Two NK-33s arrived at Aerojet's Sacramento, Calif., facility on Friday, where one will be fired in early October to ensure that more than two decades of storage hasn't hampered performance. The second engine is serving as a spare. If the test is successful, Aerojet will begin modifications to the engines to make them compatible with the Atlas and Titan IV launchers. The engines could also be used on the Delta, but McDonnell Douglas has expressed no interest in them.
Launch of Koreasat-1, a commercial communications satellite is planned for Aug. 3 from Cape Canaveral. The satellite was built for Korea Telecom by Lockheed Martin Astro Space.
NASA has picked the name Sojourner for the 35-pound wheeled rover it plans to send exploring on the surface of Mars two years from now, when the Mars Pathfinder probe is scheduled to set down in the Ares Vallis region. Drawing from some 3,500 suggestions submitted to The Planetary Society by young people worldwide, the agency chose to honor Sojourner Truth, the 19th century civil rights activist.
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin has cautioned agency managers to be on the lookout for stress in the workplace as the agency struggles to downsize on its own under growing pressure from Capitol Hill to cut even deeper. "Neither individual nor program safety can be jeopardized by management or employees' preoccupation with shrinking resources," Goldin wrote in a memo to headquarters office chiefs and field center directors.
The authorization panel's bill will be "totally oriented to the basic research mission of NASA," a source says. That bodes ill for the Earth Observing System (EOS) program, which Walker doesn't consider a key part of that basic research mission. He's expected to target EOS (Continued) to deal with planned Republican cuts to NASA's budget. The VA/HUD panel fully funded EOS because some of the appropriators believe Walker's targeting of the program-a priority of Vice President Gore-was politically motivated.
White House tells NASA it won't have to suffer any more funding cuts at the hands of the Clinton Administration, after the agency turned itself inside out trying to accommodate the $5 billion cut imposed before the fiscal 1996 space agency budget was sent to Capitol Hill. The 10-year Office of Management and Budget spending plan doesn't open up NASA's budget until 2001. The House Budget Resolution is another story, of course, seeking another $5 billion on top of the Administration cut.
Three small springs pushed a 747-pound conical probe away from the Galileo Jupiter spacecraft right on time early last Thursday, setting up a Dec. 7 plunge into the cloudtops of the gas giant that should produce the first scientific measurements of the planet's atmosphere ever made.
National Guard officials and executives from three industry teams trying to do business with them hope to recapture lost momentum during the next few weeks by winning new congressional pressure on the Army to re-engine and modernize UH-1 Huey helicopters in Guard service throughout the U.S.
Launch of Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled for no earlier than Aug. 3 from Cape Canaveral. The mission will mark the second flight of the Wake Shield Facility.
The success of Newport News Shipbuilding so far in its congressional campaign to crack the New Attack Submarine production program that the Navy wanted to reserve initially for General Dynamics' Electric Boat is mirrored in political action committee contributions this year. The Center for Responsive Politics notes that PAC contributions of Tenneco, parent company of Newport News, "increased dramatically" from $500 in the first four months of 1993 to $51,500 during the first four months of this year. GD's PAC contributions were $92,312 in the first four months of 1993 vs.
Launch of NASA/commercial Meteor (formerly COMET) satellite is scheduled for launch on July 29 from Wallops Island, Va. Meteor was built by Westinghouse and Space Industries as part of the old COMET program.
The U.S. Navy is looking at how to modify EA-6B Prowler wave forms, says Capt. Rocco Caldarella, chief of Navy command and control warfare. "It's a very capable platform, very modifiable," he tells The DAILY. "If we can introduce some smart techniques, it would just make it a more effective platform." The electronic combat aircraft already employs smart techniques. The Navy "is just looking to add to it because basically [the EA-6B] has a very good capability. We want to take advantage of that."
Unmoved by last week's DOD findings that building bombers doesn't require a unique industry, Northrop Grumman notes that Congress will be the arbiter on that topic. The major question facing lawmakers, a company spokesman says, is whether the U.S. can afford to keep its "unique" long-range bomber advantage if the B-2 program is shut down. Northrop doesn't dispute that the aerospace industrial base can provide bombers, "but how much would it cost and how long would it take?" the company official asked. If Congress wants the U.S.
The House Appropriations national security subcommittee late Thursday finished marking up a $244 billion fiscal 1996 Pentagon appropriations bill that closely followed the House defense authorization, except that it added $200 million to the U.S. Air Force's request for the F-22 advanced tactical fighter program.
Language in the House VA/HUD fiscal 1996 appropriations bill calling for NASA to close its Goddard, Marshall and Langley centers isn't the only part of the bill kicking up a storm. The panel's decision to terminate the Cassini Saturn orbiter and indefinitely delay the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and Gravity Probe B has rankled supporters of space science. That should be evident when the House Science panel's space subcommittee marks ups its FY '96 NASA authorization bill, scheduled for Wednesday.
Launch of the Asiasat 2 commercial communications satellite is expected no earlier than late September. The satellite was built by Lockheed Martin Astro Space for Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. (Asiasat).
The House Appropriations national security subcommittee markup of the fiscal 1996 defense appropriations bill boosted the $48 million request for the Tier III Minus unmanned aerial vehicle by $35 million, congressional sources said Friday. They also said the panel approved the requested $117 million in research and development funding for the Tier II Plus UAV. The House National Security Committee had increased the amount by $60 million.
Mir 19 cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin donned spacesuits Friday to go outside and free two fouled solar arrays, restoring full power on their aging orbital station. A spokesman in Houston for the Shuttle/Mir portion of the International Space Station program said Russian space officials told their NASA counterparts Friday that the six-hour extravehicular activity (EVA) achieved all of its goals and paved the way for repositioning the Krystal module after its critical role in the first Shuttle/Mir docking mission.
The $244 billion fiscal 1996 defense appropriations bill marked up by the House Appropriations national security subcommittee last week may be before the full Appropriations Committee on Friday, if the House is in session that day. In the Senate, the Armed Services Committee's FY '96 defense authorization is scheduled to be on the Senate floor beginning July 31, the last week of legislative activity before the planned August recess.
Lockheed Martin has baselined the NK-33 engine, developed in the 1960s for Russia's N-1 moon rocket program, into its July 3 bid for the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) effort, sources say. But that doesn't mean the company definitely plans to use the engine, which is being marketed by Aerojet. Lockheed Martin is also looking at derivative of Russia's RD-170 engine or an upgrade of the Rocketdyne MA-5A engine currently used on the Atlas booster.
Israel Aircraft Industries is working on two unmanned aerial vehicles derived from its new long-endurance Heron drone, unveiled just a month ago at the Paris Air Show, IAI officials told The DAILY. The E-Hunter and the Heron II will round out IAI's stable of medium- and high-altitude air vehicles, which also includes the short-range Hunter Joint Tactical UAV system.
Prospective workers at Russia's privately held RSC Energia have been protected from the military draft under a decree signed last month. President Boris Yeltsin granted "state service" exemptions to students preparing to work at the Russian space giant, even though 49% of stock in the company is now privately held. Students preparing for work at the state-owned Khrunichev rocket factory, by comparison, received no exemption, a slight seen in Moscow as evidence of the lobbying prowess of Energia.
