Quarles Committee studies best method of furnishing the United States with a sattelite by end of 1958. A committee, appointed by Secretary of the Air Force, D. A. Quarles, to recommend the best method of furnishing the United States with a satellite between the dates of June and December 1958, was briefed at Western Development Division (WDD). The Atlas project was reviewed and the potential of Atlas as a booster vehicle in a selected satellite system was presented. The committee was advised that WDD was qualified to manage the program if so directed but that such a program would interfere, to some extent with the high priority of the Atlas development effort. (Memo, Col C. H. Terhune, Dep Cmdr Tech Opns, WDD, to Brig Gen B. A. Schriever, Cmdr WDD, 28 Jun 55, subj: Visit of DOD Satellite Committee, 28 Jun 55.)

Between June 28 and July 11, 1959, 12 heat-transfer tests were made in the Preflight Jet Test facility at Wallops Island on several ablation materials being considered for use on the spacecraft afterbody (not heat shield) for the Little Joe flights. Test conditions simulated those of actual Little Joe trajectories. Of the materials used, triester polymer and thermolag demonstrated the capability to protect the spacecraft against expected heat loads.

The first Agena D (#1151) upper stage vehicle was successfully flown on a Thor booster (#340) launched from Vandenberg AFB. The Lockheed Agena D was a redesign of the basic Agena B and was intended to be the standard stage vehicle for most Defense Department and NASA programs. The program was begun in August 1961, revised and accelerated in November, and had its first flight in June 1962. KH-4; film capsule recovered 4.1 days later. Severe corona static.

The group was selected to provide scientist-astronauts for Apollo lunar landing and earth-orbit space station missions.. Qualifications: Doctorate in natural sciences, medicine, or engineering. Under 35 years old, under 183 cm height, excellent health. US citizen.. 1,351 applicants. The National Academy of Science was responsible for the final selection. NASA planned to select up to twenty, but the quality of the applicants was considered so poor that only six were named. Of those, four would fly in space. Geologist Schmitt would walk on the moon on the last Apollo mission, and only after pressure from the scientific community. The other three would fly on Skylab. Only Garriot would fly twice, supplementing his 59 days on Skylab with a ten-day shuttle mission.

The cosmonauts have to be extremely careful in putting Salyut in storage mode. They go through the checklist together with the ground to make sure no errors are made. The Salyut station is much more comfortable than the Soyuz, but the mission has revealed it needs many improvements, including: a unit for ejecting liquids from the station; solar panels, and scientific instruments, that can be automatically pointed at the sun or their target and stabilised; an improved control section; better crew rest provisions. Only with such improvements will it be possible to make flights of two months or longer. And such flights will take ten years to work up to, not by the end of the year, as Mishin claims. Kamanin thinks it will be possible to prolong flights to 40 to 60 days in 1972, but that this will then be a long-standing record. Any longer would be equivalent to running 100 km but then collapsing and dying - the Soviet Union doesn't need those kind of records!

The bigwigs arrive from Moscow to be in on the landing. But Afanasyev, Keldysh, Mishin, and Karas all remain at the cosmodrome for the investigation into the N1 failure.

Unmanned supply vessel to Salyut 6. Delivery of fuel, consumable materials and equipment to the Salyut 6 station. Docked with Salyut 6 on 30 Jun 1979 11:18:22 GMT. Undocked on 18 Jul 1979 03:49:55 GMT. Destroyed in reentry on 20 Jul 1979 01:57:30 GMT. Total free-flight time 4.0 days. Total docked time 17.69 days.

TV. Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses of space technology such as weather or communication (US Cat C). Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 134 deg W in 1983-1991; 133 deg W in 1991-1994 As of 31 August 2001 located at 92.66 deg W drifting at 0.600 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 9 located at 46.95W drifting at 0.505W degrees per day.

OPERATIONS CONCLUDED.

To make the docking of the freighter Progress-M13 on 2 July 1992 possible, the Progress-M12 had to disappear. Progress-M12 had been docked to the forward docking port (PKhO) on 22 April and was often used to correct the orbit of the complex. This also happened a few days ago and so only Kepler elements from day 178 or younger are useable. Radio traffic in the night from 27 to 28 June 1992 revealed that the undocking operation was going on. Kaleri watched the undocking and autonomous flight of Progress-M12 from the airlock (S.Sh.O.) of Module-D and Viktorenko observed all what was happening from the base block. During the pass in orb. 36394, which began at 2129 UTC, Progress-M12 separated from Mir. This was right over our heads at 2135 UTC. Telemetry and Doppler beacon (resp. on 166, 165 and 922.755 mc) could be heard. TsUP received TV images made by Kaleri. For a long time Mir and Progress-M12 flew in formation. During the next pass (in orb. 35395, 2306- UTC) Progress-M12 still flew autonomously still more or less observed by Kaleri. At 230654 UTC the exact TCA could be determined (922.755mc passed the BFO-dip). Almost on this moment Progress-M12's rocket worked to reduce its speed and it entered the earth's atmosphere. It decayed (burnt up) at 2321 UTC on 27 June 1992, so 9 minutes after our LOS. Progress-M12 had not been equipped with a return capsule.

