SpaceFlight A British Interplanetary Society publication

Volume 70 No.1 January 2018 £5.00

Europa to spike crewed Orion? 01> Clarke centenary 634072 i4is Grand Opening 770038

9 The story of Apollo 5

CONTENTS Features 14 Science for a Safer World Chris Starr assesses the role of the Sentinel-2B satellite, part of the Copernicus programme, in helping to monitor the planet.

18 MOORE to Remember Stuart Eves imagines M.O.O.R.E., a “virtual 14 Letter from the Editor museum” where microsatellites provide “fly- through” visual scans of historic satellites. Welcome to the January 2018 issue of SpaceFlight, the first of a new design 22 Starship Troupers with more pages and a distinctive style Patrick Mahon reports on the grand opening of that’s in keeping with the progressive i4is – Initiative for Interstellar Studies. aspirations of the British Interplanetary Society – the world’s 24 The launch of Apollo 5 longest-running organisation for space The Editor remembers the first flight of the Lunar advocacy. Module in January 1968 and recalls what it was Thanks and gratitude go to like behind the scenes during this often- 18 22 professional designer Andrée Wilson* overlooked milestone on the race to the Moon. who has developed a style that is a great improvement on the previous 32 Monument to a Space Pioneer look of the magazine, and to Martin Alan Marlow visits a museum in Bavaria dedicated Preston, who has spent a lifetime in to pioneering rocketeer Hermann Oberth. design, editing and publishing, and is now the custodian of putting those 34 1917-2017 A Space Odyssey ideas into practice. We welcome him As part of our centenary series commemorating aboard and thank both for their the life of Arthur C. Clarke, Nick Spall reflects on impressive contributions. mysteries real and imagined. 24 As we look to an exciting space year ahead with lots of events and activities to record, I am proud of the content provided by our contributors, and of the hardworking staff and volunteers Regulars at the BIS who do so much, frequently with few bouquets (and the odd 4 Behind the news *andrée-wilsion.com unwarranted brickbat!), to advance the

Orion crewed flights delayed • Enceladus: Society and to support your monthly Saturn’s heat pump 32 magazine – our “new” SpaceFlight. 7 Opinion 10 ISS Report 9 October – 8 November 2017 40 Obituary Richard Francis Gordon (1929-2017) 42 Satellite Digest David Baker 540 – October 2017 [email protected] 46 Society news / Diary 34

COVER: EUROPA CLIPPER HOMES IN ON JUPITER/NASA CLIPPER HOMES EUROPA COVER: What’s happened • What’s coming up

OUR MISSION STATEMENT Editor David Baker, PhD, BSc, FBIS, FRHS Sub Editor Ann Page Creative Consultant Andrée Wilson Design & Production MP3 Media Promotion Gillian Norman Advertising Tel: +44 (0)20 7735 3160 Email: [email protected] Distribution Warners Group Distribution, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, The British Interplanetary Society Lincolnshire PE10 9PH, England Tel: +44 (0)1778 391 000 Fax: +44 (0)1778 393 668 SpaceFlight, Arthur C. Clarke House, 22/29 South promotes the exploration and Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ, England Tel: +44 (0)20 7735 3160 Fax: +44 (0)20 7582 7167 Email: [email protected] www.bis-space.com use of space for the benefit Published monthly by the British Interplanetary Society, SpaceFlight is a publication that promotes the mission of the British of humanity, connecting people Interplanetary Society. Opinions in signed articles are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the to create, educate and inspire, Editor or the Council of the British Interplanetary Society. Registered Company No: 402498. Registered charity No: 250556. The British Interplanetary Society is a company limited by guarantee. Printed in England by Latimer Trend & Company Ltd., Plymouth. and advance knowledge in © 2018 British Interplanetary Society. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in any form all aspects of astronautics. or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system without written persmission for the Publishers. Photocopying permitted by license only.

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 3 SLUG BEHIND THE NEWS

SLS Block I with the new paint patterns for the Solid Rocket Boosters, imagined as it will stand on LC-39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. ORION–CREWED FLIGHT NO EARLIER THAN 2024? NASA has affirmed its plan to send the SLS/Orion spacecraft to the Moon by mid-2020 – but flights with astronauts could take a further four years.

EXPLORATION MISSION-1 (EM-1) will be the first flight of the giant system for the Crew Module and the liquid cooled garment. Also, SLS rocket which NASA has been developing as its deep-space neither emergency nor recovery communications will be launch system supporting extended human space flight around the installed, nor the audio system for crew communications, space Moon and Mars, unmanned missions for lifting heavy spacecraft to suits, a food system or the OASIS. the Red Planet, or dramatically reducing transit time to the outer Constituting the only planned flight for SLS Block I with its giants. However, while there appear no technical hurdles in the path less powerful ICPS upper stage, EM-1 will fly the same retrograde to first-flight, development of two separate launch systems – SLS orbit as that employed by all the Apollo missions to the Moon, Block I with 70 tonnes lift capacity and Block IB lifting 105 tonnes to meaning the spacecraft flies around the Moon in the opposite low Earth orbit – is delaying crewed missions. direction to the Moon’s orbit (and rotation) about Earth. After a In an agency-wide review of the SLS programme, NASA has nominal coast, Orion will reside in an elliptical orbit of 100 x affirmed that while it is still working to an internal management 70,000 km with apolune on the far side of the Moon. The entire flight date of December 2019, possible manufacturing and schedule mission is expected to last between 26 and 42 days before the risks indicate a launch date of June 2020. Moreover, acting Orion spacecraft returns to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Administrator Robert Lightfoot cautions that “several of the key EM-2 will be a repeat flight of EM-1 but with four astronauts on risks identified have not been actually realised”. But this is not the board in a mission lasting up to 21 days. But to achieve the flight only complexity impeding an early flight date for the crewed SLS. objectives, NASA will need to use the more potent Block IB which Budgetary constraints have forced NASA into a potentially carries the more powerful Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) high-risk mission sequence where several key systems, some in the powered by a cluster of four RL-10 engines of Centaur upper critical path for crew safety, are scheduled to fly for the first time stage heritage. Under current planning that will be the first flight on the first manned flight, EM-2. That mission designation is defined of this propulsion system. But there is another possibility which by the flight objectives, to be the first to carry a crew and to qualify has been gaining traction in recent months. a fully operational set of systems and subsystems. But other missions may get in the way of a crewed flight. BUILDING IT BIGGER Primarily, elements of Orion’s environmental control system will Because NASA believes it will take 33 months to reconfigure the not be carried on EM-1, including the air revitalisation subsystem, LC-39B launch pad support infrastructure at the Kennedy Space fire detection and suppression equipment, a pressure regulation Centre to accommodate the taller Block IB, the second launch

4 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight BEHIND THE NEWS ❝ Robert Lightfoot cautions that “several of the key Briefing risks identified have not been realised” ❞

opportunity for SLS will not occur for a further immediately for a 2022 launch date. three years. It may even be necessary to build a After EM-2 there is the prospect of an EM-3 in second Mobile Launch Platform but that is not June 2025 followed a year later by another yet in the budget. Aside from that, however, the planetary flight: SM-2 carrying the Europa Lander, US Congress is particularly keen to use a Block IB another mission strongly favoured by a Congress to fly the Europa Clipper orbiter to Jupiter. In which has the keys to the money bag. EM-3 would which case, Science Mission-1 (SM-1), as it is consolidate the DSG with a docking and crew called, would fly the first Block IB, demonstrating transfer, something which would not have been this second variant of SLS on a planetary mission achieved on EM-2. But SM-2 would be the first before risking a crew. flight with the RS-25E engines, qualifying them If SMS-1 is launched in July 2023 at the for crewed flights resuming with EM-4 in 2027. opportune Jovian launch window, the earliest But the mid-2020s could get crowded, for there crewed flight of EM-2 would be June 2024, since are already several high-profile planetary NASA plans to fly only one SLS a year and the missions under consideration. infrastructure to support crewed operations Given NASA’s predilection for honouring the would probably not be ready before then. But Decadal Planetary Missions plan, there is strong A Black Brant sounding rocket carries ASPIRE on a Mars 2020 parachute test.

there are other knock-on effects from a flat-lined support from the science community for an NASA budget which might make this attractive. orbiter mission to Uranus or Neptune ideally One function of EM-2 is to demonstrate the placed around the second half of the next MARS 2020 ROVER first crewed flight of an Orion spacecraft but also decade. Then there is the long-overdue Mars One further step toward the clearance for to carry the Deep Space Gateway to lunar orbit Sample Retrieval Mission to collect samples flight of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover was where it would be left for human-tending on a cached by Mars 2020, the developed version of satisfactorily completed on 4 November later mission. As reported in Spaceflight (Vol 59 Curiosity. Much has been invested in that when a 17.7 m tall Black Brant IX sounding No 7 pp 252-259), the DSG is critical to extending spacecraft for gathering up samples for return to rocket was fired from Wallops Island, human exploration to the planets and this is Earth at a later date. It has to happen to justify Virginia. The rocket carried its payload, a being sought from a collaboration with industry, the development of that capability in Mars 2020. blunt-nosed cylindrical structure, to test NASA and may emerge as a leased facility produced by the deployment of the supersonic one of the new space companies such as SpaceX, TIME URGENT parachute used to further decelerate the Orbital ATK or Bigelow. But whatever the flow of missions from EM-1 vehicle as it descends toward the surface DSG will cost money, whoever develops and onward, there are more immediate events critical of the planet. Accelerating to a maximum builds it and whoever ends up owning it. The to preparations for the flight of the first Space altitude of 51 km before descending to 41 commercial programmes which NASA has been Launch System and its Orion payload. Previously km and a velocity of Mach 1.8, the payload investing in since 2010 have reached fruition with scheduled to take place after EM-1, which was deployed and with it the supersonic Dragon and Cygnus routinely plying from Earth to originally planned to fly at the end of 2018, the parachute. Known as the Advanced the International Space Station but it has not deferral to at least December 2019 and probably Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research been from funds exclusively provided by SpaceX mid-2020 for that first SLS flight has prompted Experiment (ASPIRE), the test was to and Orbital ATK. By deferring the launch of DSG managers to move up the second test of the qualify the parachute for slowing the on EM-2, NASA may find it more affordable and as all-important Launch Abort System (LAS). spacecraft as it descends through the part of an international effort, workable over For the first time since the Apollo Soyuz Test Martian atmosphere at a speed of 5.4 km/ time as a more cost-effective route than aiming Project of 1975, NASA astronauts will have a sec. Some 35 minutes after launch, ASPIRE descended to the Atlantic Ocean, splashing down 54 km southeast of the launch site. A second test is scheduled for February 2018.

ORBITAL ATK SOLD Consolidation is setting in after the Aerojet/Rocketdyne and UTC/Rockwell deals, with Northrop Grumman buying up Orbital ATK in a $9.2 billion snatch, of which $1.54 billion is in debt and the remainder in cash. Regulatory oversight expects to clear this deal during the first months of 2018. Northrop Grumman is already heavily invested in the satellite business, its current flagship being the James Webb Space Telescope together with the less well known EHF and SBIRS military satellites. Orbital ATK already has the Pegasus and Minotaur launchers and is developing the Next Generation Launch (NGL) rocket with a decision made by them and their US Air Force partner on final com- Technicians inside the liquid oxygen tank complete final welds to plug holes left by the robotic welder mitment expected imminently. The NGL will prior to the first hydrostatic testing for the Space Launch System. The tank is filled with around be in the same lift category as Atlas V, 757,000 litres of water that will simulate the propellant, loads, pressure and mass of the liquid oxygen.

NASA Falcon 9 and the prospective Vulcan.

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 5 BEHIND THE NEWS

means of escape from an ascending stack test to provide engineers with critical abort Briefing running amok or threatening to explode. The test data sooner, to help validate computer all-important LAS is a tricky piece of kit to models of the spacecraft’s LAS performance build, still more so to test in a simulation of and system functions. an active abort. In 2010, an earlier version of “This will be the only time we test a fully Orion’s LAS was tested to evaluate the active launch abort system during ascent performance of the system in flight during before we fly crew, so verifying that it works Abort Test Booster-1 at the White Sands as predicted, in the event of an emergency, Missile Range in New Mexico. Now, NASA is a critical step before we put astronauts on plans to run the next test in April 2019. board”, said Don Reed, manager of the Orion This full-stress test of the LAS, called Program Flight Test Management Office at Ascent Abort Test 2 (AA-2), will see a booster, NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “No matter provided by Orbital ATK, launch from Cape what approach you take, having to move a 10 Canaveral carrying a fully functional LAS and tonne spacecraft away quickly from a a 10,000 kg Orion test vehicle to an altitude catastrophic event, like a potential rocket of 9,850 m at Mach 1.3 (over 1,600 km/hr). At failure, is extremely challenging.” that point, the LAS’ powerful reverse-flow The LAS is divided into two parts: the abort motor will fire, carrying the Orion test fairing assembly, which is a shell composed vehicle away from the missile. Timing is of a lightweight composite material that crucial as the abort events must match the protects the capsule from the heat, wind and abort timing requirements of the Orion acoustics of the launch, ascent, and abort spacecraft to the millisecond in order for the environments; and the launch abort tower, flight test data to be valid. which includes the system’s three motors. In NASA is accelerating the timeline of the an emergency, those three motors – the

322 feet

The SNAP 10A nuclear reaction flown in 1965. AEC REACTOR FOR SPACE Launch Abort System NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate has Crew Module begun tests at the Nevada National Security Site of ORION SPACECRAFT Service Module a nuclear fission reactor for power generation on encapsulated Service Module panels planetary surfaces. Known as Kilopower, it aims to demonstrate a full-scale system capable of producing 1,000 watts of electrical energy in a Spacecraft Adapter Orion Stage Adapter performance demonstration managed by NASA’s interim cryogenic propulsion stage Glenn Research Center. Full-scale tests will commence in February 2018 with a 20-hour run subjected to high temperatures and vacuum Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter conditions. Two 125 watt Stirling converters will be supplemented by six thermal simulators but this forward skirt partial array should be capable of providing liquid oxygen tank 150-200 watts in a system concept which engineers say could be scaled up to provide 10 kW of electrical energy in future systems. Previously, intertank forward NASA launched a 500 watt SNAP 10A nuclear assembly reactor in 1965 which operated for 43 days before forward skirt an unrelated systems problem shut it down. It avionics remains in orbit. forward segment liquid hydrogen tank with igniter SPACE X TEST FAILS SpaceX suffered a failure with a Merlin rocket centre forward motor on 4 November during a test at its segment development centre in McGregor, Texas. The test centre centre was being conducted in one of the two bays at the segment facility, damaging it severely and causing some STAGE CORE limited damage to the adjacent cell. center aft SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS (2) BOOSTERS ROCKET SOLID SpaceX says that the mishap was to a Merlin segment engine for the Block 5 Falcon 9 upgrade but did not occur during a live firing, rather during a liquid aft segment oxygen flow-down where LOX is used to discover Core Stage engine section leaks. The relationship of that event to the attach ring destruction caused is not known. At present, aft skirt SpaceX is flying with the Block 4 engine and this RS-25 engines (4) nozzle incident is not likely to affect the ambitious launch

schedule. At the time of writing, SpaceX had NASA carried out 16 Falcon 9 flights during the year, with The Block I Space Launch System carrying the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) three more launches planned before the end of atop the massive cryogenic first stage 2017.

