Date: Sat, 10 Apr 93 05:16:13 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V16 #447 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Sat, 10 Apr 93 Volume 16 : Issue 447 Today's Topics: Alaska Pipeline and Space Station! B0940e70000e341 Biosphere 2, In Praise of Budget Astronaut (was: Idle Question) (2 msgs) EJASA, Apr 1993 HELP: orbital elements for sun/moon/earth MACH 25 landing site bases? Mars Observer Mapping Mission to Begin Earlier Than Planned Michael Jordan in Space Problem Mir 2's planned orbit [was Re: Degrees vs. experience] NASA "Wraps" Question- Why is SSTO Single Stage (3 msgs) Shuttle fax SN 1993J and Gravity Waves? Three Spacecraft Search for Gravity Waves Two-Line Orbital Element Set: Space Shuttle Welcome to the Space Digest!! Please send your messages to "space@isu.isunet.edu", and (un)subscription requests of the form "Subscribe Space " to one of these addresses: listserv@uga (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle (THENET), or space-REQUEST@isu.isunet.edu (Internet). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 07 Apr 93 17:38:40 GMT From: Ralph Buttigieg Subject: Alaska Pipeline and Space Station! Newsgroups: sci.space Original to: aws@iti.org G'day aws@iti.org 04 Apr 93 18:24, aws@iti.org wrote to All: ao> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer), via Kralizec 3:713/602 >> to pay for it, so interest charges are less. ao> And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why the US has a multi-trillion $$ ao> debt. ao> No Gary, the governemnt does indeed pay interest. >> The sticking point is that the government has to sign a firm rental >> agreement in advance of construction that guarantees a certain amount >> of rent for a specified period once construction is complete. And that >> contract has to have penalty clauses sufficient to keep the landlord >> solvent if the government reneges on the contract. This has been the >> sticking point. Most government contracts have a termination clause ao> Not any more. Last years NASA Authorization bill allows NASA to negotiate ao> termination liability. It seems to me that the main problem in developing Space is not so much the technology but the institutions charged with the job. There is nothing wrong with the principle of handing the Station to commercial concerns, and in fact should be able to deliver a better, cheaper alternative. What is stopping it happening is the reluclance of the various institutions. This is similar to the trouble the DC-X had. The basic concept has been around for years. However it took constant prodding over many years and a new institution - SDIO to achieve. Perhaps this is were Space supporters should turn their efforts to now. The slow, arduous task of changing these institutions. Example - Instead of NASA ESA & NASDA International Space Station we have an organisation modelled on the successful Intelsat, lets call it Space Stations International. They raise funds from national shareholders and commericial sources. They pay off their investors by charging rent to the users. Some advantages are: 1) Far more likely to get a Station the researchers actually want. Properbly 2 or 3 small, specialized Stations rather then the "one size fits all" Freedom model. 2) It would be a proper commercial enterprise, the research itself, not the actual Space Station would be its main purpose. Would use tried and true technolgy in its construction, rather then be a technological experiment in itself. 3) Free from government restrictions IntelStation could purchase the best technology fo the job. American hardware on Russian rockets, serviced by Chinese launchers or whatever. 4) Far more likely to lead to profit making Space enterprises. Ventures undertaken by IntelStation would be at realistic low cost. Not gold plated Freedom costs. 5) Be a true International Space Station. Many more countries, even my own would likely be willing to invest. The main disadvantage would be the need to get the pollies (Australian slang for politicians) to agree to steadly pay the rent. Also it would bypass much of the national pork barrelling. However considering that the current effort has resulted in billions being spent to produce zilch. Perhaps taxpayers would indeed support such a project. ta Ralph --- GoldED 2.41 * Origin: VULCAN'S WORLD - Sydney Australia (02) 635-6797 3:713/6 (3:713/635) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1993 06:25:00 From: John Witter Subject: B0940e70000e341 Newsgroups: sci.space IMFjU[ w5+h[# l'U+70000e341 *B07000000273351 ll bQk/W21J~%V~HE3o7:`4wj John ? l i m m f #j{7~mmg2} * Origin: *AmeriComm*, 214/373-7314. Dallas'Info Source. (1:124/6507) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 1993 01:40:35 GMT From: "David M. Palmer" Subject: Biosphere 2, In Praise of Newsgroups: sci.space Just to put things into perspective: The head of Biosphere threw millions of dollars of his own money down the toilet to get a