Oct 18 1985
From The Space Library
A controversy between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA [see Space Transportation System/Revenues, Feb. 25] appeared over when NOAA agreed to launch meteorological satellites (Metsats) into orbit in return for which NASA would give NOAA a discount for carrying the satellites into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle, the Washington Post reported.
A deal between NOAA and the Air Force that would have saved NOAA $90 million in launch costs never went through, in large part because NASA and NOAA began working behind the scenes to bury the hatchet, the Post said. The previous week NASA Administrator James Beggs sent Anthony Calio, NOAA administrator, a letter outlining a deal governing three Metsat launches starting in 1989.
NASA agreed to share with NOAA the $80 million cost of modifying the Metsat for a Space Shuttle launch, to put a Metsat on a Space Shuttle within three months after NOAA asked for it, and to shave $6.5 million off the $105 million in feed NASA ordinarily would charge NOAA for the three launches. “We gave them a good price,” Beggs said. “They're on the shuttle at what essentially is our cost for launching them.” (W Post, Oct 18/85, A21)
Jacques Louis Lions, president of the French National Center for Space Studies, announced today that Aerospatiale and the Dassault-Breguet Aviation Company under the center's auspices would work together over the next several years to build two models for the European Space Shuttle Hermes, FBIS Hong Kong AFP in English reported. The European Space Agency (ESA) would likely also sponsor the project, and the center would undertake negotiations with European partners who would develop the main Hermes subsystems.
Aerospatiale would lead the project and assemble Hermes components in its Toulouse factories; Dassault would be in charge of aeronautical aspects.
Hermes, about half the size of the U.S. Space Shuttle, would carry two to six astronauts and cargo up to 4.5 tons into low earth orbits. (FBIS, Hong Kong AFP in English, Oct 19/85)
NASA announced the first flight of the NASA/Air Force/F-111 mission adaptive wing (MAW) [see Aerospace R & D/Aeronautics, Sept. 17] at the Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility. The flight accomplished functional verification of the variable camber MAW at flight conditions up to MACH 0.6 and altitude of 15,000 feet.
The Boeing Military Airplane Co. manufactured the MAW. (NASA Daily Activities Report, Oct 21/85)
NASA deputy associate administrator for space science and applications Samuel Keller, speaking at a weekly staff meeting, said “We expect 1986 will be the most demanding year we've ever had,” the Washington Post reported. In January Voyager would encounter the planet Uranus. In March the Space Shuttle would fly a mission dedicated to observing Halley's Comet. In May NASA would launch Ulysses, which would fly to Jupiter and use the planet's gravity to “slingshot” itself around the sun, and Galileo, which would orbit Jupiter. In August the Space Shuttle would carry the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. The three spacecraft cost $2 billion not including launch costs.
Keller's toughest time would occur in May, the Post said, when Ulysses and Galileo at the same time would be in the cargo bays of two Space Shuttles on their launch pads. NASA would try May 15 to launch Ulysses and then Galileo four days later. If anything delayed the May 15 launch, NASA had 24 days to get the Space Shuttle into space, a launch window that allowed the two spacecraft to fly to Jupiter using the least amount of fuel.
I'll be glad when 1986 is over,” Keller said. (W Post, Oct 18/85, A21)
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