6 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight BEHIND THE NEWS launch abort, attitude control, and jettison Human Exploration and Operations Mission motors – would work together to pull Orion away Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, Briefing from a problem on the launch pad or during SLS DC. NASA Johnson is responsible for producing first stage ascent, steering and re-orienting for the fully assembled and integrated Crew Module LAS jettison, and pulling the LAS away with the and separation ring, including development of Crew Module. During a normal launch, only the unique avionics, power, software and data LAS jettison motor would fire, once Orion and the collection subsystems and several elements of Space Launch System clear most of the ground support equipment. atmosphere, to separate the LAS from Orion and The agency’s Langley Research Center in allow the spacecraft to continue with its mission. Hampton, Virginia, will build the primary Engineers at several NASA centres are already structure of the Crew Module test article and a building the Orion test article that has many of separation ring that connects the test capsule to the design features and the same mass as the the booster and provides space and volume for capsule that will carry crew. Because the test is separation mechanisms and instrumentation. designed to evaluate Orion’s launch abort Critical sensors and instruments used to capabilities, the crew module used for AA-2 will gather data during the test will be provided by not deploy parachutes after the abort system is NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in jettisoned, nor will it have a reaction control Edwards, California. The integrated test article system with thrusters needed to help orient the will be delivered to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center capsule for a parachute-assisted descent and in Floridawhere it will be processed before splashdown after the LAS is jettisoned. launch. NASA’s prime contractor, Lockheed The AA-2 test development and execution is a Martin, is providing the fully functional Orion LAS, partnership between the Orion programme and and the Crew Module to Service Module umbilical the Advanced Exploration Systems Division, the and flight design retention and release technology advancement organization in the mechanisms. SF

Opinion… [email protected]

❝ American taxpayers will wonder at the stability of a national space NASA programme that consistently Spitzer: up for sale, after 14 years in space. changes direction ❞ ANY TAKERS FOR SPITZER? GIVEN THAT ITS ANTECEDENT EVOLVED during the early days of the Constellation programme, Launched in 2003, NASA’s 865 kg Spitzer development of the Space Launch System (SLS) has been under way for more than twelve years. infrared astronomical telescope has been Begun in 2005 but cancelled in 2010 by President Obama, Congress rewrote the future for up for sale to non-government organisa- America’s national human space flight programme, requiring NASA to develop a version of what had tions in bidding which closed 17 November. previously been called Ares V into a new rocket capable of lifting either the Orion crewed vehicle or To save money and to clear the way for heavy cargo. That is the SLS which has itself seen a variety of different proposed variants operations with the James Webb Space culminating in the Block I, the Block IB and the Block 2 – for now! Telescope, which had been scheduled for The SLS is tied irrevocably to the Orion spacecraft, which is itself about to mark its 13th birthday launch before the end of 2018, NASA plans without carrying a single human off the planet. In that time it has evolved in application from a to retire Spitzer in March 2019. Placed in an mother-ship for the Altair Moon-lander, to a back-up vehicle for carrying astronauts to the Earth-trailing orbit of the Sun, Spitzer is International Space Station (in case the commercial stuff failed), to supporting a Mars mission, to gradually falling behind and is now at a recovering an asteroid, now to supplying a Deep Space Gateway at the Moon. distance of more than 235 million km. But And now there is further intervention (from guess where: Congress again) to inject an unmanned the all-important nitrogen gas supply planetary mission, the Europa Clipper orbiter, into the mix, delaying a crew-carrying Orion flight until essential for maintaining attitude control the new upper stage is tested without crew. As reported on these pages, it will take nearly three and pointing angles has still only consumed years to adapt the LC-39B pad assigned to SLS (LC-39A is SpaceX territory) which could push the first half the 15.6 kg loaded prior to launch. crewed flight to 2024. Originally known as the Space Infrared American taxpayers will wonder at the stability of a national space programme that consistently Telescope Facility, it was renamed in changes direction, sometimes in the face of hostile opposition, and restructures national goals, December 2003 after the noted astrono- policy and operations. Implementation is the key action in any linear engineering and management mer Lyman Spitzer. Critical for cryogenic focus but the pull of gravity from a mass of challenging alternatives made possible through a operation of most of the scientific successful and flexible design is a killer. It saps committed direction and diverts proactive planning. instruments on board, the liquid helium Which is precisely what has happened with SLS/Orion. was exhausted in May 2009, following To be precise: the programme is not focused, too whimsical in orientation and marketed to the which Spitzer entered a “warm” mission public by self-induced public relations hyperbole that has most Americans believing that Orion is the mode. vehicle that will take people to Mars; instead it is the people that will carry Orion to Mars, for it is Spitzer is one of NASA’s four “Great incapable of transporting the crew by itself and another habitation module will be necessary. As we Observatories”. The Compton Gamma-Ray frequently remind our reader, Orion can support only four people for a mere three weeks. Will we Observatory was launched in 1991 but have to wait a further seven years before USA astronauts once again visit deep-space destinations deorbited in 2000. Hubble and the Chandra – 52 years after Apollo 17? SF X-Ray Observatory remain in service.

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 7 BEHIND THE NEWS Briefing

UK NEARS LIFT-OFF The UK Space Agency has been touring the British Isles with a series of industry workshops and public open evenings to promote the development of small rocket launchers and sub-orbital space flight from UK spaceports. The agency is handling 26 proposals which were submitted and is examining grant applications for the first activities toward launching from UK soil. It is hoped that this will lead to a commercial launcher market in the UK where Britain’s expanding space industry will benefit and where customers would be able to obtain support for their scientific or technical endeavours.

MARS MOON LANDER NASA has selected a science instrument for an upcoming Japan-led sample return mission to the moons of Mars planned for launch in 2024. The instrument, a sophisticated neutron and gamma- ray spectrograph, will help scientists resolve one of the most enduring mysteries of the Red Planet – when and how the small moons formed. The Mars Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is in development by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). MMX will visit the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, land on the surface of Phobos, and collect a surface sample. Plans are for the sample to be returned to Earth in 2029. NASA is supporting the development of one of the spacecraft’s suite of seven science instruments. The selected instrument, named SATURNIAN MEGANE will be developed by a team led by David Lawrence of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. MEGANE will give MMX the ability to “see” the elemental composition of Phobos, by measuring the HEAT PUMP energies of neutrons and gamma-rays emitted from the small moon. The elementary particles are ENOUGH HEAT TO POWER HYDROTHERMAL ACTIVITY inside Saturn’s ocean moon emitted naturally as a result of the high-energy Enceladus for billions of years could be generated through tidal friction if the moon has a cosmic rays and solar energetic particles that highly porous core, a new study finds, working in favour of the moon as a potentially continually strike and penetrate the surface of habitable world. Phobos. A paper published in Nature Astronomy during November presents the first concept that explains the key characteristics of 500 km-diameter Enceladus as observed by the international Cassini spacecraft over the course of its mission, which ended in September. This includes a global salty ocean below an ice shell with an average thickness of 20–25 km,

JAXA/NASA thinning to just 1–5 km over the south polar region. There, jets of water vapour and icy grains are launched through fissures in the ice. The composition of the ejected material measured by Cassini included salts and silica dust, suggesting they form through hot water – at least 90º C – interacting with rock in the porous core. The source of these observations require a huge source of heat, about one gundred times more than is expected to be generated by the natural decay of radioactive elements in rocks in its core, as well as a means of focusing activity at the south pole. The tidal effect from Saturn is thought to be at the origin of the eruptions, deforming the icy shell by push-pull motions as the moon follows an elliptical path around the giant planet. But the energy produced by tidal friction in the ice, by itself, would be too weak to counterbalance the heat loss seen from the ocean – the globe would freeze within 30 million years. As Cassini has shown, the moon is clearly still extremely active, suggesting something else is happening. “Where Enceladus gets the sustained power to remain active has always been a bit of mystery, but we’ve now considered in greater detail how the structure and composition of the moon’s rocky core could play a key role in generating the necessary energy,” says lead author Gaël Choblet from the University of Nantes in France. In the new simulations the core is made of unconsolidated, easily deformable, porous rock that water can easily permeate. As such, cool liquid water from the ocean can seep into the core and gradually heat up through tidal friction between sliding rock fragments, Phobos bound: JAXA’s MMXMars moon lander. as it gets deeper. Water circulates in the core and then rises because it is hotter than the surroundings. This process ultimately transfers heat to the base of the ocean in narrow

8 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight BEHIND THE NEWS Briefing SSTL

1 Passive influx of cold water from salty ocean into porous rocky core

2 Water heated in core rises in narrow plumes and interacts with rocks GRACE has come to an end after 15 years.

3 Hotspots on sea floor GRACE BOWS OUT 4 Transport of heat and After more than 15 years of productive rocks through ocean science, the joint NASA/Germany GRACE 5 Localised heating at mission is over. The twin satellites for the ocean-ice interface thins Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment ice shell had consistently measured the ever 6 Jets of water vapour changing movement of water, ice and the and particles erupt from fissures solid Earth through determination of gravitational effects by precision measurement of the relative distance Plumes from Enceladus as viewed by the NASA/ESA Cassini spacecraft during one of the between the two satellites. Unable to main- 23 fly-bys it made of this enigmatic moon of Saturn (top), and (above) the interior of tain orbital position, the first GRACE Enceladus as derived from information obtained during the mission. satellite is expected to deorbit at the end ESA of this year, the second in early 2018. plumes where it interacts strongly with the rocks. At the seafloor, these plumes vent into the cooler ocean. One seafloor hotspot alone is predicted to release as much as 5 GW of energy, roughly SNIFFING FOR GAS corresponding to the annual geothermal power consumed in Iceland. Thales Alenia-Space has signed a deal Such seafloor hotspots generate ocean plumes rising at a few centimetres per second. with the UK Space Agency for MicroCarb, Not only do the plumes result in strong melting of the ice crust above, but they can also a joint UK-French satellite designed to carry small particles from the seafloor, over weeks to months, which are then released into measure greenhouse gas production space by the icy jets. Moreover, the authors’ computer models show that most water should across the Earth’s surface and to be expelled from the moon’s polar regions, with a runaway process leading to hot spots in determine from those results the quantity localised areas, and thus a thinner ice shell directly above, consistent with what was of carbon being absorbed into the world’s inferred from Cassini. oceans and arboreal canopies. The “Our simulations can simultaneously explain the existence of an ocean at a global scale satellite is scheduled to launch in 2020. due to large-scale heat transport between the deep interior and the ice shell, and the To support this drive to better concentration of activity in a relatively narrow region around the south pole, thus understand the balance of carbon uptake, explaining the main features observed by Cassini,” says co-author Gabriel Tobie, also from NASA launched the OCO-2 satellite in the University of Nantes. 2014. Managed by the French space The scientists say that the efficient rock–water interactions in a porous core massaged agency CNES, MicroCarb will measure by tidal friction could generate up to 30 GW of heat over tens of millions to billions of quantities to 1 ppm with a pixel size of 5 x years. 6 km. The instrument will be flown on a “Future missions capable of analysing the organic molecules in the Enceladus plume microsatellite built around the CNES with a higher accuracy than Cassini would be able to tell us if sustained hydrothermal Myriade bus. conditions could have allowed life to emerge,” says Nicolas Altobelli, ESA’s Cassini project scientist. A future mission equipped with ice-penetrating radar would also be able to constrain the ice thickness, and additional flybys – or an orbiting craft – would improve models of the interior, further verifying the presence of active hydrothermal plumes. “We’ll be flying next-generation instruments, including ground-penetrating radar, to Jupiter’s ocean moons in the next decade with ESA’s JUICE mission, which is specifically tasked with trying to understand the potential habitability of ocean worlds in the outer Sniffing for gas: NASA’s OCO-2 satellite. Solar System,” adds Nicolas. SF

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 9 SATELLITES

10 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight ISS REPORT ISS Report 9 October – 8 November 2017

Expedition 53 is in its second month of operation, with commander Randy Bresnik and his crew of two Americans, two Russians and an Italian. Report by George Spiteri

n 9 October, Bresnik and Vande Hei continued preparing for the mission’s second EVA, which began at 11:56 UTC on 10 October. Vande Hei used a grease gun to lubricate the new Latching O End Effector (LEE) they had previously installed on Canadarm2. They also replaced a faulty camera system, a smudged lens cover and removed two handrails outside Tranquility in preparation for a future wireless antenna installation. The spacewalk ended at 18:22 UTC after 6 hrs 26 min. The crew reviewed their spacewalk with ground specialists on 11 October and began preparations for the next EVA. They also worked with NASA’s NeuroMapping experiment examining the effects of space flight on neurocognitive performance.

STALLED PROGRESS The launch of Progress MS-07/68P on a Soyuz-2.1a rocket from Site 31 at Baikonur was aborted in the last minute. Launch was due at 09:32 UTC (15:32 local time) on 12 October. One of the two retractable arms detached from the booster at approximately T-35 secs as planned, but the second umbilical connection, which normally pulls back about 12 secs prior to lift-off, remained attached to the rocket. ABOVE Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin Mark Vande Hei (left) and Paolo Nespoli work on the Combustion told reporters; “Automation cut off the launch” but Integrated Rack (CIR) inside Russian space officials did not explain immediately why the Destiny laboratory module. the problem occurred and two days later NASA TV’s Joining the pair aboard commentator Rob Navias reported the “glitch...apparently Expedition 53 are American flight has been corrected” and was caused by an electrical engineer Joe Acaba, and Russian colleagues Sergey Ryazanskiy problem which interrupted the automated launch and Alexander Misurkin. sequence. The aborted launch meant Russian space officials LEFT discarded plans for Progress to attempt the first two-orbit, Astronaut Mark Vande Hei attaches part of a science 3.5-hr rendezvous and resorted to the two day, 34-orbit, experiment aboard the rendezvous profile necessitated by what NASA explained International Space Station as “orbital mechanics”. during Expedition 53. On 13 October, Bresnik and Acaba went over procedures and took part in a conference with ground specialists as they continued to prepare for their spacewalk. The crew also reconfigured the Fluids Integrated Rack (FIR) and ended their working week by taking part in a podcast with JSC Public Affairs Office. The crew used their light-duty weekend 14/15 October to conduct further preparations for their EVA, perform

ALL IMAGES: NASA ALL IMAGES: Earth photography observations, conduct the inevitable