theme park and less science than the critics wanted. NASA threw millions of dollars of YOUR money down the toilet and got... a toilet. Now, which one is it more reasonable to bitch about? (By the way, the people who complain about the cultish aspects of Biosphere probably are not familiar with Disney.) -- David M. Palmer palmer@alumni.caltech.edu palmer@tgrs.gsfc.nasa.gov ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 1993 05:27:02 GMT From: George William Herbert Subject: Budget Astronaut (was: Idle Question) Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <1993Mar29.173746.14027@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> kjenks@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov writes: >>A) How big is the absolute minimum atmospheric re-entry and life >>support module for the aspiring low-cost astronaut? ... >George Herbert estimated a minimum one-man capsule as just feasible >for the new stretched Pegasus, which puts Scout out of the running unless >you can beat George's weight numbers substantially. (Probably possible, >but maybe only by fairly radical methods.) Ah, Henry didn't read the vehicle mission specs on my capsule all that closely did he 8-) My manned capsule's "minimal"ness is not quite as minimal as you can go and still safely land a human. I included about three days worth of life support and enough delta-V to maneuver to and dock with a space station in my design; it wasn't supposed to be a tourist pod, it's a working vehicle. (I wouldn't want to live in it for three days, but... 8-) I'd estimate from other work of mine that a 275-300 kilo vehicle could be made that would _safely_ sustain life for a few hours and return the crewman to the surface. Perhaps a bit less if you don't have to ride in the capsule all the way to the surface; the parachute size goes down a bit, but mission safety is reduced. Still a bit too big for a Scout. A person with a heatshield, a re-entry solid rocket, and a space suit might fit on a scout, but it would be way unsafe and there would be no systems redundancy. I wouldn't recommend it. -george william herbert Retro Aerospace ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 1993 05:34:16 GMT From: George William Herbert Subject: Budget Astronaut (was: Idle Question) Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Mar30.054935.19478@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes: >Definitely possible: George is 6'2" and insists that any project >he works on be large enough to, in theory, fit himself. You could >probably cut the mass of his manned Pegasus capsule by 5% to 10%, >just by insisting on a 5'0" astronaut... Frank, you know better. I'm 6'4.5", not 6'2". [And when I worked the numbers on the capsule-for-vertically-impaired-people, it came out about 2.5% lighter, not a "whole" lot 8-) ] The insistence that I fit is true. (You all will have to excuse Frank; the low pressure up in Boulder has addled his brain a bit, it appears. He was totally normal when he was here at Berkeley, really... ;-) -george ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 1993 04:17 UT From: Ron Baalke Subject: EJASA, Apr 1993 Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Apr10.011547.29510@news.arc.nasa.gov>, jcm@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) writes... >Posted on behalf of Larry Klaes. > > There were some disagreements between U.S. and Soviet scientists > on the origins of certain surface features. For example, the probes' > owners declared that the 96-kilometer (57.6-mile) wide crater at the > summit of 10,800-meter (35,640-foot) high Maxwell Montes, the tallest > mountain on the planet, was the result of a meteorite impact. American > scientists, on the other hand, felt the crater was proof that Maxwell > was a huge volcano sitting on the northern "continent" of Ishtar Terra. > This believe this was named Cleopatra and it is very interesting feature. The Magellan images revealed that it was *both* a meteor crater and a volcano. Apparently, a large meteor impacted the surface and this then resulted in subsequent volcanic activity. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Being cynical never helps /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | to correct the situation |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | and causes more aggravation | instead. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1993 13:37:39 GMT From: "Randy Stackhouse, N4RTL" Subject: HELP: orbital elements for sun/moon/earth Newsgroups: sci.space Hi. Would someone e-mail me the orbital elements of the Earth around the Sun and moon around the earth? If possible, I would prefer an element set that described the rotation of the sun around the earth (no jokes or flames please...) Thanks in advance ------///------------------------------------------------------------------- /// Randy Stackhouse, N4RTL | Author of SatTrack the satellite tracking /// GENIE: RSTACKHOUSE | program for the Amiga. Version 3.0 \\ /// INTERNET: RSTACKHOUSE@JAGUAR.ESS.HARRIS.COM \X// YELLNET: HEY!RANDY | (407) 723-3680 ------------------------------ Date: 8 Apr 93 16:53:37 GMT From: Paul Campbell Subject: MACH 25 landing site bases? Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Apr5.193829.1@aurora.alaska.edu>, nsmca@aurora.alaska.edu writes: > The supersonic booms hear a few months ago over I belive San Fran, heading east > of what I heard, some new super speed Mach 25 aircraft?? What military based > int he direction of flight are there that could handle a Mach 25aircraft on its > landing decent?? Odd question?? East of SF at Mach 25 - just about any base in the continental US ..... at ~15k mph you can cross the country in < 1/2 an hour ..... Paul -- Paul Campbell UUCP: ..!mtxinu!taniwha!paul AppleLink: CAMPBELL.P "Finally after much thought he tied a dollar bill to the top of the tree, it seemed to fit - after all it was the premier capitalist holiday, besides after the 'fall' of communism a star didn't seem appropriate anymore ..." ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 1993 20:19 UT From: Ron Baalke Subject: Mars Observer Mapping Mission to Begin Earlier Than Planned Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary From the "JPL Universe" April 9, 1993 Mars Observer mapping mission to begin earlier than planned By Diane Ainsworth The Mars Observer spacecraft will begin its mapping mission about three weeks sooner than planned to ensure that data collection is well under way before Martian dust storms begin to sweep over the planet in February 1994. Plans to begin the science experiments on Nov. 22, 1993, rather than Dec. 12, had been written into the baseline strategy for the mission, but could not be considered until fuel surplus after launch and the first trajectory correction maneuver had been determined, project officials said. The Mars Observer planetary science group ratified the decision in mid-February to begin science observations 21 days ahead of schedule. "We had ideal launch conditions," said Suzanne Dodd, Mars Observer mission planning team chief, "and the Titan III launch vehicle and Transfer Orbit Stage (TOS) booster performed so efficiently that we conserved enough fuel to begin the mission early." The spacecraft will use the "power in" approach to drop more rapidly into its final, two-hour mapping orbit, Dodd said. Spacecraft descent from the time of capture in Mars orbit until it reaches the mapping orbit will take 75 days rather than 96 days, and will require seven braking maneuvers to bring the spacecraft into its 2 p.m. solar orientation. The spacecraft's booms will not be fully deployed until the final polar orbit has been achieved, Dodd said, but some science experiments will be operating as the highly elliptical orbit begins to tighten around the planet. The Magnetometer and Gamma Ray Spectrometer -- mounted on separate booms -- will be able to make unique measurements of the interactions of magnetic field lines with the solar wind that will not be observable from the lower altitude mapping orbit, said Dr. Arden Albee, Mars Observer project scientist. "For the first 10 1/2 days, the spacecraft will be crossing in and out of the planet's magnetic field in a three-day elliptical orbit," Albee said. "This will be a critical period for Magnetometer and Gamma Ray Spectrometer calibrations. Noise from the spacecraft will have to be subtracted out from the magnetic signatures of Mars and that can only be done as the spacecraft moves closer and then farther away from this planetary boundary." Twenty-one days after orbit insertion, the spacecraft will be in a one-day orbit around the planet. The Deep Space Network will begin to track the spacecraft continuously and, using the Doppler shift, measure the Martian gravity field. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer and Mars Observer Camera may also be operated simultaneously during spacecraft descent, Dodd said. Those instruments had not yet been approved for operation when Universe went to press, but a decision was expected within a few weeks. The camera, which will have taken its first picture of the planet 28 days before orbit insertion, would be turned on to begin acquiring narrow-angle images of star fields and the limb of the Martian surface. Mission operations team members said a solar conjunction that will occur on Dec. 20, 1993, and last through Jan. 3, 1994, also prompted the decision to begin science operations early. During the conjunction, the sun will be between Earth and the spacecraft, blocking spacecraft communications. "From an operational standpoint, we wanted to make sure that all orbit maneuvers and boom deployments were completed before we lost communication with the spacecraft," Dodd said. "On the science side, one complete mapping cycle takes 26 days, so we wanted to have one nice, clear map of Mars before solar conjunction." "There is a very distinct