Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Fri, 26 Oct 1990 02:14:35 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Fri, 26 Oct 1990 02:13:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #490 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 490 Today's Topics: Ulysses Update - 10/23/90 Re: Pioneer 11 article Re: NAVY WITHOLDING EVIDENCE!!! Pioneer 11 Update - 10/22/90 Another Saturn Great White Sport article Re: Man-rated SRBs (was Re: Junk the shuttle?) Re: Hybrid replacements for SRB's (was: Man-rated SRBs Re: PC-Vista Voyager Video Re: Venus/Magellan, poles Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Oct 90 22:26:23 GMT From: wuarchive!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@eddie.mit.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Ulysses Update - 10/23/90 ULYSSES MISSION STATUS October 23, 1990 This week the Ulysses team is continuing to switch on science instruments aboard the spacecraft, a process that began late last week. On Friday, October 19, the first instrument to be turned on was the Energetic-Particle Composition and Neutral Gas instrument. Saturday, October 20, the Solar-Wind Ion-Composition Spectrometer was turned on, checked out for thermal conditions and then switched off. Plans originally called for the Cosmic Dust instrument also to be switched on Saturday. Flight controllers decided to delay this switch-on, at the experimenter's request, as the experiment sensor was running slightly warm. When the distance to the Sun has increased sufficiently for the temperature to drop to an acceptable level, the experiment will be switched on. Today the Cosmic and Solar Particle instrument was being switched on. Thursday, October 25, the Magnetic Fields instrument will be turned on. Through the remainder of the week, calibration tests and routine monitoring will continue on instruments currently powered up. The flight dynamics team is currently collecting and evaluating data on Ulysses's precise course to plan a second trajectory maneuver to be carried out Friday, November 2. Onboard systems were performing normally. Today Ulysses is about 10 million miles from Earth, traveling at a heliocentric velocity of about 91,600 miles per hour. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 90 17:18:33 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!euclid.jpl.nasa.gov!pjs@ucsd.edu (Peter Scott) Subject: Re: Pioneer 11 article In article <6469@uceng.UC.EDU>, dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) writes: > 6. How come NASA let the primary contractor get away with no > field service contract? ;-) I mean, I recently saw an ad from > TRW service, saying they "do it all"! JPL approached TRW about this some time ago. Their response was that their standard warranty contract applied, i.e., bring it back and they'd fix it. :-) :-) -- This is news. This is your | Peter Scott, NASA/JPL/Caltech brain on news. Any questions? | (pjs@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov) ------------------------------ Date: 24 Oct 90 04:34:37 GMT From: sunc.osc.edu!malgudi!caen!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!byron!hermetic@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Heracleitos the Obscure) Subject: Re: NAVY WITHOLDING EVIDENCE!!! shouldn't this post have gone to alt.flakes? Heracleitos the Obscure = Josh Geller ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 90 15:35:08 GMT From: wuarchive!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@decwrl.dec.com (Ron Baalke) Subject: Pioneer 11 Update - 10/22/90 Pioneer 11 Update October 22, 1990 Two commands transmitted during the first 70 meter Goldstone support were received by the Pioneer 11 spacecraft last Friday, October 19. The project was able to verify the reception of the commands from the telemetry data they received during support from Spain's 70 meter station. The telemetry data is in the engineering format. The Spain antenna's uplink achieved spacecraft receiver lock and the project reported the uplink was received via the spacecraft's Medium Gain Antenna and they reported a receiver AGC (Automatic Gain Control) of -151.0 dbm. On Saturday, October 20, the 70 meter antenna in Australia reports intermittent lock on receivers configured for channel 6 1-way throughout the pass. Ames Research Center reports they had received 521 block of telemetry data, 56 missing minor frames, and 394 deleted frames. The Spain station provided high power support at 350 kw. The project sent commands to configure the spacecraft as non-coherent. The Spain 70 meter antenna had receiver lock and provided telemetry to the project slightly less than 50 percent of the pass of which Ames reported 20 percent was usable. The average AGC was -169.0 and the average SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) was at -4.0 db. The Goldstone station received downlink in low noise configuration with initial intermittent receiver lock. After a solid receiver lock was achieved, Ames recieved 1556 blocks of telemetry data with 730 deleted frames during the pass. On Sunday, October 21, the 70 meter antenna in Spain had solid receiver lock on Pioneer 11 throughout the entire pass. The average AGC was as -167.0 dbm with an average SNR of 4.2 db. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 90 17:46:50 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@ucsd.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Another Saturn Great White Sport article Washington Post -- 10/22/90 "Astronomy: Saturn Storm Grows More Monstrous" By Kathy Sawyer "An immense storm sighted by amateur astronomers recently in the clouds above Saturn has stretched to a length of 74,600 miles -- about the diameter of the giant ringed planet and more than nine times Earth's diameter." The Post reports that the storm, which earlier had appeared as a white spot, has combined with smaller disturbances to form a swath across the entire visible face of Saturn. The cause, according to the Post, appears to be an upwelling of hot gas from deep within Saturn's atmosphere which broke through the planet's outer cloak of ammonia ice clouds. As the rising gaseous material cooled and expanded, the Post says it formed new ammonia ice crystals which stand out against the yellowish color of the older ammonia clouds below it. The story quotes New Mexico State University astronomer Reta Beebe as saying the storm travels about the entire planet at 900 miles per hour, every ten hours and fifteen minutes. This is 24 minutes faster than the planet turns about its axis, according to the Post. The story says that other storms have raged in Saturn's atmosphere before, but that this is the largest in 57 years. The Post notes that the most famous planet-wide storm is the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. The story also says that the Hubble Space Telescope will be training its sensors on Saturn within the next few weeks and will provide astronomers with considerably more detail of the storm. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 90 01:11:38 GMT From: usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!nuts!frey!c8921212@apple.com ([Shuttle Assasin]) Subject: Re: Man-rated SRBs (was Re: Junk the shuttle?) henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <3338@orbit.cts.com> schaper@pnet51.orb.mn.org (S Schaper) writes: >>How to the throttleable solids developed by a private US company using LOX for >>the oxidizer measure up in this evaluation? >These are not solids; they are hybrid rockets. (That is the correct term >for rockets in which one component is liquid and the other is solid.) >The Amroc hybrids are sort of halfway in between liquids and solids in a >lot of ways, including the ones recently discussed. They still have the >big combustion chamber and the inability to test the flight-ready engine. >On the other hand, they can be throttled or shut down. And I don't think >they have solids' sensitivity to things like cracks and bond failures, >at least not to the same extent. >-- Just a 'by the wayside', there is also a group of guys in Australia working on a launch vehicle using hybrids. Of the launch people in Australia - Ausroc and Australian Launch vehicles - I think it is the ALV mob that is developing the hybrid version (or 'scoring' them from somewhere else.) These companies are PRIVATE. As per usual in Australia, nearly zilcho government funding has been provided at all for these ventures. If there were, it woulkd probably only pay for advertising....... Cape York is our only hope now............. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 90 20:12:06 GMT From: hub.ucsb.edu!ucsbuxa!3001crad@ucsd.edu (Charles Frank Radley) Subject: Re: Hybrid replacements for SRB's (was: Man-rated SRBs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 90 15:49:33 EST From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu KFrom: henry@zoo.toront`o.edu KDate: Mon, 22 Oct 90 18:48:18 EDT KTo: 3001crad%ucsbuxa@hub.ucsb.edu (Charles Frank Radley) KSubject: Re: Hybrid replacements for SRB's (was: Man-rated SRBs K K> According to advertising of the company Amroc, their hybrid rocket K> when set up at Vandenburg, was given a TNT equivalent rating of ZERO ! K> So Vandenburg Range Safety considered it to be virtually hazard free. `KExplosion-hazard-free, not necessarily fire-hazard-free, as witness the `Kpad fire that ruined the attempted launch. Also, I wouldn't be surprised `Kif that zero rating was before fuelling. Without LOX in the tank, yes, `Kthe thing is pretty thoroughly inert.` Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry The Range Safety TNT rating is applied to vehicles both in flight and on the ground, therefore the ZERO TNT rating for Amroc includes the fully fueled sitaution. The Amroc fire was rapidly extinguished by conventional firefighting means and caused little damage except to the rocket itself. The fire was much less intense than say, the fires of fullly fueled commercial passenger jet liners. The Liquid Oxygen rapidly dissipates when its tank is breached, certainly it will "fan the flames" for a short while until it boils away. Liquid hydrogen is more hazardous than LOX because when mixed with air it is a highly explosive mix. Indeed it is thought that Iraq may have a super-bomb working on this principle (using a hydrocarbon, not hydrogen) which causes a huge fuel air mix cloud detonated by a delayed explosive. Said to have overpressures approaching a nuclear blast. Bottom line is that the hybrid booster is much less hazardous than any other kind of rocket. (please note my BCSP Certified Safety Professional certificate number is 9481). : ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 90 20:42:16 GMT From: agate!astroplasma.berkeley.edu!richmond@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Richmond) Subject: Re: PC-Vista In article S46@DHDURZ1.BITNET (GUNNAR RADONS) writes: > >1) If you have images of your spectra and if you could transform them > into FITS format, than the Program PCVISTA from might be a help > for you. PC-Vista is an adaption of some of the routines of the VISTA image-processing package (originally developed at UC Santa Cruz) to the IBM PC. For a full description, see the article by Treffers and Richmond in PASP, 101, 725 (August 1989). We didn't spend much time on spectral analysis, but there's enough to get you started (i.e., extract a 1-D spectrum from a 2-D image). > Some of PCVISTA's weaknesses: It uses only EGA resolution, > there are no routines to analyze spectras (you have to provide > them for yourself) and is distributed as source code which must > be compiled with MS-C. > Actually, PC-Vista uses the full resolution of the screen, but it lacks a good user interface to the color map, which is especially noticeable with the new VGA cards. Since we developed it on machines equipped with the PGA (remember that one?) and a monochrome EGA card, we naturally wrote code to make those displays most useful. I think that distributing code, rather than executables, is a great advantage for the user. Also, my name has a 'd' on the end. -- Michael Richmond "This is the heart that broke my finger." richmond@bllac.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 90 23:15:52 GMT From: sunc.osc.edu!malgudi!caen!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Voyager Video The JPL Public Affairs office has finished a new 30-minute video which chronicles the history of the Voyager mission. "And Then There Was Voyager," will be shown via NASA Select Television at 9 AM (PDT) and Noon (PDT) on Monday, Nov. 5, 1990. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 90 20:28:21 GMT From: concertina.Eng.Sun.COM!fiddler@sun.com (Steve Hix) Subject: Re: Venus/Magellan, poles In article <1990Oct22.204347.7788@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>, spgreg@venus.lerc.nasa.gov (Greg Macrae) writes: > > Mercury is tide locked with the sun. That is one side always faces the sun. Used to think so. Some radar experiments some years ago showed that Mercury does rotate slowly with respect to the sun. Killed some old SF story ideas when that one came out. -- ------------ The only drawback with morning is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day. ------------ ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #490 *******************