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 11 ISS REPORT

to students from Ireland and Sweden courtesy of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station The crew ended (ARISS) programme. the week on 27 THIRD SPACEWALK Bresnik and Acaba began Expedition 53’s third EVA October by at 11:47 UTC on 20 October. The spacewalk had been postponed two days to give the crew more time to harvesting three review revised tasks. Acaba installed a new camera on Canadarm2’s LEE, replacing a degraded one which will be types of leafy returned to Earth for repairs. Acaba also installed an HD camera on the station’s S1 truss whilst Bresnik replaced greens. This was a fuse on the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) or Dextre, removed an insulation blanket from a the sixth round spare Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU), installed a new radiator grapple bar and worked on a spare Ammonia of crops grown on Pump Module. housekeeping chores, get regular exercise and talk to One of Acaba’s final tasks was to complete the family and friends. the station… lubrication started by Vande Hei on the LEE, he was allowed to finish the task despite encountering a problem PROGRESS TAKE TWO with his Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER) jet back- Progress MS-07/68P was launched successfully at 08:46 pack. SAFER would allow stranded astronauts to fly back UTC (14:46 local time) on 14 October and docked to to the ISS if they became untethered from the station. Pirs at 11:04 UTC on 16 October. The unmanned cargo Earlier in the spacewalk, Mission Control-Houston vehicle delivered 1,350 kg of dry cargo, food and spare ordered him to change one of his safety tethers, after parts, 880 kg of propellant, 420 kg of water, 24 kg of air close inspection revealed loose stitching. The EVA lasted and 23 kg of oxygen. Veteran Russian space observer 6 hrs 49 mins and ended at 18:36 UTC. It was the 205th Anatoly Zak reported in Popular Mechanics magazine spacewalk dedicated to ISS assembly and maintenance, a that Progress was also “carrying a secret, a previously succession of activities totalling 53 days 6 hrs 25 mins and unseen instrument attached to the exterior front section was the 10th ISS EVA in 2017. of the spacecraft”. The crew reviewed their EVA and discussed with The Russians explained it was “a scientific payload ground specialists the issue with SAFER during their intended for a one-time trip” aboard Progress. There light-duty weekend 21/22 October. NASA TV reported was speculation that the instrument was similar to the during the spacewalk that the unit’s hand controller Otrazhenie-5 (Reflection-5) experiment which gathered “kept activating itself ”. The controller had popped open data on atmospheric phenomena after an earlier Progress and inadvertently turned on, indicating a nitrogen had undocked from the ISS in 2014. quantity of zero, depleting its 1.4 kg nitrogen load due to Ryazanskiy and Misurkin began unloading Progress unintentional contact of the controller with hardware. on 17 October, whilst Bresnik and Acaba configured the The highlight of 23 October was the #1World1Orbit tools for their EVA and Nespoli set up NASA’s Miniature photography posted on social media which involved Exercise Device-2 (MED-2) for a test of the hardware’s Bresnik and Acaba taking pictures from the Cupola ability to provide effective workouts whilst maximising during one orbit of Earth. This began at 12:25 UTC as the space aboard a spacecraft. ISS flew over the UK and ended 90 mins later when the ABOVE LEFT On 18 October, Misurkin joined Acaba and Vande Three different varieties of station was over the North Atlantic Ocean. At the same Hei for a routine training session on how to handle a plants growing in the Veggie time the crew invited people on Earth to post photos from medical emergency. The trio reviewed medical hardware, plant growth chamber on the their towns and cities all over the planet. chest compression techniques and individual roles and International Space Station were The crew also stored blood and urine samples inside the harvested on 27 October. responsibilities, whilst Acaba also continued to prepare Minus Eighty-Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS with Bresnik for their spacewalk. BELOW (MELFI) for NASA’s Biochemical Profile experiment and Bresnik and Acaba made final preparations for their On 23 October the crew worked with the Lighting Effects study which looks at the spacewalk on 19 October. Ryazanskiy and Misurkin participated on the #1World1Orbit impact of the change from fluorescent light bulbs to LEDs. social media initiative conducted Earth observations and photography with the photographing places on Earth, The Kestrel Eye 2M (KE2M) satellite was deployed Russian Ekon-M and Uragan (Hurricane) experiments, inhabitants of those places from the ISS at 09:45 UTC on 24 October. The 50 kg whilst Nespoli took time out to speak via Ham radio invited to do the same. CubeSat was delivered by the latest Dragon vehicle and

12 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight ISS REPORTSLUG developed by specialists at Adcole Maryland Aerospace Inc to conduct optical and electronic reconnaissance. Bresnik worked with NASA’s Lung Tissue experiment in the station’s Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) and together with Acaba completed stowage of their EMU suits following the latest spacewalk. Nespoli took part in the second of an eleven day study on 25 October to measure a crewmember’s energy requirements during long duration missions. The crew also logged their food and drink consumption and performed experiments to study the loss of body mass during extended stays in orbit. All six crewmembers spoke to Pope Francis on 26 October. A second CubeSat designated the NovaWurks-SIMPL satellite was deployed from the ISS in the early hours of 27 October. According to NanoRacks External Payload Manager, Conor Brown this was the “first time ever a complex satellite was assembled on orbit from multiple satlets launched as separate spacecraft”. However two days earlier about 100 millilitres of Freon leaked from the satellite before its deployment. There was no Freon leak on the US segment of the ISS but there was a very small leak of Freon from the nanosatellite.

HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW? The crew ended the week on 27 October by harvesting three types of leafy greens. This was the sixth round of crops grown on the station and the first time three different plant varieties were simultaneously produced in the Veggie chamber. Nespoli tweeted “We’ll taste it at dinner”, after Acaba harvested Mizuna mustard, Waldmann’s green lettuce and Red Romaine lettuce, prompting Veggie Project Manager Nicole Dufour to praise him for “an impressive harvest. Joe did a great job!” The US astronauts enjoyed watching coverage of the occupied since the Expedition 1 crew arrived at the orbital World Series baseball games involving the Houston outpost (Spaceflight Vol 43 No. 1 pp 19-21). Astros during their light-duty weekend 28/29 October. This involved the The crew conducted one of their many Crew Earth They returned to work on 30 October when Acaba set up Observations (CEO) passes at 06:29 UTC on 3 November payload components for a week long imaging session with astronauts using as the station flew over the Himalayas. This involved the NASA’s Sally Ride EarthKam which allows thousands of astronauts using digital handheld cameras to photograph students around the world to photograph and examine digital handheld how the planet has changed over time, studying urban Earth from a crew’s perspective. growth and natural dynamic events such as hurricanes, Acaba joined Bresnik to answer questions from cameras to floods and volcanic eruptions. Bresnik’s alma mater in Santa Monica, California. The The weekend of 4/5 November was another light-duty station’s commander told the students that space smells photograph how period during which Ryazanskiy tweeted a photo of like “cream of mushroom soup!” but Acaba described it as Moscow taken from orbit in honour of Russia’s Day of having “a metallic type of smell”. the planet has National Unity and Nespoli filmed the ISS flying from his On 31 October the crew worked with a portable device native Italy to the River Nile. which measures stress levels and appetites amongst the changed over On 6 November, Vande Hei collected and stowed saliva crewmembers. It bore the unwieldy name of ISS Non- samples for JAXA’s Multi-Omics experiment, which invasive Sample Investigation and results Transmission to time… studies the immune system and metabolism, whilst ground with the Utmost easiness, IN SITU for short! The Bresnik took panoramic photos inside Kibo to prepare for entire crew also dressed in various Halloween costumes NASA’s Astrobee investigation. This consists of three free- and Bresnik welcomed viewers on Earth “to the spookiest flying, cube shaped robots which test their ability to assist space station”. both astronauts and ground controllers. Nespoli assisted The following day the crew took part in Canada’s Bresnik with a week of continued on board training in At Home in Space study. This investigation assesses preparation for Cygnus’ arrival. the cultural and psychosocial adaptation to space of Misurkin returned to the Uragan study on 7 November, multinational crews during long-duration missions. whilst Acaba conducted maintenance work with one of the EMU suits (No 3003) inside Quest and installed ORBITAL BALLET new software to support NASA’s Alpha Magnetic At 03:15 UTC on 2 November the thrusters of Progress Spectrometer-02 (AMS-02) cosmic ray detector. Bresnik MS-06/67P were fired for 3 mins 26 secs to boost the replaced faulty electronics gear inside Harmony, restoring station by 0.7km and place the complex in a 403.3 x 425.4 power to an internal audio speaker unit, and Vande Hei km orbit to accommodate the next Cygnus arrival and the began several days of work with ESA’s Airway Monitoring next Soyuz departure and arrival. experiment which examines how gases and dust inside the The NASA astronauts stayed up late to watch the station’s atmosphere have an impact on breathing aboard Houston Astros win their first World Series in the final a spacecraft. Game 7 and later in the day worked with MED-2 and ABOVE On 8 November, Nespoli worked with ESA’s Biological participated in the Story Time from Space project, reading Astronaut Joe Acaba Experimental Laboratory (BioLab), research facility inside (foreground) assisted crewmates extracts from books which are downlinked to children Randy Bresnik (right) and Mark Columbus, whilst Bresnik and Acaba did further as an educational tool. The 2 November also marked Vande Hei before they began a maintenance work inside Quest and later joined Vande Hei the 17th anniversary that the ISS had been continuously spacewalk on 10 October. to answer questions from elementary pupils in Virginia. SF

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 13 SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY

Science for a Safer World Sentinel-2B: part of the Copernicus programme March 2017 saw the successful launch of Europe’s Sentinel-2B satellite. It joined Sentinel-2A, launched in June 2016, 180 degrees away in the same polar orbit. Its high-resolution multispectral imaging system covers a broad swath of the Earth’s surface as it orbits.

by Christopher Starr FRAS FBIS

entinel-2B will provide information for a variety programme, which became operational in April 2014 of land and coastal services, including agriculture, with the launch of Sentinel-1A, an all-weather, day and forestry and emergency services. It is designed, for night radar imaging satellite for land and ocean services. example, to support the monitoring of changes in Svegetation cover and aid in predicting crop yields. WHAT IS COPERNICUS? It also provides information on pollution in lakes and Copernicus is headed by the European Commission coastal waters, while images of floods, volcanic eruptions (EC), acting on behalf of the European Union (EU), in and landslides contribute to the mapping of disasters and partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). may help humanitarian relief efforts. Dr. Thomas Beer, Policy Coordinator at ESA’s Besides imaging at high resolution and in different Copernicus Space Office describes it as “the most wavelengths, the Sentinel-2 mission’s orbital ambitious Earth Observation system to date”. He explains ABOVE configuration and coverage of 290 km-wide swaths that “Copernicus, previously known as GMES (Global Lift-off of Sentinel-2B on a Vega allows the imaging of Earth’s main land surfaces, Monitoring for Environment and Security), through the launcher from Europe’s Spaceport large islands, inland and coastal waters every five products and services delivered, aims to help manage the in French Guiana, 7 March 2017. days. Compared to previous mission capabilities, this environment and to respond to the various challenges FAR RIGHT significantly improves the probability of gaining a cloud- our planet faces, including climate change. The fast and Sentinel-2B being prepared free view of a particular location, making it easier to uninterrupted provision of accurate data is central to this for testing in the Large Space monitor accurately changes in plant health and growth, innovative global monitoring initiative, which offers key Simulator at ESA’s technical and in a variety of other surface features. services for a wide range of applications to improve and facility in the Netherlands. The 15 These twin satellites join ESA’s growing Sentinel secure everyday life, and to help mitigate the effects of m-diameter simulator mimics the fleet of new Earth observation satellites, designed to both natural and man-made disasters.”

cold and heat of space.. provide data and imagery central to the EU’s Copernicus The data necessary for this project is provided by ESA’s ESA ALL IMAGES:

14 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 15 SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY

KEEPING A WATCHFUL EYE Sentinel 2-B is the second of three planned programme launches for 2017, the first Sentinel 3-A satellite having launched on 16 January 2016. The Sentinel-3 mission’s main objective is to provide accurate near-real time data on sea-surface topography, sea- and land-surface temperatures and ocean and land-surface colour, to support ocean forecasting systems, sea-ice charting and maritime safety services, as well as environmental and climate monitoring. The Sentinel-5 Precursor (S-5P) will be launched this year. This will be the first mission of the Copernicus programme dedicated to monitoring air pollution, and will reduce data gaps between Envisat and future Sentinel-5. Looking further ahead, Sentinel-4 and -5, are scheduled for launch as payloads on EUMETSAT Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) and MetOp- SG (Meteorological Operational Satellite - Second Generation) satellites respectively in 2019 and 2020. They

ESA will largely provide data for atmospheric composition monitoring and are complementary tools serving the new Sentinel fleet – of which six families are planned needs of the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring in all - and over 30 past, present or planned Contributing Services (CAMS). Missions, such as Envisat, Cryosat and EUMETSAT’s Sentinel provides a Finally, 2020 should see the launch of Sentinel-6. It will Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites. How conduct high-precision radar altimetry measurements specifically is the data used? Dr. Beer elaborates: basis for more of the height of the ocean surface, to provide crucial “Copernicus achieves its goals by combining satellite information on ocean circulation patterns, global data with data from airborne and ground sensors to effective modelling and regional patterns of sea-level change and their provide comprehensive information about the state of the implications in the context of climate change. Like land, sea and air. All these data are then fed into a range of and forecasting the Jason series of ocean-monitoring satellites, it is a information services designed to benefit the environment cooperative mission, developed in partnership between and to support global, national and local decision- activities… Europe (EU, ESA and EUMETSAT) and the US (NOAA making. These information services are today built around and NASA). six thematic domains: atmosphere, ocean and land, Dr Thomas Beer, ESA emergency response, climate change and security.” SHARED DATA From water and air quality to sustainable forestry and Partnerships and cooperation are central and necessary land management, town planning to transport networks, components of Europe’s Copernicus programme. Our hazard forecasting to disaster relief and humanitarian 21st century world is an increasingly complex one, aid, Copernicus aims to help enhance living standards and the impact of humanity on the Earth’s systems and the security of nations and their citizens. Dr. Beer is greater than ever before in our history. With ABOVE also stresses that it “provides a basis for more effective Spacecraft operations manager continued population increase, economic development, modelling and forecasting activities to help to improve Michelle Collins in the Control technological advances and the ever more intricate web of our understanding of the drivers of climate change and Room during the launch of interactions between peoples across the globe, our world mitigate its consequences.” Sentinel-2B. needs ever more careful and responsible management.

EARTHWATCH ESA/UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN/CESBIO ESA/UNIVERSITY

Sentinel-2 is the first optical Earth observation mission of its kind to include three bands in Sentinel-1 radar coverage from before and after the 1 April 2017 mud slide in Mocoa, the “red edge” of the spectrum, which provide key information on the state of vegetation. Colombia with the greatest movement (red) on top of a mountain. It then pushed mud In this image the satellite’s multispectral instrument was able to distinguish between two down across the city of Mocoa (green) and crossed the nearby river. Modified Copernicus types of crops: sunflower (in orange) and maize (in yellow). Sentinel Data (2017) processed by I Parcharidis, Harokopio University of Athens.

16 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY ESA

The natural environment is under pressure at all application of information from Sentinel satellites and ABOVE scales, from the local to the global. The understanding of is supported by the UK Space Agency. An increasing While the Sentinel-2 constellation interrelated natural systems – lithosphere, atmosphere, number of UK companies are utilising this application primarily monitors land use, its companion constellation, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere – and what one for a growing number of services marketed by existing Sentinel -3 monitors the oceans. can now call the anthroposphere (our human world) is and new start-up companies exploiting this capability. Shown here is Hurricane Ophelia, becoming ever more crucial as we seek to support our Copernicus Policy Coordinator, Dr. Beer stresses imaged by the Sentinel-3A ever-expanding and interconnected human systems. the importance of this cooperation to the Copernicus satellite on 15 October 2017 as Copernicus now aims to be the first integrated global Programme: “It supports the EU’s role as a global the storm approached the British and continuous Earth-observation system, with the goal actor and contributes to solutions to common global Isles. The brightness temperature of not just understanding our environment, but also how challenges.” of the clouds at the top of the we can best manage resources and ensure future security, Dr Beer also highlights the global and open nature of storm, some 12–15 km above the not just for Europe, but for the world. its data sharing. “The ultimate success of the Copernicus ocean, range from –50°C near the eye of the storm to 15°C is very much linked to the success of its data policy, at the edges. SERVICING THE WORLD which is free, full and open to everybody, including data The Space Component of the programme, managed by from the Sentinels. Bearing all this in mind, it is obvious ESA, forms the European contribution to the worldwide, that the Copernicus programme will take a significant intergovernmental Global Earth Observation System of step forward in the way we care for our planet.” SF Systems (GEOSS), and serves users globally with satellite data, as well as at national and European levels. In the area The author extends special thanks to Dr Thomas Beer for his of data exchange international cooperation is pursued insight and information on the Copernicus programme, and for with many partners, including the USA, Australia, the permission to use the images shown. For detailed information African Union and a number of Latin American nations, on the programme and missions; and data access through the as well as the United Nations Environment Programme dedicated internet portal which provides easy access (following (UNEP). online registration), go to: http://www.copernicus.eu/ and Data collection and analysis is fundamental to the https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/home

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 17 SLUG Good evening. I’m the ghost of Patrick Moore