Chris van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.

On 25.06.1997 during the first pass of the daily sequence (orb. 64831, 1049-1054 UTC) it was obvious that something went terribly wrong. If the redocking would have been a success this should have been obvious during this traffic. No word about the Progress-M34. The only subjects about which the crew spoke with TsUP were the systems on board Mir. In the first place they had problems with the SUD (attitude control) and something had happened with a module. TsUP transmitted a long series of 4-digit groups and the crew got orders to record and to collate them ('kvitantsiya').

In the next pass (orb. 64832, 1223-1232 UTC) reports about serious problems indicating that the complex had suffered from a heavy blow. An emergency signal warned that the power supply was too low (tension too low), that storage accumulators could not be charged and that the attitude of the complex had been changed and flew on its side. One or more of the 5 still available solar arrays could not be adjusted for a good angle towards the sun.. Tsibliyev reported that they were unable to change this and that the complex had a movement along the X-axis.

The crew got orders to activate the direct TV-link (commands Anna-72 and Anna-86) and to send images. Mike Foale made this images with a camera. (These images could be seen all over the world during the rest of the day). Very alarming was that what the crew reported during the 3d pass (orbit 64833, 1359-1409 UTC). Those solar panels which were still available could not be adjusted via computer commands, but this had to be done manually by the cosmonauts.

The gyrodynes did not work any more , the electrical tension was too low and the Ts.V.M.-1 (the main computer) ceased to function. The SUD failed and this was also the case with such a system in Module-D. After reporting all these calamities Tsibliyev stated that the situation was very bad. A number of ventilators did not work and the crew was grateful about the fact that the ventilators in Module-D functioned normally.

The fact that the gyrodynes stopped and did not consume power anymore decreased the burden on the power supply. After a long discussion about the power problems the crew got permission to adjust the solar panels of Module-D manually for a better angle towards the sun. In the background the voice of the veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Solovyov, Head of Flight Control, could be heard. As much as necessary the crew could use the Soyuz-TM25 and in case of a failure of the communications from the Base block they could use the transceiver of that ship.

The traffic during the 4th pass (orb. 68434, 1535-1546 UTC) began with the cheerful voice of Foale asking Tsibliyev how he felt himself. Tsibliyev said that he was very tired and suffered from strain caused by the event. Before LOS TsUP gave the windows for communications via the ground facilities of Oberpfaffenhofen, Dryden en Wallops in the coming night.

There was also good news: Foale reported that the amount of CO2 in the air was so low that the CO2 scrubber Vozdukh was not needed. An inconvenience was the fact that the alarm light : 'Depressurization of the complex' was burning continuously and that reset was impossible while the mano-vacuummeters indicated that the pressure remained stable (692 mm). During a following pass Tsibliyev said that he understood that the launch of the Progress-M35 had been put back. TsUP confirmed this. (to be continued)

Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.

For the time being the fate of Mir is uncertain. The cosmonauts on board Mir hoped to get information about the results of meetings on earth about the exploitation of Mir for the very near future. A meeting about this subject planned for last week has been put back until 2.07.1998. At this meeting a commission or group of experts will discuss the serious problems due to the lack of money for the present Mir exploitation and future operations. RKK Energiya did not receive the promised money badly needed this year and if this allotment will not be transferred soon, there are no means for the launch of Soyuz-TM28 with the relief crew for the present expedition. Possibly the meeting on 2.07.1998 will draft an ultimatum to the Kremlin: if the Kremlin fails to transfer the needed amount, another meeting will take place in mid July to discuss the termination of Mir's exploitation and to plan the operation to bring the station back into the atmosphere for decay later this year.

The present uncertainty phase is unpleasant for the cosmonauts. On 19.06.98 Musabayev spoke with Baturin, who is still training for his flight to Mir with Soyuz-TM28, together with the crew for the next (26th) Mir Main Expedition. Musabayev wished Baturin a good flight and said that he hoped to meet him soon on board Mir. Baturin, a former spaceflight constructor and an advisor of Yeltsin, was selected for a flight to Mir for political reasons, but regretfully Yeltsin sacked him due to measures of economy.

