than an ICBM, traveling faster than a missile, and there is no question but that a missile would be just as easy to hit." Although lethality was not demonstrated in the test, the U.S. had "demonstrated lethality more than 10 years ago when we knocked down a drone airplane with a laser, and we have now in the inventory lasers with about a million times the energy of the one that was used" in the Space Shuttle test, Brown added. "There is no question that lethality is achievable with existing technology." (DID, June 26/85, 318)
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) announced that its Wallops Flight Facility had launched at 1:46 p.m. EDT June 24 and 1:46 p.m. EDT June 26 Nike-Orion sounding rockets for the University of Illinois to investigate the daytime mid-latitude ionosphere between 96 and 241 statute miles above earth. Specific mission objectives were to investigate differential absorption of radio waves; determine the electron density profile; and investigate the irregular structure of the electron density profile in terms of neutral turbulence, plasma instabilities in the mid-latitude region, and gravity wave effects. The 120-lb. payloads reached peak altitudes of 110 statute miles, and preliminary results indicated all instrumentation performed satisfactorily and obtained good data.
The Nike-Orion was a two-stage, solid-propellant unguided sounding rocket about 30 feet long.
Researchers would correlate scientific data from the missions with information from a similar study of the daytime equatorial ionosphere conducted March 1983 in Peru as part of Project CONDOR. Dr. L.G. Smith, University of Illinois project scientist, noted the studies were important "because turbulence is the major unsolved problem of the atmosphere and ionosphere." (GSFC Release 85-19)
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