18 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight SPACE FRONTIERS Good evening. I’m the ghost of Patrick Moore MOORE to remember… Welcome to the space museum – in space imagined Dr Stuart Eves FBIS

ood evening. I’m the ghost of Patrick Moore, and by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, (LRO), show what I’m here to tell you about the Museum Of Outer- was achieved by the US programme. So we know what we’re space Research Equipment, creating a rather fine seeking to preserve in the MOORE. acronym (MOORE), I’m sure you’ll agree. You We haven’t yet entered the era of commercial manned space Gmay be wondering why you haven’t heard of this flight to Earth orbit, let alone the Moon, but it appears to be museum before, and the answer is very simple; I’ve only just approaching fast. When it does arrive, the Apollo landing invented it. sites will represent popular destinations, and the temptation Where is it? Ah, well that’s the interesting part. You see, of to hunt for trophies to bring back to the Earth will be almost necessity, it’s in space, because that’s where the engineering irresistible. hardware we should be preserving for posterity is located. Designating these locations as “World” heritage sites, or You’ll have seen famous ships, cars, and planes in similar, may help, but there are no Space Police to enforce the museums, but, except for the Apollo capsules and the rules, and even if we do succeed in protecting the high-profile Shuttles, very little of our space heritage, (that’s to say, Apollo locations, what do we do about some of the other important engineering that actually travelled to space), is hardware on the surface of the Moon? There are the Russian available for people of the Space Age to view. Lunokhod rovers, for example, whose positions have been Part of the problem, of course, is that some of the most identified precisely in the LRO images, and in a less well- famous hardware has now de-orbited and burned up in the defined location are the remains of Luna 2 – the first man- atmosphere. This is the fate that has befallen perhaps the made object ever to reach the Moon. Although it probably most famous satellite of all, Sputnik 1, and many other iconic fragmented on impact, the remains of this satellite also mark missions such as the Russian Mir space station, and the US a significant event in our exploration of space. Skylab. We have pictures of them, it’s true, but that’s not quite Similar questions arise concerning the research equipment the same thing, is it? we have placed on Mars, but at least in the case of these other But the most significant difficulty is that most of the celestial bodies we have some level of confidence that our objects which we might wish to curate for future generations hardware is, and will stay, where we put it. are very far away, and most of them are travelling very fast. This is not true for some of the space objects that we have placed in orbit around the Earth, or have sent to other places MOON GAZING in the solar system. Some people, (e.g. the “For All Moonkind” foundation), are concerned to protect our heritage on our celestial EXHIBITING ARTIFACTS neighbour, and as a lunar astronomer, I’m delighted about Take the Hubble Space Telescope, (HST), for example. It is this. At least in the case of the Moon we have some records one of the most iconic missions in the history of space flight,

NASA already. Images taken by the astronauts, and more recently and has made enormous contributions right across the field

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 19 SPACE FRONTIERS

of astronomy, from planetary science to cosmology. If any Crucially, we know exactly when they were made, so any mission deserves a place in MOORE, it is HST. dust deposition on them will tell us about the mobility of Current plans assume that when the attitude control system What we’ll the lunar regolith, and impact craters that now obscure on HST fails, it will be “passivated” and abandoned to burn them must obviously have been created in the last four up in the Earth’s atmosphere. A more fitting fate would be to need is a and a half decades. The Apollo mission artefacts also make it the first exhibit in MOORE, possibly repurposing the offer a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of the robotic technologies that were once considered for servicing series of space environment on bacteria. The bags of faeces that the the telescope to keep it in orbit instead. astronauts left on the Moon could provide some fascinating Indeed, one of the first tasks of the curators at MOORE small, high insights into the ability of bacteria to survive in space. will be to decide on a higher, safer, orbital altitude for the telescope, which is currently expected to re-enter the Earth’s resolution THE GHOST OF AN IDEA atmosphere sometime around 2030. I have focused so far on astronomical missions, but I’m sure Orbital purists please note – HMS Victory is in a dry dock imagers to there are plenty of other worthy candidates for inclusion in at the maritime museum in Portsmouth; various Concorde MOORE. If I were to consult the ghost of Arthur Clarke, supersonic transport aircraft are on display on the ground rendezvous I’m sure he would propose missions such as Telstar, which rather than in the air. As these examples demonstrate, a provided the first transatlantic communications and was museum exhibit does not have to be displayed in precisely the with our famous enough in its day to have a pop song written about it, same environment as it made its name, and by comparison (which I could play on my xylophone by the way). with these terrestrial examples, a move to a more stable orbit exhibits and Arthur might also suggest Syncom 2, which was the first for HST is a comparatively minor change. mission to reach the geostationary orbit which he popularised. We should not procrastinate in establishing MOORE, create VR Some of the satellites in that orbit now help to prove our because although the orbital lifetime of the telescope is short, weather forecasts, and others deliver satellite TV to our the lifetimes of its attitude control gyros could be shorter fly-arounds homes, so surely it is right to preserve the first example of this still. If the telescope loses stability, the task of docking with particular technology, just as the Science Museum in London it robotically will be much more difficult, and the chances treasures Stephenson’s Rocket as the first steam engine. that damage is done during the capture process is greatly I’m sure you will have ideas of your own for MOORE enhanced. exhibits, and I’d love to hear about them via SpaceFlight We also need to understand what the term “curation” magazine, which I used to edit. means for an object in space. It is a harsh environment, and There are a few issues associated with legal ownership that radiation will continue to affect the materials of which any we’d need to solve since, under the Outer Space Treaty, space satellite is composed. In addition, all MOORE exhibits would objects remain the property of the country that launched be exposed to the natural micrometeoroid flux, and any object them. Perhaps appointing an international team of curators in Earth orbit is additionally at risk from man-made space would address some of those concerns. Also, there is an debris. Active orbit management to provide conjunction emerging international standard that space objects should avoidance is thus an essential part of the curation process, be de-orbited within 25 years of the end of their missions to and a discussion will be needed about how to deal with the RIGHT mitigate the debris hazard, and we’d need an official waiver for inevitable damage that will result from impacts by very small Three of the best: our MOORE exhibits. debris objects. Hubble transformed Finally, what purpose would MOORE serve if no-one One reason for this is that the artefacts we’ve placed in our view of the could see the exhibits? That’s where modern microsatellite space already offer an opportunity to research the effects of universe, Telstar and technology can help. In my conception, MOORE is an on-line long-term exposure to the space environment, (both radiation Syncom ushered in resource giving access to data on each of the missions in the and the results of repeated thermal cycling). The degradation the age of global collection. What we’ll need is a series of small, high resolution of materials and the rates of micrometeoroid impact could be television broadcasts. imagers to rendezvous with our exhibits and create virtual estimated via careful re-examination of the hardware on the BELOW reality fly-arounds that can be posted on the internet. lunar surface. MOORE: coming to We’ll need to be careful when manoeuvring in close The larger the physical area we examine, the less our a desktop, tablet or proximity to them, of course; the last thing we’d want to do is measurements will be subject to statistical errors, and for handset near you… collide with them or contaminate them with propellant. But this reason even the tracks that the various rover missions Are you listening can you imagine the pictures…? And how better to inspire made on the Moon may need to be included in MOORE. Apple? the next generation of space scientists and engineers? SF NASA/P-D RT NASA/P-D

20 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight SLUG

Hubble Space Telescope 1991

Telstar telecom satellite 1962

Syncom-2 telecom satellite 1963 NASA/BELL LABORATORIES/HUGHES AIRCRAFT CO. AIRCRAFT LABORATORIES/HUGHES NASA/BELL

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 21 SLUG

Starship troupers i4is’s ‘The Interstellar Space’ opens for business

by Patrick Mahon

n Sunday 8 October, the Initiative for Interstellar ABOVE Gill Norman, and Council Members Rod Woodcock, David Studies (i4is) held a grand opening at their new Just some of those Shayler and Richard Osborne in attendance, along with over headquarters building, “The Interstellar Space”. attending the opening seventy other guests. Located in an old mill building in Charfield, of “The Interstellar The building was formally opened by guest of honour Space” in Charfield, Gloucestershire, close to Bristol Parkway train Colonel Al Worden, the Command Module Pilot for the O Gloucestershire. station and the M5 motorway, the new headquarters provides Front row from left, Apollo 15 mission, who fitted this engagement into a very i4is with a multifunctional space suitable for lectures, Gill Norman, BIS busy schedule of events for World Space Week, including his meetings and research, as well as a focal point for their Executive Secretary, visit to BIS headquarters on 2 October. Colonel Worden gave expanding range of activities. Mark Hempsell, BIS a talk about his experiences as an astronaut and his hopes for What captures the attention, though, is the huge number President, and NASA the future of interplanetary and interstellar spaceflight. Some and variety of space-related items displayed throughout the astronaut Al Worden. of his key points follow. building. These include the original engineering drawings In front, kneeling, i4is Apollo 15 was the fourth manned mission to land on the for the Project Daedalus interstellar spacecraft design study President Kelvin Long. Moon, but was the first of the extended duration missions, produced by BIS members in the 1970s. The BIS kindly lasting 12 days in total. Worden’s fellow crewmembers loaned the wonderfully detailed scale model of Daedalus Commander David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot James made by i4is member Terry Regan and sponsored by i4is, and Irwin spent twice as long, and travelled ten times as far, on the now reinstalled at BIS headquarters. There are also meteorites, Moon as previous Moonwalkers, due to the uprating of the NASA mission patches, and many spaceship models from Lunar Module and the addition of the motorised Lunar Rover. fact and fiction, including the Space Shuttle, the International Worden also got to do more science than previous Space Station, the Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Command Module Pilots, orbiting the Moon for the three the Avalon from the recent Hollywood film Passengers and, days while Scott and Irwin were on the surface “picking up inevitably, the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek. rocks”, as he jokingly put it, thanks to the addition of a new The British Interplanetary Society was well represented at scientific package, located in the Service Module. This allowed the event, with President Mark Hempsell, Executive Secretary Worden to run investigations of the chemistry of the Moon’s

22 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight SPACE EVENTS KELVIN LONG KELVIN

ABOVE Module would not be accompanying them on the journey Dating from 1812, back through the Earth’s atmosphere. and set in beautiful Worden had some interesting things to say about the impact countryside beside of space flight on human health, noting in particular how it the Little Avon, the old affected his heart rate. His normal, resting heart rate is around mill is a monument 55 beats per minute. Prior to launch, this increased slightly to to the Industrial around 75/min. While he was in orbit, it reduced to around Revolution. Inside, 15/min, since the heart does not have to work hard in freefall. the bright, modern However, after 12 days in that freefall environment in Interstellar Space space, when he returned to Earth gravity, his heart rate was includes a library recorded at 125/min by doctors on board the aircraft carrier and conference room that recovered the crew from the Pacific Ocean. He concluded seating 100 people. by remarking that the issues surrounding the health effects of long duration space flight was one of the key challenges to be LEFT tackled before humanity journeys to Mars and beyond. Al Worden describes his experiences during DEDICATION SPEECHES the flight of Apollo 15 in July 1971. At the end of his talk, Colonel Worden formally opened The

VIX SOUTHGATE Interstellar Space jointly with i4is President Kelvin F Long by unveiling a celebratory plaque on the wall. He signed it, then surface and atmosphere, as well as to take high resolution recited from memory the whole of his poem “Oceans”, a line photographs of a large proportion of the Moon’s surface from from which is quoted on the plaque. just 96 kilometres above. In passing, Worden noted that he This is a The new Executive Director of i4is, Dr Andreas Hein, gave worked on these experiments for up to twenty hours a day for a speech thanking Colonel Worden for his talk and noting those three days orbiting the Moon because, as he said, “You massively some of the key achievements of the Initiative for Interstellar don’t need much sleep when you’re in freefall”. Studies over its first five years. These include the establishment impressive of Principium magazine as a quarterly publication, an ongoing EXPLORING THE MOON collaboration with the International Space University and the The Apollo 15 Lunar Module landed between the Hadley Rille building… establishment of the Alpha Centauri Prize. It also includes canyon and the Hadley Mountains – part of the arcuate rim the production of the Andromeda Probe study, written in just of Mare Imbrium known as the Apennine Mountains, located hopefully three days as an input to the Breakthrough Initiative’s Project about 26 degrees north and 4 degrees east of the centre of Starshot. This is looking at how to send a gram-sized probe to the Moon’s near side. The expanded capabilities included the containing a Proxima Centauri at one-tenth the speed of light, so that the addition of the first Lunar Roving Vehicle, enabling Apollo 15 mission can be completed in decades. to explore more diverse lunar terrain and geology than had vision of the Dr Hein went on to outline i4is’s plans for the next five been possible on previous missions, which had deliberately years, which include launching a fingernail-sized spacecraft been targeted at flatter areas near the lunar equator for safety’s science in the next two to three years – part of a wider programme to sake. However, this made Worden’s job as the pilot of the demonstrate the laser sail concept as a practical reality. Command and Service Modules more difficult, as the Moon’s fiction and The formal celebrations concluded with the cutting by Al gravitational field was far from uniform across that area and Worden of a large cake, beautifully decorated with the i4is played havoc with his navigational tasks. science fact logo, followed by group photographs. At the end of Scott and Irwin’s three days on the surface Interviewed after the conclusion of the formal proceedings, of the Moon, they blasted off and rejoined Worden in the to come BIS President Mark Hempsell said: “This is a massively Command and Service Module. Sometime after firing their impressive building, containing a great mix of the vision of engine to break lunar orbit and return to Earth, when they BIS President science fiction and much that will hopefully be science fact to were 80,000 kilometres from the Moon but still more than Mark Hempsell come. I think Kelvin, Andreas and the team have done a 300,000 kilometres from home, Worden donned a spacesuit, fantastic job. I wish i4is all the best, and look forward to i4is left the safety of the Command Module and performed the and BIS continuing to work together in the future.” SF first ever spacewalk in deep space. He had to climb along the side of the Service Module to recover canisters containing all Further information on this event can be found in Issue 19 of the i4is the film he had shot while orbiting the Moon, since the Service quarterly, Principium (i4is.org/Publications/Principium)

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 23 HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT

The launch of Apollo 5 The first flight of the Apollo Lunar Module

It had no name and was referred to simply as LM-1. But when the first Lunar Module was launched on 22 January 1968, it was the first spacecraft designed to carry astronauts down to the surface of another world and to operate solely in the vacuum of space.

by David Baker

or a few years it was known as the Lunar Delays and development problems in a new vehicle Excursion Module, or LEM, until in June 1966 are inevitable, but the emerging challenges brought purists disliked the frivolous connotation of its about by the incorporation of Development Flight middle name. But it was still pronounced “lem” Instrumentation (DFI) designed to measure every Fand its focused purpose remained the same – to nuance of its behaviour in flight was compounded by support two astronauts for a short stay on the surface of radical changes demanded by NASA after the Apollo the Moon, and allow one or both to get out and explore 1 fire. When NASA teams went to explain the changes their surroundings. It had been a long time coming and required by the review board, Grumman reported a would prove to be one of the most challenging pieces backlog of problems – declaring that 20 of 63 DFI of hardware on the critical path to the Moon. measurements were inoperative and that LM-2 Following scrutiny of eleven separate was already eighteen days behind schedule. proposals, Grumman won the contract to The DFI problems were solved by Gene build the LEM (as it was then called) on Goltz from the instrumentation department 7 November 1962. The contract required with changes to transducers, modems and Grumman to provide 15 operational other items. Grumman got brutal about spacecraft, 10 Lunar Module Test Articles subcontractors who provided imperfect (LTAs) and two simulators. Three operational components, sacking those who fell short of spacecraft would be cancelled. the new level of expectation and getting the performance required. None of which came easy, FIREFIGHTING as the computers were required to operate a vehicle that It would take more than five years to get the first flight- was designed to be flown by astronauts but would be rated LM, albeit unmanned, ready for space. After initial unmanned for the first mission. tests with the LTAs, the last of these (LTA-10R) flew on A tiger team of several hundred engineers and Apollo 4 in November 1967 (SpaceFlight Vol 59 No 11 technicians was mobilised by Howard Peck, who muscled pages 416-423). This cleared the LM to move to the Flight together an integrating set of ground support equipment Development Test Program (FDTP), which at the time to work with the automated checkout computers envisaged two flight articles flown unmanned. In a report “talking” to the spacecraft. General Electric had the dated 1 July 1964, the LM programme plan envisaged the computer ground checkout contract, but the technical first flight in February 1967, on Saturn IB AS-206. It was limitations of the time meant that a six-hour test would to be followed by LM-2 (AS-207) three months later. take several weeks to prepare.