Apart from asking questions about the developments the cosmonauts do not say much about the present situation, but it is clear that their mood is far below the desired level. This could repeatedly be derived from conversations between the crew and TsUP. Especially Musabayev, a man with a stable character and in fact a humorist who likes to laugh a lot, regularly looses his temper.

Mir-routine:

Nevertheless Musabayev and Budarin continue to run the station as good as possible. They performed a number of repairs and were busy with a series of experiments. Last week they spent a lot of time to mend the defective Elektron oxygen generator in Kvant-1 for which they used parts of the Elektron in Module-D. A few times they did not succeed, but on 25.06 the Elektron worked well for 6 hours. On 26.06 the crew replaced a part of the Antares transmitter (for communications via Altair-2) and obviously they succeeded, for on 28.06 the transmitter was in use for a televised family meeting. Later on Musabayev reported that he had replaced the transmitter.

Experiments:

In co-ordination with American experts the cosmonauts continued the use of the Optizon furnace for melting processes. The Gallar furnace was also used. There were a lot of medical experiments, especially aimed at the cardio-vascular systems, Regularly they reported about experiments like Cardio, Holter and (the Dutch) Portapress.

They also worked on astrophysical experiments. The crew reactivated the spectrometer Mariya in Kvant-1 to study electromagnetic processes in the upper layers of the earth's atmosphere. They also carried out radiation measurements outside the complex along Mir's trajectory. Experiments located in the Priroda module were also discussed, i.e. MOMS, Ozon and Alisa.

Planning:

The last report about the launch of the Soyuz-TM28 with the relief crew Padalka and Avdeyev, and the politician Baturin, was about putting back this mission with 1 day for ballistic reasons. The launch is now scheduled for 3.08.1998 and the rendezvous with Mir for 5.08.98. To free the aft (+X axis) docking port of Mir the Progress-M39 has to undock from there on 4.08 for an autonomous flight. After the departure of Soyuz-TM27 the new transport ship Soyuz-TM28 has to be redocked to the forward (-X-axis) port. From that moment on the aft docking port is free for the redocking of the Progress-M38. This cargo ship has to remain docked to Mir, for the next one, Progress-M40, will not arrive before September 1998.

This all with due reserve, for important decisions regarding Mir's immediate fate have to be made. If Padalka, Avdeyev and Baturin will fly, their call will be Altair.

Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.

A Chinese company proposed a project to build a space port in Hainan. The $500 million project would include a launch complex, a tourist center and an industrial park. Hainan was already used as a sounding rocket launch site. It provided the most southern possible launch site on Chinese territory, which would maximise payload when launching geosynchronous satellites.

The SNAP-1 Surrey Nanosatellite Applications Platform was a 6 kg satellite with imager and propulsion. It was to test rendezvous techniques by formation flying with the Tsinghua satellite placed in orbit on the same launch. In October 2000 Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) released a picture of Tsinghua-1 taken in orbit by the SNAP-1 6.5 kg nanosatellite.

Tsinghua University of Beijing satellite equipped with an imager, communications payload, and momentum wheels for 3-axis stabilisation. The 50 kg, 0.69 x 0.36 x 0.36m box-shaped satellite used a standard Surrey SSTL microsat bus.Tsinghua-1 was the first demonstrator for the planned Disaster Monitoring Constellation and carried a multi-spectral Earth imaging camera providing 39-metre nadir ground resolution in 3 spectral bands. The satellite also carried out research in low Earth orbit using digital store-and-forward communications, a digital signal processing (DSP) experiment, a Surrey-built GPS space receiver and a new 3-axis microsat attitude control experiment. Tsinghua-1 used the SGR-10, with 12 channels and equipped with two receive antennas, to investigate the use of GPS signals in microsat on-board attitude and orbit determination. In October 2000 Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) released a picture of Tsinghua-1 taken in orbit by the SNAP-1 6.5 kg nanosatellite.

One third scale version of the privately-financed Nautilus inflatable human space habitat module. The spacecraft's 22 interior and exterior cameras provided images of items and pictures carried for paying participants in Bigelow's “Fly your Stuff” program.

NASA Small Explorer program; the IRIS Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph was designed to obtain high resolution (0.3 arcseconds) high cadence (1 second intervals) imaging and spectra of the sun with its 20-cm telescope, in two far-UV bands (1332-1358A, 1380-1406A) and one near-UV band (2785-2835A). Air dropped in Point Mugu Drop Zone.