advantage to getting this first mapping cycle right up front," Albee added. "The Martian dust storms run roughly between February and August, so the atmosphere should be very clear in November. It will also provide us with an excellent opportunity to obtain data before and after a dust storm." Mars Observer will reach its near-circular mapping orbit 378 kilometers (234 miles) above the planet's surface on Nov. 8 of this year. At that time, the last two solar panels will be deployed and the science booms will be fully extended. In its mapping configuration, the spacecraft will map the red planet for an entire Martian year, the equivalent of about two Earth years or 687 Earth days. ### ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Being cynical never helps /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | to correct the situation |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | and causes more aggravation | instead. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1993 05:32:16 GMT From: Arthur Chandler Subject: Michael Jordan in Space Problem Newsgroups: sci.space I know this is trivial; but haven't you ever wondered something ridiculous and then couldn't get it out of your mind? Anyway , if this is *infra dignitatem* for this group, please ignore. So: What is the largest body in the solar system on which, if Michael Jordan jumped straight up, he would achieve escape velocity? All speculations gratefully considered. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1993 03:32:41 GMT From: Henry Spencer Subject: Mir 2's planned orbit [was Re: Degrees vs. experience] Newsgroups: sci.space In article <24885@ksr.com> clj@ksr.com (Chris Jones) writes: >It's not clear exactly why the orbital inclination for Mir 2 has been changed >from the current Mir's 51.62 degrees to 65 degrees. One guess ... > is that the Russian's are being cautious about depending on a launch >site outside of their country (Baikonour is in Kazakhstan)... Aviation Leak says that this is exactly the reason: they'll be launching from Plesetsk. This means setting up Proton launch facilities at Plesetsk, but they seem to think it's worth it. -- All work is one man's work. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology - Kipling | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 1993 18:39 CDT From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov Subject: NASA "Wraps" Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1993Apr7.132751.11625@iti.org>, aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes... >In article <6APR199317080334@tm0006.lerc.nasa.gov> dbm0000@tm0006.lerc.nasa.gov (David B. Mckissock) writes: >>Allen Sherzer & Tim Kyger write: >> "Another problem is what are called 'wraps' (or sometimes >> the 'center tax'). When work for a large program like >> Freedom or Shuttle is performed at a NASA center, the >> center skims off a portion which goes into what amounts >> to a slush fund... > > >BTW, universities do the same thing. They however, have a wrap of >10% to 15% (again, this is over and above any overhead charge). > > Allen > Wrong Allen. The max overhead charge is ALL of the charge. There is no seperately budgeted overhead in any shape size form or fashion. How do I know? I write proposals and have won contracts and I know to the dime what the charges are. At UAH for example the overhead is 36.6%. At Utah State it is somewhat higher. At Stanford it was really overboard. All of the schools that I have experience with use the overhead percentage number and that is ALL the system can charge on a contract. This puts into question your assertation about NASA. I admit I do not know how every dime is spent at MSFC but there is no big ticket item like you state. If you look at where NASA money is spent MSFC is the largest reciepient of NASA money, much more than JSC due to the fact that most shuttle program money gets paid out from here (ET's SRB's SSME's payload operations). I know that MSFC gets somewhere in the billions per year. If your asertation were correct that would mean that the skim is near a billion per year. This is prima facia absurd. Where the heck is the money going? To lawfully contracted programs. There are small amounts of money that the center director has. These are called the Center Director Discretionary Fund or CDDF. This money is given out each year to low level efforts that may lead to future major funded efforts. ATLAS mission currently in orbit began this way. The MSFC 75KVA DC power system began this way. Our SEDSAT is partially funded by this money. BUT There is no big money in this fund. No proposals that I have heard of have been funded over $150,000 per year for no more than three years. There are very few of these even. Most are in the $20,000-$50,000 range and go for no more than a couple of years. If you have some numbers Allen then show them else quit barking. I have no doubt that some SSF money is being used for non-SSF purposes. There is a new building at MSFC that was paid for from SSF money. This building is for the people that will be working on SSF (as it was). You could loosely state that this money was not spent directly on SSF, but it was in support of it. This is the only stretch in this direction that could even make any plausable sense. Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville BTW By your own numbers Allen, at a cost of 500 million per flight the service cost of flying shuttle to SSF is 2 billion for four flights, so how did you get your one billion number? ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 93 20:26:17 GMT From: Paul Dietz Subject: Question- Why is SSTO Single Stage Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > People built two-stage airliners once. Nobody bothers any more. It's > just not worth the extra performance. This is true, but there are significant differences between airliners and launchers. Transoceanic jets have mass ratios of around 50%. Staging doesn't gain much payload. SSTO launchers, the other hand, have mass ratios from 10% to as little as 3% (if they use dense fuels). The effect on payload could be much larger. Even low-performance dumb strap ons could significantly affect payload. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 1993 20:09:37 -0400 From: Pat Subject: Question- Why is SSTO Single Stage Newsgroups: sci.space How about Solid Strap ons to give a little extra kick. C-130's used to have JATO packs for short field take off. I bet the castor is cheap enough now to give a decent boost at startup, and it's small. Granted it increases complexity and all that sort of thing, but would it work? pat ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1993 04:10:45 GMT From: Josh Hopkins Subject: Question- Why is SSTO Single Stage Newsgroups: sci.space prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes: > How about Solid Strap ons to give a little extra kick. >C-130's used to have JATO packs for short field take off. In fact, lots of planes have used them. >I bet the castor is cheap enough now to give a decent boost >at startup, and it's small. There are several sizes of solid booster motors, some of which are sizeable enough to be first stages of smaller vehicles. >Granted it increases complexity and all that sort of thing, >but would it work? It could be made to work (with certain modifications to the boosters and/or the main engine operations). In fact, it has been talked about, though I don't know just how high up or how seriously. However, the whole point of an SSTO is that it doesn't use such things. If you add boosters it isn't an SSTO, and many of the features (low cost, launch from simple sites) dissapear. -- Josh Hopkins jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "Tout ce qu'un homme est capable d'imaginer, d'autres hommes seront capable de le realiser" -Jules Verne ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 21:22:33 EDT From: John Roberts Subject: Shuttle fax Ha! The fax machine on the Shuttle is jammed yet again, and they're using the backup printer. (This time they're calling it "the thermal printer that the astronauts use to receive printed instructions", but we know what they're talking about. :-) John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 1993 04:24 UT From: Ron Baalke Subject: SN 1993J and Gravity Waves? Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space In article , MPA15C!MP@TRENGA.tredydev.unisys.com writes... >I notice that SN 1993J was detected after the current Gravity Wave >experiment with Galileo/Mars Observer/Ulysses. > I noticed this too. I think SN 1993J would be an excellent candidate for generating gravity waves. It is rather fortunate that the supernova occurred during the gravity wave experiment. Keep in mind, however, that the analysis of the data from gravity wave experiment and correlating the data between the three spacecraft will take months. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Being cynical never helps /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | to correct the situation |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | and causes more aggravation | instead. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 1993 20:27 UT From: Ron Baalke Subject: Three Spacecraft Search for Gravity Waves Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,sci.physics,alt.sci.planetary From the "JPL Universe" April 9, 1993 3 spacecraft help in search for Einstein-predicted gravity waves By Franklin O'Donnell During an otherwise quiet part of their interplanetary cruises, three JPL spacecraft are being used in a novel experiment to find something that Albert Einstein predicted but no one has yet detected directly -- gravity waves. The experiment, which began March 21 and ends Sunday, April 11, makes use of the Mars Observer, Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft, all currently cruising en route to