24 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight TOP Final preparations under way at the Kennedy Space Center for installing LM-1 in the lower section of the Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter (SLA), the apex cone at right. The LM had a height of 6.98 m and a diameter of 4.49 m at the station where it was NASA/GRUMMAN/GRUMMAN attached to the SLA.

ABOVE LM-1’s Ascent Stage undergoes final assembly. The propellant tanks for the main rocket motor were mounted either side of the pressurised crew compartment in an asymmetric configuration to maintain a centre of mass for the different weights per volume of the hypergolic propellants. For some time the LM had a symmetric two tanks per side until was found to be unnecessary.

LEFT Erect on its pedestal, Apollo 5 is ready to go. Note the inverted V-shaped flame deflector beneath the four-poster launch bed. HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT

But it required more than tiger teams. The advanced sequence of testing was integrated by the leader, Jim Harrington, who on several occasions faced down high-level NASA managers when he believed them to be wrong. Stocky and generally with an air of confidence, this little Irishman told George Mueller one day that he was flat wrong when the NASA manned flight boss suggested that LM-1 was so far behind and unreliable that it should be passed over for LM-2. And Jim was right. LM-1 picked up pace and was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on 23 June 1967 aboard a modified Boeing Stratocruiser known as the “Guppy”. The euphoria was short-lived. The Ascent Stage and the Descent Stage were mated at the Cape on 11 July, but reception inspectors promptly declared the two stages inadequate for the mission, and pushed Grumman to have their trouble-shooter, Will Bischoff, head up a vigorous effort to fix leaks and faulty subsystems. The two stages were de-mated on 16 August so that leaks in the Ascent Propulsion System could be fixed. The two stages were re-mated on 7 September, but de-mated again 12 days later for more fixes after several items of hardware had to be shipped back to Grumman’s Bethpage, New York, facility for repair and modifications to the propulsion feed system. The stages were mated again on 28 October. More tests were carried out prior to moving the spacecraft to the pad on 19 November and mechanically mating it with the launch vehicle.

ROCKETS GALORE The launch vehicle for Apollo 5 grew out of the Saturn I clustered booster developed by Wernher von Braun at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency from early 1957, which was taken over by NASA as the Marshall Space Flight Center on 1 July 1960. Saturn I first flew on 27 October the following year, with the first four flights carrying dummy upper stages on ballistic flights down the Atlantic Missile Range. These were followed on 29 January 1964 by the first of six flights to orbit using live S-IV second stages – the first cryogenic stage to reach space. The last The first Saturn IB (AS-201) was launched on 26 Saturn I flight was launched on 30 July 1965, giving way February 1966 as a suborbital test of the 15,334 kg Apollo to the more powerful Saturn IB. Gene Kranz made Block I Command/Service Module (CSM-009), which demonstrated that the Service Propulsion System (SPS) the final poll could fire, and re-start, in space. The second Saturn IB COMMAND AND CONTROL mission (AS-203), launched on 5 July, carried no Apollo around the payload and was the first S-IVB to enter orbit, where The two flight directors for Apollo 5 were Eugene F Kranz and engineering tests evaluated the ability of the cryogenic John D Hodge. Kranz, 34, had joined NASA in October 1960 and had been a flight director on most of the manned Gemini flights, trenches in the stage to coast and re-start its single J-2 engine. but this would be his first Apollo mission. Between Gemini and The third flight (AS-202) carried the 20,154 kg Apollo, Kranz had been a key figure in the development of the new Mission Operations CSM-011 to a ballistic trajectory on 25 August 1966 flight plan procedures, building a set of benchmarks for running from where the SPS engine successfully fired four times increasingly complex operations in which two manned vehicles Control Room… and the spacecraft demonstrated a skip re-entry of the would operate independently of each other on the same mission. type it would employ when returning from the Moon, Kranz would lead on the operational phases of the Apollo entering the Earth’s atmosphere at a velocity of 8,690 m/ 5 mission, while Hodge, 38, would run the shift preparing the sec. The successful completion of this mission, plus the vehicle pre-flight and do the shutdown operations after the active verification of S-IVB performance on all three Saturn IB phases of the mission. Born at Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, England, Hodge joined NASA in April 1959 when he was recruited from the flights, ensured that the first manned Apollo flight could Avro Canada aircraft manufacturer after the cancellation of their be cleared for launch on AS-204 in February 1967. CF-105 Arrow. Assistant flight directors for Apollo 5 included Perry The loss of the crew for Apollo 1 in the fire of 27 L Ealick and Charles R Lewis, both 30 years of age. January 1967 changed those plans and the launch vehicle With NASA’s predecessor, the NACA, since 1955, Glynn Lunney for that mission was redirected to fly LM-1 on Apollo had been the flight director for the AS-201 ballistic flight in ABOVE 5. While preparations for the flight was sustained by a February 1966, with Hodge the flight director for the equally short The assembled stages without NASA-industry team of 250 people at Cape Canaveral’s mission of the second Block I Apollo on the suborbital AS-202 landing legs attached to the four Launch Complex 37 blockhouse, the Mission Control flight six months later. Lunney, along with Clifford E Charlesworth, outriggers. The Descent Stage Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, began had been flight director for the Apollo 4 mission in November 1967. had a height of 2.67 m and a Three remote sites were manned by flight controllers: capcom width of 4.22 m along each side. flight control support 10 hrs 30 min prior to the scheduled Gary B Scott at Carnarvon, Australia; capcom James R Fucci Both stages employed main liftoff time of 19:00 hrs UTC (2.00 pm Cape time). aboard the tracking ship Coastal Sentry Quebec; and Capcom engines powered by pressure- At about 3:00 am Houston time, flight director John Lawrence S Canin on the Rose Knot Victor off the coast of Baja, fed propellants consisting Hodge’s flight control team slipped into the Mission California. Each location had two or three systems specialists of unsymmetrical dimethyl Operations Control Room (MOCR) to monitor the final covering their respective parts of the flight path. hydrazine/hydrazine (UDMH/N2H4) hours of the countdown, with “Gene” Kranz scheduled and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). to relieve him at 10:00 am in readiness for a fast-paced

26 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT

sequence of flight activity. These times were local to Houston, one hour behind the Cape. But just as bad gremlins had plagued the preparation of LM-1 from the time it arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, so too did they reappear for the countdown. At first, a problem in the LM cooling system threatened to raise temperatures in the Freon loop supplied to a boiler in the spacecraft from K bottles located at the pad. Technicians went to the vehicle and isolated some of the cylinder banks, incurring a 1 hr 28 min hold. The anomaly occurred during the loading of liquid oxygen to the Saturn IB and this had to be halted due to personnel in the vicinity, adding a further 1 hr 10 min delay. Additional problems occurred with a power supply to the Digital Data Acquisition System (DDAS) responsible for handling large volumes of data coming from the launcher into the blockhouse, where it was decoded. The DDAS allowed controllers to see what was going on with the computerised countdown and to communicate with the computers. The DDAS was located in the Automatic Ground Control Station at the pad and an additional hour was spent bringing it back on line, running tests and resuming the countdown. Just as the count picked up, the tracking ship Redstone, positioned out in the Atlantic to cover the late boost phase, reported a failure. This prompted the flight control team to work out a patch that fell back on the use of the command processor to get signals up if required. In the event, the patch was not needed. But as full use was listed ABOVE the area, the domed blockhouse for Launch Complex 37 as a mandatory capability, continuation of the countdown This main body of the LM Ascent remained all but dark, only its periscopes protruding to required a waiver from the flight director and the LM Stage had a height of 2.84 m and eye the impending launch. a width along one side of 3.04 m. went on full internal power at T-42 min. In Houston, when Kranz got a succession of “GO” Here, technicians attend to insulation panels as part of reports back from the consoles, he cleared the spacecraft WE ARE “GO” FLIGHT the passive thermal control for launch. At LC-37B, over at the Cape, it was a different Gene Kranz made the final poll around the trenches in component of the environmental story: much of the countdown for this fourth Saturn IB the Mission Operations Control Room while it was still protection from excesses of heat was handled without the dramatically audible clearances daylight at the Manned Spacecraft Center. At the Cape, or cold in the vacuum of space. from the mission speciliasts in the MOCR. Ignition

(1) NASA (2) GRUMMAN (1) NASA the Sun was just slipping below the horizon, minutes occurred three seconds prior to liftoff, the eight H-1 away from sunset, leaving a surreal deep blue and main stage engines building up to a thrust of 7,327 kN purple sky melting into the blackness of night. As lights and burning off 6,671 kg of propellant to achieve a first- pinpointed approach roads, access lanes and buildings in motion mass of 584,394 kg. Hold down release came at 22:48:09 UTC, five hours earlier by Cape time, six in Houston, but data delays A BUCKET OF TEARS prevented the guidance officer from seeing the automatic spacecraft guidance release, and backup commands were The pressure imposed throughout the challenging mounting pressure resulted ever higher levels of sent at six and seven seconds elapsed time. Pressure in timeline for getting on the Moon before the end tension. Men and women pushed themselves to the LM Ascent Stage started to drop at 53 seconds as the of 1969 was compounded by the repercussions near breaking point – and in many cases, their of the Apollo fire. That impact was magnified by lives suffered as a result. stack ascended to thinner air and battery currents in the the intensity now driven into the workforce as a So many new and responsible positions were LM began to increase from 43 amperes to a maximum of challenging set of difficulties threatened to keep required that competent people, encouraged 65 amperes. the LM grounded. As almost 1,500 personnel in to challenge themselves above their own The pitch programme cut in at 9.7 sec elapsed time Spacecraft Assembly and Test (S/CAT) wrestled expectations, filled management slots for and ended at 133.5 sec; roll began at 10.67 sec and lasted three eight-hour shifts, seven days a week (many which they had no training. Grumman was 18 seconds. Within a fraction of a second of the planned far exceeding twice the usual 45 work hours each aware of this deficiency and sent the new elite time, the inner engines cutoff command came at 2 week), people buckled under the workload. to “charm school”, as it was called – briefing min18.97 sec, followed by the four outer engines 3.28 It was apparent that the pressure, both and advising on how to manage projects and sec later. Stage separation occurred less than a second physical and psychological, was taking its toll supervise a workforce that was only too willing when an over-stressed test conductor broke to volunteer for extra work just to be a part of after that, followed by the S-IVB start command 1.4 sec down and sobbed at his console – shattered this magnificent endeavour. after separation. The S-IVB burned for 7 min 28.45 sec by lack of rest and an inability to match health It was people-management raised to to place itself, LM-1 and the payload shroud in an Earth with workload. Management moved fast. Almost new heights, and is one of the great untold orbit of 221.3 x 162.2 km as reported from the Bermuda 500 S/CAT workers went through medical tests “elephants in the room” in the Apollo story. It led tracking station. and interviews to try to establish a benchmark to repercussions which at the time were masked The S-IB first stage carried the stack to a space-fixed against which the stress imposed could be by the euphoria of success and by the excitement velocity of 2,365 m/sec (30% of the required orbital measured. There was never any attempt to of the ever-escalating series of challenges facing velocity) and an altitude of 59.2 km at a downrange relieve the stress, but rather to manage it. the contingents of the scientists, engineers and distance of 55 km. The S-IVB had provided the balance of Apollo was the most punishing, fast-paced technicians from whose ranks the leadership engineering and management challenge ever came. They overcame these challenges not by velocity, cutoff occurring at an altitude of 163.4 km and launched at national level, in any country, attending business school, but through the sheer a range of 1,765 km. Saturn IB AS-204 had performed anywhere on Earth. In January 1968, with time magnitude of their personal efforts; not by being almost flawlessly, achieving a cutoff velocity only 0.7 m/ rapidly closing in on the target date for getting parachuted in at management level, but by the sec lower than nominal. to the Moon, the remorseless workload growing outstanding skill base from which they developed Because the Primary Guidance, Navigation & Control in scale and speed with each passing day, the their unique capabilities. System (PGNCS) in LM-1 was controlling operations on board, there was no data record capability. Designed

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 27 and levels, finishing 20%thrust up at 92.5%.This would includingsec, 10seconds eachat 10%,50%,30%,40% with motor the min 12sec, firing for a total of 12min30 that pericynthion. above Moon the for powered descent to at surface the to an elliptical path with alow point of around 18km This was to simulatetransferthe of acircular lunar orbit of maximum rate of thrust 46.7kNfor 12sec. afurther burn atsec 10%throttle, followed by aramp up to 92.5% was to have place taken at with a26 3hr59min54sec including The first at thrust. 6min14sec firing full DPS for atotal at of 13min2sec various throttle settings, descent phase. This involved theburning rocket motor of simulateda series lunar mission manoeuvres. elliptical orbit followed by separation from S-IVBand the overall mission profile forcalled into insertion an initial two the remainedLM-1 structure while docked. The and to evaluate orbital the performance of S-IVB/ the structure and Ascent and Descent propulsion systems, of Lunar the Module, operation to verify of LM the tobeing demonstrate safe staging of two the elements objectives,of andmost the important primary secondary The mission plan for 5was Apollo arranged aroundset a ORBITAL BALLET total, LM-1weighed14,301kgat launch. Ascent Stage were tanks with 38.55kgof loaded water. In with 92.9kgofloaded and fuel 184.5kgof oxidiser. Two kg of oxidiser.Control Thetwo Reaction Systems were System (DPS) were with 3,155kgof loaded and fuel 4,966 propellant the while for tanks Descent the Propulsion 904kgof and(APS) carried fuel 1,438kgof oxidiser, lunar landing mission, Ascent the Propulsion System two-man crew. compartment of Ascent the Stage could have sustained a down to asustained pressure of 37.9kPa. The pressurised flight (unlike 017spacecraft onApollo 4), but bleed launch with nitrogen, it would not replenish during that would support crewed operations. Pressurised before radar, equipped LM-1was afully spacecraft thetype of environmental control system, no landing legsand no conducted over ground stations. of realigning it inorbit. manoeuvres All had to be platform haddisplaced to and be there was no method spacecraft.the That madeasguidance itdifficult, the direct data readouts incommunication while with Earth-orbit test that so flight controllers could receive to surface, the PGNCS the hadadapted to be for this 28 Vol 2018SpaceFlight 60 January HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT to “fly”the LM during lunar operations and down The secondThe DFS was burn to have occurred at 4hr37 The first DPS was burn tosimulate the powered toEqual quantities the that would present be on a With exception the of no suit loop for the

NASA Saturn AS-204 about to receive its of theforward section of theSLA. with aforward diameter of 3.91 m The nose cone aboutto bejoined payload, encapsulated intheSLA ignition of theAscent Propulsion cone withaheightof 3.43 mand component. Itconsisted of a25º System –considered by many to was attached directly to thetop – atruncated cone 8.53 mlong, The mission badgefor Apollo5 and abase diameter of 6.6m. depicting theFire-in-the-Hole be thesinglemost important to thetop of theAS-204/SLA test of theflight. ABOVE RIGHT ABOVE LEFT

operations would complete objectives of primary the the leave Ascent the Stage inan orbit of These 315x816km. Moon’s –amanoeuvre surface that on Apollo 5would for tomin 35sec simulate 7min30 sec ascent from the bump into Ascent the Stage. Descent Stage, without loose set attitude control, could sinceabort function, there was some concern that the was to determine effectiveness the the enginetheof in and as an also abort motor. The FITH test on 5 Apollo offthe Moon backand up jointo the mothercraft,Apollo for Agena the stage, to get crew the APSwould the serve Aerosystems’thanks to Bell the rocket motors developed orbit-change manoeuvre on alunar landing flight. requiredbe either during descent or during preceding the crewedthe Ascent Stage offDescentthe Stage, as might ofthrust 16kN,was to simulate alanding abort by firing appropriate! sec Thisburn thewith 5.25 APS, of afixed in aconfined space and explicit was deemed and entirely byphrase used miners to warn of an imminent explosion with Descent the Stage.borrowed The is term from the Propulsion System firessevering milliseconds ties after a “fire-in-the-hole”whichthe (FITH) in burn Ascent precise the of25 sec, time DPS shutdown, to simulate firings would havekm LM-1ina309x318.5 placed orbit. surface.the Around on Apollo Earth simulated 5,these Lunar Module from down pericynthion to alanding on have simulated full-powered the descent the phase taking The secondThe APS was burn to have occurred at 6hr13 simple, both Being and reliable with shighly pedigree The first APS was burn to occurredhave at4hr49min

BOTH IMAGES: NASA SLUG

Apollo 5 mission, with a succession of minor tests and evaluations after that – depending upon the state of the AFTERMATH vehicle, and on its precise trajectory regarding overflight of ground tracking stations. With the minor anomalies experienced by LM-1 found some broken electrical wiring, prompting easily corrected, in early March 1968 manned space programme manager Brig Gen Carl H Bolender to REAL TIME flight boss George Mueller decided that there would urge improved quality control on the manufacturer. be no need for a repeat of the uncrewed flight From LM-4, Grumman switched to high-strength With official orbital insertion at an elapsed time of involving LM-2. At this early stage, each spacecraft copper alloy in the wires to prevent breaks. 10 min 03.3 sec, Gene Kranz and his team of flight was built to a specific mission requirement, and Even so, the flight of Apollo 5 initiated a risky controllers settled into an exciting sequence of events that LM-2 could not support crewed flight. shift in the way that hardware was signed off would evaluate the ability of the new LM-1 spacecraft to While inspecting some of the structural for crewed flight. Due to the tight timelines for operate effectively in space – the only environment for elements for LM-2, engineers discovered stress qualifying the separate elements needed to get which it was designed. corrosion cracks. This raised fears that subsequent astronauts on the Moon, unnecessary missions cost The nose cone was jettisoned at 10 min 38.5 sec, and spacecraft designed to support crewed flight might time and money, and also used up finite hardware the four petal doors of the Spacecraft Lunar Module also share the same weaknesses. However, when lots. Any “open” items related to safety or reliability Grumman checked all the accessible structural would ordinarily require a qualification flight to Adapter (SAL) opened to 45º at 19 min 53.5 sec. elements of LM-3 through LM-7, no such cracks verify that the fixes had been successful. All that Designed to swing out on hinges attached to the fixed were found. The first LM capable of making a lunar changed with Apollo 5. SLA base at the top of the Instrument Unit on the S-IVB landing was LM-4. Despite being a success overall, several critical stage, the petal doors facilitated separation of LM-1 from Because it was impossible to inspect every systems were left untested and the DPS engine the SLA adapter at 53 min 55.24 sec, as noted by spikes element in the LM structure without time- had yet to demonstrate its ability to fire for the in the telemetry coming down from LM-1 through the consuming disassembly, a decision was made to required duration. Some other issues were similarly Carnarvon tracking station. Onboard systems appeared proceed on the basis that the probability of such left unresolved. By moving directly from the flight to be in good condition. Several minor irregularities were cracks occuring in areas hidden from view was too of LM-1 to a crewed flight using LM-3 on what was handled by the flight controllers, and a lot of data was fed unlikely to justify halting production at this critical then scheduled as the first crewed Saturn V flight time in the programme. Grumman switched to a (AS-503), NASA embarked on a high-risk strategy in directly to ground-based tape recorders in the support different alloy for LM-8 and subsequent vehicles. which crewed missions would complete the testing room for detailed analysis at a later date. In any event, Grumman had its hands full, since of a spacecraft still in development. That policy For the next two orbits, the LM was placed in a cold- it was clear that the Lunar Module would be the would continue even after what would turn out to soak attitude for mechanical and thermal measurements critical pacing item among the assembly of launch be the near-catastrophic flight of Apollo 6 – the of the spacecraft and its systems. The DPS was vehicles and spacecraft needed for the Moon second uncrewed test launch of a Saturn V – in commanded to fire after LM-1 manoeuvred to the correct missions. During inspections of LM-3, technicians April 1968. attitude, beginning at 3 hr 55 min 10 sec. At 3 hr 59

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 29 HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT IMAGES: NASA IMAGES:

min 34 sec, the RCS thrusters fired to provide a +X ABOVE initiated mission programmer III ten minutes later. positive acceleration, followed by DPS engine ignition Construction of Launch Complex Two pre-burn +X thruster firings of eleven and five at 3 hr 59 min 42 sec. But 4.17 sec later, the engine shut 37 began in 1962 when NASA saw seconds respectively preceded the pre-ignition +X down unexpectedly. As planned, there had been less than Saturn as the workhorse of future translation at 6 hr 10 min 33 sec. This was followed by space projects. Two pads were normal pressure in the DPS tanks, However, this caused a planned but Pad A was never DPS second start nine seconds later (6 hr 10 min 42 sec) slight decrease in engine thrust build-up that triggered an used. Only six Saturn I and two at a 10% throttle setting, the RCS thrusters terminating automatic cutoff because the thrust curve was below the Saturn IB were launched from translation four seconds after that. Ramped up to profile necessary to pass the ΔV monitor check. LC-37B before it was deactivated maximum thrust at a burn time of 26 seconds, shutdown in 1972, when it was clear that occurred at 33 seconds – a mission elapsed time of 6 hr RANGE OF OPTIONS Saturn IB had no future. 11 min 15 sec. After coasting for 23 seconds, the RCS With LM-1 now in an orbit of 222 x 170 km (rather than The plan shows the arrangement +X translation began again. It was followed nine seconds the intended 322 x 215 km had the burn gone as planned), of LC-37 with its domed later (at 6 hr 11 min 47 sec) by the third DPS ignition at Mission Control had a revised trajectory but a range of blockhouse and support buildings. 10% and by translation shutdown four seconds after that. The complex supported a single potential options. After consultating with his controllers Mobile Service Structure. It was and with senior management, Gene Kranz decided on reactivated and used by Boeing CRITICAL BURN Alternate C. This would deliver the minimum mission for Delta launches from 2002. This third DPS burn was the one that mattered the most, requirements, but would not include the long-duration since it would test the FITH concept in space for the powered descent simulation burn – although it still ABOVE RIGHT first time. At a burn time of 35 sec, the DPS ramped permitted the all-important FITH burn with the APS. It Four minutes before sunset, up to maximum thrust (92.5%) and was successfully did, however, call for the mission programmer control to AS-204 lights up a darkening sky commanded to shut down one second later – a mission be replaced with guidance computer control for all engine as the first flight of the Lunar time of 6 hr 12 min 14 sec. At that instant the two stages firings. Module gets under way were severed and the APS engine fired for 60 seconds as Alternate C began with commands through the Hawaii planned. Twenty-five seconds later, the back-up control station at 4 hr 25 min, with the mission programmer RIGHT was selected that terminated the mission programmer Seen clearly on this chart, sequence selected at 4 hr 28 min 33 sec. Communications the first firing of the Descent sequence III and control reverted to the digital autopilot. continued through the Rose Knot Victor from 4 hr Propulsion System constructed a There had been very little attitude dispersion at the abort 30 min, followed by the initial attitude manoeuvre for thrust acceleration curve below stage separation, demonstrating that such an operation mission programmer III at 4 hr 51 min 31 sec. One that required to permit sustained was possible. orbit later, at 6 hr 00 min 28 sec, commands though combustion and the engine was As a product of these burns, LM-1 was now in an orbit Hawaii switched the Ascent Stage battery to back-up and therefore shut down. of 961 x 172 km. The second APS burn was conducted

30 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT NASA BELL AEROSYSTEMS with the stage in a retrograde orientation, and with ABOVE propellants that began nine seconds earlier. Interconnect a subsequent decrease in orbital velocity up to the The fixed-thrust Ascent Stage valves between the two A and B RCS circuits and the APS time of RCS propellant depletion. This amended flight main engine borrowed much from were closed at burn elapsed times of 2 min 30 sec and the Bell engines used for Agena plan effectively sent the Ascent Stage down into the rocket stages. Mythological 2 min 40 sec. Oxidiser and fuel low-level sensors were atmosphere and, eventually, to a fiery demise over the status has been imposed on it: triggered one second apart, the former at a burn time eastern Pacific. many sources, including one TV of 5 min 47 sec. This caused thrust decay and shutdown Ignition for the second APS burn occurred at 7 hr documentary, claim it could only starting one second after that (some 40 seconds 44 min 12.7 sec over the Pacific Ocean for a final burn be fired once due to the corrosive premature), at which time the Ascent Stage had a weight to depletion during a 17 sec +X translation to settle the nature of the propellants! of 2,176 kg. The timing of these events indicated that propellant sloshing in the tanks due to high-attitude excursions had caused the outlet ports to be exposed prematurely. At least 20 seconds of this was due to higher propellant usage than expected. However, the exact cause was determined later by forensic examination of all the data, since there was only real-time transmission and random sampling at the time. Nevertheless, the job had been done – demonstrating that the APS could operate in the vacuum of space for at least the duration required to get a crew off the Moon and back into lunar orbit. With the depletion of its RCS and APS propellant, the Ascent Stage lost all attitude control capability, and after the final communication at 7 hr 52 min 10 sec, all ground stations in the network went to skin-tracking. But there was no further contact with the vehicle, and it eventually joined the Descent Stage and the S-IVB in winding down to destruction in the Earth’s atmosphere. The flight operations phase of the mission finally came to an end when the flight control team wrapped up activity at 11 hr 30 min mission elapsed time. SF

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 31 SPACE HISTORY

Monument to a

space NASAM pioneer A trip to the Hermann Oberth Museum in Feucht, Bavaria

Hermann Oberth is rightly regarded as one of the founding fathers of rocketry. A few miles south of Nuremberg in southern Germany, in the little town of Feucht, is a museum dedicated to the life and work of this pioneer in the field of astronautics.

by Alan Marlow

he Oberth Museum is normally only open on and mentor to a young Wernher von Braun. He was also a Saturdays and Sundays, but after I contacted him by technical advisor to Fritz Lang’s 1929 film “Frau im Mond” email, the curator, Karlheinz Rohrwild kindly offered Unusually (Woman in the Moon) and was tasked (unsuccessfully) to to show me around on a Wednesday morning. I was launch a rocket as a publicity stunt for the film. Tdelighted to find a small, but fascinating building, for a In common with many of the other pioneers of the VfR, absolutely packed with memorabilia, not only relating to Oberth went on to work on the development of rockets at Oberth himself, but to the history and future of rocketry and museum, Peenemunde during World War Two and ultimately joined space exploration. Wernher von Braun in the United States in the post war Hermann Oberth was born in Hermannstadt (now part of there is a period to continue his theoretical studies of the field of space Romania) in 1894. As a boy, he read “From the Earth to the exploration. In later life, Oberth would return to Germany Moon” by Jules Verne, but while it fired his imagination, even “touch and and make his home in Feucht, which now hosts the museum as a teenager he realised that Verne’s use of a massive gun to which bears his name. propel travellers into space was impractical and that the only feel” area Fortunately for the formal or casual visitor, Bavaria realistic method of exploring the heavens was by the use of provides a rich depository of space-related displays, starting rockets. allowing the with the Deutsches Museum in the heart of Munich where Even while studying medicine, Oberth continued to visitors can experience, close up, many items related develop his theories of rocketry and spaceflight and his visitor a to German and international space activities. Strongly books “Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen” (The Rocket connected to the aviation industry, the history of German into Interplanetary Space) and “Wege zur Raumschiffart” hands-on space research has a strong representation at this museum, (Ways to Space Travel), both published in the 1920s, laid and several rocket-related exhibits and contemporary the groundworks for the pioneering work done by German experience aeronautical displays can also be seen at the Deutsches rocketeers and others around the world trying to master the Museum outstation situated at Oberschleissheim just outside technology. Munich itself. During that period Oberth exchanged ideas and experiences with other rocketry pioneers including Robert ORIGINS Goddard in the USA (who flew the first liquid fuelled rocket The Hermann Oberth Society founded the museum in 1971, in 1926), Robert Esnault-Pelterie in France, and even Phillip which has an exhibition area of 160 m² and contains many Cleator (founder of the British Interplanetary Society) contributions from several national space agencies. These in the UK. He was one of the founders of the “Verein für include a Russian space suit, the overalls worn by German Raumschiffahrt” (Society for Space Travel) in Berlin in astronaut Ernst Messerschmid and a full-size replica of the early 1930s and became a lifelong inspirational figure Sputnik 1, together with the German-built third stage of

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LEFT Space suits worn by Russian cosmonauts and German astronauts, as well as models of rockets, including the NASA Space Launch System, are on display at the Oberth museum.

BELOW LEFT Several models of early German rockets are on display, helping to add context to Oberth’s work. space BELOW Some of Oberth’s books are on display at the museum, including the groundbreaking ‘Rockets Into Interplanetary Space’.

BOTTOM An exterior view of the

ALL IMAGES: ALAN MARLOW ALAN MARLOW ALL IMAGES: Oberth Museum.

ELDO’s Europa I launch vehicle, cancelled when the UK withdrew its Blue Streak first stage. A cinema is found on the first floor of the museum above the exhibits which are at ground level, where several historical films are shown from the early days of rocketry through to the present. This adds to the educational orientation of the museum, where great emphasis is placed throughout on providing a new generation with the background detail to space activities around the world. Unusually, for a museum where there is a lot of irreplaceable hardware from space activities, there is a “touch and feel” area where many items donated over the years have been given over to a direct personal and physical contact with space hardware, allowing the visitor a “hands-on” experience. This is an invaluable connection for those who are somewhat distanced from the everyday contact space professionals enjoy in their daily work. It is perhaps something that could be copied in other museums in other countries where there is a substantial amount of materials unable to find formal display space and which can contribute to an unforgettable experience. The museum contains many items of Oberth memorabilia including original copies of his books “Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen” and “Wege zur Raumschiffart” and Oberth’s desk complete with many of his own personal items. There is a fascinating collection of reproductions of early experimental rockets, dozens of models of both fictional and real spacecraft, a collection of spacesuits and a real V2 engine. Nuremburg, with its connection to the 1930s rallies and the War Trials, is a fascinating place to visit. For the space enthusiast, this small but beautifully presented museum a few kilometres to the south of the city makes the area doubly attractive. Karlheinz was a wonderfully generous host, guiding me around the museums exhibits and explaining their history and their relevance to the story of the development of rocketry. In addition to its connection with one of the fathers of rocketry, Feucht has another claim to fame. At the end of my visit, Karlheinz presented me with a pot of excellent local honey for which the town is renowned throughout the world (it even has a Beekeeping Museum). SF

Many thanks to Karlheinz for what was for me undoubtedly one of the highlights of my holiday.