their respective destinations. During the three-week effort, antennas of JPL's Deep Space Network have been sending signals to each of the spacecraft, which in turn sends a signal at the same frequency back to Earth. Any slight change in the frequency could be caused by a passing gravitational wave emitted by a collapsing black hole or other distant celestial event. "Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in his theory of general relativity, and radio astronomy observations of pulsars have suggested they indeed exist -- but no one has ever detected a gravitational wave directly," said Dr. John Armstrong of JPL's Radio Frequency and Microwave Subsystems Section 333, who is working with the Mars Observer and Galileo spacecraft. According to Einstein, waves of gravity are emitted by astrophysical bodies undergoing extreme acceleration. The waves themselves are ripples in the fabric of space-time moving at the speed of light. Some cosmic events major enough to produce gravitational waves that could be detected near Earth include collapses of masses of stars in the hearts of galaxies and the spiraling together and collision of two black holes. Detection of gravitational waves will give scientists new information on the interiors of these catastrophic events. Sensitive interferometer antennas are being built in the United States and Europe to search for gravitational waves with wavelengths of thousands of kilometers. "In addition to searching for the shorter waves that can affect antennas here on Earth, we can use radio signals sent to spacecraft hundreds of millions of kilometers away to search for waves of much longer wavelength," said Dr. Frank Estabrook of the Space Physics and Astrophysics Section 328, who is working with the Galileo spacecraft. If strong enough, a passing gravitational wave will warp the fabric of space between the spacecraft and Earth so that the frequency of the spacecraft's radio signal changes. The hydrogen maser clocks that control the DSN transmitters and receivers are so accurate that scientists are be able to detect a change in radio frequency of as little as a few parts in a quadrillion (1 followed by 15 zeroes). "This should allow us to detect gravitational waves from objects such as massive pairs of black holes hidden in the hearts of other galaxies," said Hugo Wahlquist of JPL (also from Section 328), who is working on the Ulysses spacecraft with JPL's Sami Asmar (Section 339), Prof. Bruno Bertotti of the University of Pavia, Italy, and Prof. Luciano Iess of the University of Rome La Sapienza. The experiment is the first time observations have been made simultaneously with multiple spacecraft, which greatly increases the reliability of any detection. The team acknowledges, however, that snaring a gravitational wave during the experiment will depend on a good bit of luck --whether or not a suitable astronomical event happens to occur during the three-week opportunity when data can be taken. The three spacecraft are all in the night sky currently, so interference with their radio signals due to charged particles in the solar wind is at a minimum. Mars Observer, launched in September 1992, will reach the red planet Aug. 24 of this year. Launched in 1989, NASA's Galileo spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter in 1995. The joint NASA-European Space Agency Ulysses spacecraft was launched in 1990 to fly over the sun's poles in 1994 and 1995. ### ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab | ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Being cynical never helps /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | to correct the situation |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | and causes more aggravation | instead. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1993 21:01:30 GMT From: TS Kelso Subject: Two-Line Orbital Element Set: Space Shuttle Newsgroups: sci.space The most current orbital elements from the NORAD two-line element sets are carried on the Celestial BBS, (513) 427-0674, and are updated daily (when possible). Documentation and tracking software are also available on this system. As a service to the satellite user community, the most current elements for the current shuttle mission are provided below. The Celestial BBS may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, 2400, 4800, or 9600 bps using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity. Element sets (also updated daily), shuttle elements, and some documentation and software are also available via anonymous ftp from archive.afit.af.mil (129.92.1.66) in the directory pub/space. STS 56 1 22621U 93 23 A 93 98.58333332 .00059346 00000-0 17143-3 0 53 2 22621 57.0034 177.2911 0006562 270.2987 339.7131 15.92539873 50 -- Dr TS Kelso Assistant Professor of Space Operations tkelso@afit.af.mil Air Force Institute of Technology ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 447 ------------------------------