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 33 ARTHUR C. CLARKE CENTENARY 1917-2017 a space odyssey From imagination to reality: the mysteries of Arthur C Clarke

Much has been written about the legacy of Arthur Clarke. During his lifespan from 1917 to 2008, Clarke witnessed and indeed helped forecast much of the dramatic technological progress from the mid-20th century to the present, particularly in the field of space exploration.

by Nick Spall

larke promoted technological marvels such as could comfortably extrapolate technological trends. geo-synchronous orbit communication satellites, This optimistic and intuitive deep-thinker has helped anticipating all the key stages in the progress of prepare us for the likely future evolution of humanity astronautics well before they happened. Wernher as a spacefaring species. Often compared to science Cvon Braun even used Clarke’s 1952 book The fiction greats such as Jules Verne and HG Wells, in his Exploration of Space to inspire President Kennedy to writing and broadcasting Clarke pushed the boundaries commit to the Apollo programme. Many attributed their of technology projection from the mid-20th century own space inspiration to Clarke, including astronomer onwards to its limits and beyond. Carl Sagan, film producer James Cameron and However, there was a powerful non-technical, deeply Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. Based in the UK, Alan Bond artistic and human side to Clarke that enriched his work worked with Clarke on background technical issues and and made his writing both fascinating and addictive to Stephen Baxter would go on to co-author books with him his readership. Considering his life and writing, it is clear following inspiration from his powerful stories from the that this special “broad-view” approach meant that he 1950-60s. was very much a Renaissance-man, with a powerful and In terms of practical technology, Clarke conceived of unfettered curiosity about the nature of the Universe and many innovation breakthroughs that are now considered the mystery of human (and even non-human) existence. commonplace. These include the 3D printer that Clarke Many of Clarke’s stories go beyond a purely science- foresaw as “replicators” back in 1964, the ongoing led technical writer’s approach. Clarke was almost revolution in Artificial Intelligence (AI) as portrayed “metaphysical” in his world-view – one of his favourite

in the famous book and movie 2001: a Space Odyssey, mantras was JBS Haldane’s quote, that “the Universe is ARCHIVES BIS/CLARKE plus the combined personal communicator/recorder/ not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we translator/mobile secretary that is now the smartphone. can suppose”. He even inspired Tim Berners Lee to come up with the ABOVE Thus, without any science-led rationalist guilt, Clarke concept of the world-wide-web. Arthur C Clarke on the set of comfortably provides such occurrences as the “ghost-like” The future will one day thank Clarke for pushing 2001 : A Space Odyssey, one of appearance of hero astronaut Dave Bowman within the forward Project Spaceguard and its comprehensive the most famous science fiction novel and movie screenplay of 2001 and the follow-up forecasting and protection against Near Earth Object films of all time. 2010 – this being included, of course, in a story that starts (NEO) impact, the promise of asteroid mining, cheap out as a thoughtful technology-led projection of the space access via future “Space Elevators” and perhaps RIGHT exploration of the Solar System. Next to science fiction, as a even the idea of terraforming suitable exoplanets as The book starts with the famous line: “Behind every futurist Clarke was responsible Earth-like homes for humanity. for many predictions – the man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio most notable being the by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn A METAPHYSICAL WRITER? communications satellite, here of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have Clarke combined an extraordinarily creative imagination remembered at the Science walked the planet Earth.” with a highly intelligent understanding of science that Museum in London. This metaphysical approach appears to have arisen

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from Clarke’s easy appreciation of the strange world of tapped in to human curiosity and the pursuit of meaning. quantum and particle physics, plus a personal awareness Arthur was one of what he called the ‘1930s BIS space that his own life was riddled with extraordinary Arthur was one of cadets’, at a time when scientists and engineers needed coincidence and serendipity that often appeared to go potent imaginations to extrapolate the relatively crude well beyond statistical laws of probability and chance. what he called the early rocket research possibilities of the 1930s into a possible future involving the launch to Earth orbit and TAKING ON THE FUTURE ‘1930s BIS space the exploration of the Solar System and beyond. “From For Clarke, the big questions were everything. There imagination to Reality” was very much Clarke’s credo in could be few more powerful topics than the future of cadets’ those early years – a strap-line adopted, of course, by the humankind and the possibility of Extra-Terrestrial (ET) current BIS today. intelligence – issues that he bravely took on in 2001 and Throughout his life, Clarke loved stories and personal many of his books. Considering non-scientific, almost experiences of the unknown, recognising that life paranormal and semi-spiritual issues, for example, his regularly throws up strange oddities including bizarre 1980s TV series Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World coincidences, Jung-style “synchronicity” of events and

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 35 ARTHUR C. CLARKE CENTENARY

the possibilities of the apparently paranormal. One of his most well-known early books, Childhood’s End (1954) included many of his subsequent story I have often themes, covering human evolution, transcendence and meetings with intelligent super-race ETs. Into this story thought, especially he also brought in the semi-paranormal, including levitation, telepathy, and remote viewing. when SCUBA Clarke fully appreciated that humanity has by now developed far beyond the ability merely to survive, and diving, that we was duly fascinated at the thought of what might be possible when a future world is able to apply even more don’t really belong powerful levels of technology. Hence Clarke’s famous “Third Law” stating that “Any sufficiently advanced here, dragged technology is indistinguishable from magic”. With technology application experience gained from down by gravity radar work with the RAF in the Second World War, followed by degree studies in mathematics and physics every moment of at University College London, Clarke was clearly proud of his own technical understanding of science and the our lives. Our true march of technological innovation. This led to his 1945 concept of geostationary destiny belongs communications satellites and the subsequent forecast of the internet and the World Wide Web. Tim Berners Lee to Space was apparently inspired by this concept in Clarke’s book Dial F for Frankenstein. Other projections included 3D Arthur C. Clarke printing, which Clarke called “the replicator” in his book Profiles of the Future (1964), space elevators in Fountains of Paradise (1979), plus his inspiring space travel ideas in The Exploration of Space (1952) that Wernher von Braun presented to persuade President Kennedy – with dramatic consequences. In his later years, notably in his famous “Clarke at 90 orbits around the Sun” video message, he maintained Odyssey when it was first premiered in 1968, with its that he really wanted to be remembered as a writer clear connotation of supreme beings and God-like aliens. who could both entertain and inspire a future-hungry Conveniently, the movie premiered just as Apollo 8 was society, keen to stretch its imagination to the practical embarking on the first human voyage to the Moon – and possibilities that science and human development had Clarke would speculate for years on whether its success to offer for humanity’s evolution. Always the optimist, was due to that accident of history. Clarke avoided too many dystopian concepts in his future Clarke was most probably atheistic in his view of worlds, saying in Profiles of the Future: “We can be certain ABOVE the existence of a supreme being. Applying his usually that it will be utterly fantastic”. A studious Clarke in his late powerful one-liner quotes, often involving great wit, he teens, who spent much of his would say: “I don’t believe in God, but I’m very interested CLARKE ON RELIGION life reading and synthesising old in her”. He even went so far as to rather flippantly ideas with new thoughts. Clarke always rejected the easy answers to the meaning question whether, in a Universe where Einstein assured of existence offered by the world’s established religions. BELOW us that the speed of light could not be exceeded, God But at times, some of his interests and ideas touched Arthur had a love of all forms of could only intervene in humanity’s affairs using warp- almost on the spiritual. Who can fail to remember the technology. Here, he achieves an speeds across the cosmos. powerful idea of the “starchild” floating in Earth orbit early ambition to get aloft and The reality was that he did indeed think extensively at the conclusion of the book and movie 2001; A Space experience flight. about religion. More serious quotes include: “One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion” and “Religion is a by-product of fear. For much of human history it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary?” The increased interest in Creationism, particularly in the United States during the 1990s, greatly worried Clarke. Along with his friend Carl Sagan, he actively rejected what he considered to be an anti-scientific view of the Universe and mankind’s evolutionary origins. Referring to Earth’s geological and archaeological record, he said of Creationism and Intelligent Design teachings: “How would God be responsible for such a cruel hoax by forging billions of years of pre-history”. In terms of possible ET contact, Clarke maintained that if ever it occurred, it might well destroy the fundamentals of many religions. He said that “The assertion that God made man in his own image is ticking like a time-bomb in the foundations of Christianity”. However, Clarke did regularly touch on the theme of higher beings and semi “god-like” intelligences in his stories. The classic 2001 and, of course 3001, extrapolated humanity’s future level of existence to almost an “angel- like” form – the transcendent Starchild disembodied from

CLARKE ARCHIVES CLARKE ARCHIVES a corporeal existence with powers beyond any current

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1901, plus the mysterious ancient Parthian “Baghdad Battery”, with its possible electricity-generating abilities. As to mysterious undiscovered sea creatures, partly due to his career in SCUBA diving and underwater exploring off Australia and later Sri Lanka – covered in his book The Reefs of Taprobane – he maintained that there were most likely deep-sea giant squid or even “sea-serpents” of a size well beyond anything currently encountered. Here the jury is still out, but as deep-water sonar becomes more capable in future years then that sea mystery may one day be revealed. The reason for his love of diving lay of course in his self-confessed obsession with the idea of being weightless, as if in space. Being underwater was the nearest Clarke could get to zero-g – he said: “I have often thought, especially when SCUBA diving, that we

OPPOSITE PAGE AND THIS IMAGE: CLARKE ARCHIVES CLARKE ARCHIVES AND THIS IMAGE: PAGE OPPOSITE don’t really belong here, dragged down by gravity every moment of our lives. Our true destiny belongs to Space”. levels of understanding. Indeed, when working on 2001 Despite his stated desire to fly in the Space Shuttle, in the mid-1960s, he said: “MGM doesn’t know it yet, but or even one day make it to a “Space Hilton”, for Clarke they are making the first $10 million religious movie!” Two possibilities space tourism came too late in his long-life. However, his move to Sri Lanka in 1956 provided years of underwater MYSTERIES exist; either we are diving and semi-weightlessness. In 1992 at the age of From childhood, Clarke soaked up stories of all of the 75 he could still dive to 30 metres, together with his unusual and mysterious that the Earth has to offer alone in the dive-partner Hector Ekanayake – “Doing the ton”, as he including hauntings, sea monsters, Yetis, Bigfoot, spoon called it. In one of his regular Egogram bulletins, Clarke bending/telekinesis, telepathy, and the unknown abilities Universe or we are described it as “Making me feel 20 years younger”. of ancient civilisations. Much of this material eventually The release of Earthly weight helped him cope with the made it into his Mysterious World TV films and books. not. Both are discomfort of his sometimes painful post-polio syndrome However, he applied to them his normal scientific rigour, disability, diagnosed in 1986 in place of a feared and and was particularly sceptical of telekinesis – he referred equally terrifying. misdiagnosed Motor Neurone Disease. He saw this as his to the abilities of stage magician and pseudo-science “stay of execution” at the time that allowed him to see in challenger James Randi, who could duplicate and debunk the year 2001. many of the apparently “paranormal” claims. As to pseudo-science and the world of astrology, UFOS AND ET Clarke quipped another of his famous one-liners: “I don’t Following years of fascination and study, Clarke firmly believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re sceptical”. rejected virtually all UFO sightings as possible alien All unknown mysteries fascinated Clarke though. As ABOVE visitors, particularly those involving human abduction Arthur indulging his great a child he was addicted to books on dinosaurs and then, passion for scuba diving. and “Area 51 hidden saucer /paranoia” plots. He of course, to the world of science-fiction. In later years considered that all UFOs recorded were, or would he became fascinated by the history of technological BELOW eventually become, explained by science and reason. He progress and archaeological oddities. He closely studied Arthur signing copies of his books said of this disbelief: “Having written thousands of words the story of the Antikythera mechanism, a bronze in Taunton Public Library in 1973 on the subject (and read millions), I refuse to go into analogue computer from ancient Greece discovered in and (right) a poster for 2001. further details. If anyone wants to argue, I’ll merely CLARKE ARCHIVES CLARKE ARCHIVES

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 37 ARTHUR C. CLARKE CENTENARY

COINCIDENCE AND SYNCHRONICITY Clarke was fascinated throughout his life by the strange world of coincidence. He appreciated the laws of probability and, indeed, the statistics of chance. A reader of Arthur Koestler’s 1972 book The Roots of Coincidence, Clarke was aware of Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity and the seriality of Paul Kammerer. He followed modern particle physics, entanglement and separated fundamental particle theory, and noted that quantum mechanics was referred to by Einstein as “spooky”. At times, Clarke felt that his own life and his ideas of the future were riddled by coincidence and oddity. A classic example of this is the 1970 troubles of Apollo 13, where Jack Swigert famously radioed: “Houston, we’ve had a problem”. In the book 2001, Clarke had written that the ship’s computer HAL said: “Sorry to interrupt the festivities, but we have a problem”. This was all in the setting the Apollo 13 Command Module being named “Odyssey” and Swigert having just been playing the 2001 theme music on board. Other space coincidences of Clarke’s include his déjà vu moment of seeing Skylab astronauts running around the ring-shaped interior of their station in zero-g, whilst the 2001 movie sequence shows astronaut Dave Bowman jogging around the interior centrifuge on board Discovery in a similar way. More strangeness occurred across Clarke’s space writing, some of it light-hearted. The Apollo 8 astronauts confessed that they did consider telling Houston that they had spotted a black monolith on the far side of the Moon, as a joke. Carl Sagan once sent him a close-up picture of the Saturnian moon Iapetus from JPL, with its one pale side and a black crater dot in the centre just like the Eye monolith position in 2001, saying: “Thinking of you!” Coincidence continues. Clarke’s book Rendezvous with Rama included a major asteroid impact disaster on Italy, significantly dated September 11. In the foreword to the book 3 for Tomorrow, Clarke asked scarily and prophetically: “When will some Lee Harvey Oswald attempt to assassinate a city, or a world?” Watching Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 through his telescope in Sri Lanka as it crashed into Jupiter in July 1994, Clarke felt the uncanny coincidence with his 2010 storyline written in 1982 – in that his character Dr Heywood Floyd watched just such a dark spot appear in quote one of my favourite book titles: Shut-up”. ABOVE Jupiter’s atmosphere. Clarke, though, was deeply wishful that extra- Arthur in Sri Lanka with an Seeing the images of NASA shuttle EVA astronauts terrestrial life would be found and that intelligent aliens unattributed dinosaur of float next to satellite Palapa and capture it with their grab, would show themselves one day – most likely via contact dubious veracity! Clarke had déjà vu feelings of seeing the astronaut Frank by radio-telescope. He believed, like many others, that life BELOW Poole floating next to the spaceship Discovery in 2001. must be commonplace across the Galaxy, and noted the Kevin Bacon as Jack Swigert One of the most famous “Clarke coincidence” stories panspermia possibilities from the work of Fred Hoyle and in Apollo 13, the movie: is, of course, the naming of the HAL 9000 computer Chandra Wickramasinghe. ‘Houston, we’ve had a problem’. in 2001. Clarke was amused by the huge interest in the However, while he firmly hoped that mankind was not Another example of a ‘Clarke idea that he derived it from the letters before “IBM” alone, Clarke accepted that there could be no certainty coincidence?’ in the alphabet. He consistently denied that there was of intelligent ET civilisations across the Cosmos: “Two possibilities exist; either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying”. Clarke always held a firm belief in the proper conservation of the planet and an avoidance of human- induced climate change. The scourges of poverty and disease he considered were solvable by technological progress and he believed that the exploitation of space could be undertaken cleanly and without impacting the Earth’s environment, speculating that cold-fusion and clean energy sources were just around the corner. He cheekily predicted, though, that late in the 21st century, the newly built carbon-capture plants would need to be set to reverse in order to stave-off an impending Ice Age! Referring to a possible Universe where mankind is alone, in 1982 Clarke said: “If we are the sole heirs to the Galaxy, we must also be its future guardians.”

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never any such link and that it came from “Heuristically Peak features for the story. For visitors to the island, the Algorithmic computer”, but many maintained that the strength of this location imagery for the novel is fully coincidence was still too strong. If we are the sole evident. Any visit to Sri Lanka should, of course, take in these sites, plus the Great Basses diving area, Galle Face LIFE IN SRI LANKA heirs to the Galaxy, Hotel in Colombo, with its fine bust of Clarke (being During his time in Sri Lanka, Clarke was friends with where he wrote 3001), and of course “Leslie’s Place” – his neighbour Bill Macquitty, famous as the producer of the we must also be its house nearby which he shared with Hector and Valerie sinking of the Titanic movie Night to Remember. Clarke Ekanayake and his adopted family. became obsessed with the Titanic story, using it as a future guardians In true Clarke style, following his death on 19 March theme in his novel Ghost from the Grand Banks. He noted 2008, he was buried in a Colombo cemetery with a the extraordinary and very odd coincidence of Morgan secular funeral service. The words on his black monolith Robertson’s prophetic book The Wreck of the Titan, gravestone read: “He never grew up, but he never or Futility, written in 1898. This described an almost stopped growing”. SF identical iceberg collision with an “unsinkable” liner of the same size and ship’s complement as the SS Titanic, which actually went down in almost the same area and with almost identical losses in 1912. Another extraordinary personal coincidence for Clarke was during his major operation for diverticulitis and prostate problems in 1991 at UCLH in London. He awoke in a medical room with three tubes connected to him and a large scar. He felt for days afterwards that this was a somewhat familiar situation. On his return to Sri Lanka, he searched his files and came across a letter from JBS Haldane, written to Clarke in 1963 from exactly the same UCLH hospital room, describing an identical operation with the same three tubes, the same scar and the same window view. His home from 1956 onwards, Sri Lanka was for Clarke almost a “destiny move”, since it combined a link- up of his love of the sea and space and the countryside he loved. Close to the equator, he noted how he was located ABOVE near the point of maximum geosynchronous orbital The 6th-century fortress of stability above the Earth, linking with his comsat concept Sigiriya, hewn out of solid rock, from years earlier. Also, a few hundred kilometres rises eerily above the plains of due south in the Indian Ocean lay one of the notable Sri Lanka – the troubled island major gravitational anomalies on the planet. When he paradise that Clarke called home from 1956. discovered this, Clarke noted the similarity to his “Tycho Magnetic Anomaly (TMA)” on the Moon, as imagined in RIGHT 2001 years before. Arthur returns in triumph to a Clarke used Sri Lanka for the Space Elevator location reception held in his honour at in his 1979 novel Fountains of Paradise. Here he Minehead in Somerset – the town combined the ancient Sigirya rock fortress and Adams where he was born..

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 39 OBITUARY

REMEMBERING Richard Francis Gordon Jr (1929-2017) Veteran Gemini astronaut who never made it to the Moon.

orn in Seattle, Washington, on 5 October 1929, Dick Gordon, as he liked to be known, was an archetypical product of the early groups of astronauts selected for NASA’s manned space flight programme: a first-born Bof five children to parents Richard and Angela, a test pilot, flight instructor, speed record holder and a recruit to the third group of astronauts. Selected by NASA in October 1963, from the outset Gordon was clearly suitable for demanding assignments. Astronauts went one of three ways. Gordon was placed under Gordon Cooper with the Apollo group working out of the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston; Grissom had the Gemini astronauts and Armstrong had operations and training. But crew selections for flight assignments could cross the divides. Within a few months Gordon was teamed with Pete Conrad as back-up to Scott and Armstrong for Gemini VIII. Then Gordon and Conrad got the Gemini XI flight and suddenly that programme seemed a good bet on which to gain experience. While the two were in orbit a formal announcement was made that approval had been given for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory – heavily reliant on Gemini as its ferry vehicle. But that was not to be, although Gordon got to do a spacewalk on Gemini XI lasting 33 minutes when he attached a tether to the docked Agena target vehicle, cut short when was overcome with exhaustion, perspiration blinding him in his right eye. After firing up the Agena engine to boost

the docked configuration to a record 1,369 km above Earth, NASA Gordon got to conduct a stand-up EVA of 2 hrs 8 min. With a list of photographic tasks he took pictures of celestial His performance credited him with the unusual promotion phenomena with an ultraviolet camera. to back-up Commander of Apollo 15, in that this job usually During this long period of activity, comfortably restrained He got to went to a Lunar Module pilot, which threw him, and fellow by tethers and a harness, Gordon got to experience arguably astronauts Brand and Schmitt on to prime crew for Apollo the most tranquil and relaxed EVA experience of any astronaut experience 18. But along with Apollo 19 that mission got cancelled on 2 or cosmonaut. It was so calming that while waiting for his next September 1970 and Schmitt was moved up to Apollo 17 so task in an allotted timeline, he drifted to sleep, as did Conrad arguably the that NASA could say it had placed a scientist-astronaut, and in the left seat, both waking with a start minutes later. most tranquil geologist to boot, on the lunar surface. AFTER THE FIRE BAD LUCK OF THE DRAW Gordon was assigned as back-up Command Module pilot to and relaxed Dick Gordon had desperately wanted to land on the Moon what was known before the fire as Apollo 3 (then scheduled but it was not to be, one of nine astronauts who would have as the first Saturn V manned flight); Conrad was Commander EVA of any flown three Apollo lunar landing flights had not Apollos 18-20 with Williams as Lunar Module Pilot and all three would been cancelled, Apollo 20 so as to assign the last Saturn V have logically rotated to a lunar-orbit mission then designated astronaut or to the launch of Skylab. After his assignment as back-up to Apollo 6. During reshuffles in the aftermath of the fire, the Apollo 15, Dick Gordon told Deke Slayton that he would retire Conrad/Gordon/Williams crew became back-up to the first cosmonaut after his next flight. But he was not done with space. manned Lunar Module flight. When Williams died in an In 1971 Gordon became Chief of Advanced Programs in the aircraft accident in October 1967, the Conrad/Gordon team Astronaut Office and was heavily involved in working the final got Alan Bean. Phase B Shuttle plans through to approval in January 1972 and After Apollo 9 flew in March 1969, the Conrad crew the selection of North American Rockwell to build the orbiter. were assigned to Apollo 12, which, after surviving a near He resigned from NASA later that year and became executive catastrophic lightning strike during launch, achieved the president of the New Orleans Saints professional football team. first pin-point landing on the Moon, effected in November In March 1993, Dick Gordon was inducted into the Astronaut 1969. For more than 37 hours Gordon minded the Command Hall of Fame. Module in Moon orbit alone, tending a wide range of science Remarried after a divorce, Dick Gordon died on 6 tasks including lunar surface photography to aid in future November 2017, predeceased by his wife, Linda Saunders who missions design. died earlier in the year. SF

40 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight

SATELLITE DIGEST Satellite Digest-540 Satellite Digest is Spaceflight’s regular listing of world space launches using orbital data from the United States Strategic Command space-track.org website. Compiled by Geoff Richards

Spacecraft International Date Launch Launch vehicle Mass Orbital Inclin. Period Perigee Apogee Notes designation site (kg) epoch (deg) (min) (km) (km) Sucre 2017-060A Oct 9.18 Jiuquan Chang Zheng 2D 942 Oct 9.83 98.02 97.53 630 655 [1] Iridium 133 2017-061A Oct 9.53 WTR Falcon 9FT 860 Oct 25.42 86.40 100.37 777 779 [2] Iridium 127 2017-061B 860 Oct 31.42 86.40 100.37 776 779 [2] Iridium 122 2017-061C 860 Oct 26.29 86.39 100.37 777 778 [2] Iridium 129 2017-061D 860 Nov 2.92 86.40 100.37 777 779 [2] Iridium 119 2017-061E 860 Nov 6.10 86.40 100.37 777 779 [2] Iridium 107 2017-061F 860 Nov 8.49 86.40 100.37 776 779 [2] Iridium 132 2017-061G 860 Nov 4.17 86.40 100.37 776 779 [2] Iridium 136 2017-061H 860 Nov 11.88 86.40 100.37 776 779 [2] Iridium 139 2017-061J 860 Nov 10.21 86.40 100.37 776 779 [2] Iridium 125 2017-061K 860 Nov 14.18 86.40 100.37 776 779 [2] Michibiki 4 2017-062A Oct 9.92 Tanegashima H-IIA 202 4,000 Nov 1.62 40.45 1,435.93 32,605 38,964 [3] EchoStar 105/SES 11 2017-063A Oct 11.95 KSC Falcon 9FT 5,200 Oct 24.53 0.07 1,436.02 35,781 35,792 [4] Sentinel 5p 2017-064A Oct 13.39 Plesetsk Rokot-Briz-KM 900 Nov 12.17 98.71 101.40 826 828 [5] Progress MS-07 2017-065A Oct 14.37 Baykonur Soyuz-2.1a 7,428 Oct 16.71 51.64 92.56 401 408 [6] USA 279 2017-066A Oct 15.31 ETR Atlas V 421 5,000? Oct 16.46 18.69 648.65 1,096 35,809 [7] Mugunghwa 5A 2017-067A Oct 30.82 KSC Falcon 9FT 3,700 Nov 14.33 0.02 1,436.19 35,785 35,795 [8] SkySat 13 2017-068A Oct 31.90 WTR Minotaur-C 3210 110 Nov 1.93 97.35 94.88 501 528 [9] SkySat 12 2017-068B 110 Nov 2.08 97.35 94.88 501 528 [9] SkySat 11 2017-068C 110 Nov 1.93 97.35 94.87 501 528 [9] SkySat 10 2017-068D 110 Nov 2.85 97.35 94.87 501 528 [9] SkySat 9 2017-068E 110 Nov 2.79 97.35 94.87 500 527 [9] SkySat 8 2017-068F 110 Nov 2.79 97.35 94.87 500 527 [9] Flock 3m-1 2017-068J 5 Nov 1.93 97.34 94.83 500 524 [10] Flock 3m-3 2017-068K 5 Nov 1.93 97.34 94.82 500 523 [10] Flock 3m-4 2017-068L 5 Nov 2.14 97.36 94.82 500 523 [10] Flock 3m-2 2017-068M 5 Nov 1.93 97.35 94.80 501 520 [10]

NOTES 1 Sucre, full name Antonio José de Sucre, was named in honour of respectively. First stage successfully landed on the Just Read the a 19th-century leader. Satellite, also known as VRSS 2 (Venezuela Instructions barge, 244 km downrange. Remote Sensing Satellite) is a resource survey satellite built using a CAST-2000 bus for ABAE (Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities) with 3 Quasi- Zenith Satellite 4, a navigation satellite to augment the GPS high-resolution panchromatic and multi-spectral cameras (HRC) and two system over Japan built using a Mitsubishi DS2000 bus, launched by infra-red imagers (IRC) for Earth imaging. Mitsubishi for JAXA as agent for a group of four Japanese Ministries. Mass quoted above is at launch, dry mass is 1,550 kg. Manoeuvred to 2 Ten low-orbit communications satellites built using the ELiTeBus by operational orbit November 1. Completes the QZS System constellation of Thales Alena Space and launched for Iridium by SpaceX, the third three satellites in inclined elliptical geosynchronous orbits over 135°E. batch of the Iridium NEXT second-generation design. In addition to the communications payload, satellites carry add-on payloads: an ADS-B 4 Telecommunications and direct broadcast satellite built by Airbus receiver to track air traffic for Aireon and, on nine of the satellites, an using the Eurostar-3000 bus and launched by SpaceX for Echostar and exactView RT AIS receiver to track shipping for exactEarth. Launched SES. Mass quoted above is at launch. The satellite is over 142.5°W for into 620 km parking orbits. Satellites manoeuvred to raise orbits and test and will be located at 105°W for service to North America, the enter Plane 4 of the Iridium constellation. In date order, Iridiums 133, Caribbean and Hawaii, with one half of payload replacing AMC 18 for 122, 127, 129, 132, 119, 107, 139, 136 and 125 reached their operational SES and other half replacing AMC 15 for Echostar. First stage, originally orbits, co-located with Iridiums 8, 34, 51, 6, 5, 19, 97, 61, 37 and 96 used to launch Dragon CRS 10, successfully landed on the Of Course I

42 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight SATELLITE DIGEST

Still Love You barge about 650 km downrange. orbit given is from amateur trackers, final orbit will be geostationary.

5 Sentinel 5 Precursor survey satellite built using an Airbus AstroBus-L 8 Mugungh wa or Koreasat 5A is a telecommunications and direct broadcast 250M bus for ESA and launched by Eurockot with a Tropomi ultraviolet/ satellite built using a Thales Spacebus 4000B2 bus and launched by visible/infra-red imaging spectrometer for atmospheric composition for SpaceX for KT Sat. Mass quoted above is at launch. The satellite is over the European Commission’s Copernicus programme. Satellite will provide 114.5°E for test and will be located at 113°E to provide a service to Korea, data continuity from the Envisat and Aura programmes. Japan, Indochina and the Middle East. First stage successfully landed on the Of Course I Still Love You barge 625 km downrange. 6 Unmanned freighter mission to the International Space Station, mission ISS-68P, with 2,549 kg of cargo. Spacecraft docked at ISS/Pirs port 9 Sky Satellite Gen2 Earth survey satellites built by Space Systems/ October 16.46. Carries an unspecified scientific instrument mounted Loral and launched by Orbital ATK for Planet are each carrying a high- externally. resolution panchromatic and multi-spectral scanner for Earth resources imaging. Minotaur-C is an updated version of the launch vehicle 7 Classified satellite, also known as NROL-52, is a payload for the NRO previously known as Taurus. launched by ULA. Probably the second fourth-generation Quasar Satellite Data System communications satellite to provide links with 10 Flock 3m constellation of 4 Dove 3U Cubesats built by Planet are each military satellites in low Earth orbit. Orbit is classified, initial transfer carrying a visible/infra-red camera for Earth observation.

ADDITIONS AND UPDATES DESIGNATION COMMENTS DESIGNATION COMMENTS 1995-057A UFO 6 (USA 114) has been manoeuvred off-station at 105°W and 2002-016A Intelsat 903 was re-located at 31.5°W, co-located with Intelsat 25, is drifting to the west, according to amateur trackers. It has September 28. apparently been retired. 2007-046A W GS 1 (USA 195) has manoeuvred off-station at 24°E and has 1999-033A A STRA 1H was manoeuvred off-station at 43.5°E October 8 and is relocated to 6°E, according to amateur trackers. drifting to the west. 2010-006A Int elsat 16 was manoeuvred off-station at 58°W October 18 and 1999-042A T elkom 1 drift rate has decreased again. It is not clear if the was relocated back at 76°W October 30. satellite is under control. 2014-058A Luch (Olimp-K) was manoeuvred off-station at 32.7°E October 16 2000-072A Int elsat 1R was re-located at 157.1°E, co-located with Intelsat 5, and was relocated at 38.2°E October 21. October 30. 2015-072 SIMPL was assembled aboard ISS then deployed via the Kibo 2001-046A USA 162, according to amateur trackers, has been relocated at airlock using a Kaber deployer October 27.39. Add object and 30°W. orbit: 2002-012A,B GRACE 1 and 2 science mission was declared over on October SIMPL 1998-067NF 27. GRACE 1 is being used for end-of-mission tests while GRACE 2 Oct 28.03 51.64° 92.54 min 400 km 408 km has broken formation with GRACE 1 and began manoeuvring for 2015-081A-L The Orbcomm satellites have completed their manoeuvres to de-orbit about October 13.

Launched on 13 October, Sentinel 5P, the first atmospheric monitoring satellite in the Copernicus family for Earth applications. ESA

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 43 SATELLITE DIGEST

reach three separate planes of the Orbcomm constellation. Plane 7 to test its MAPS propulsion system. T satellites, apart from Orbcomm FM105 (2015-081C) which failed 2017-037 A new object associated with Kosmos 2519 and Kosmos 2521 was in its drift orbit, reached their final orbits in 2016 November, detected on October 30. Add object and orbit: Plane S satellites in April and Plane R satellites in October. Two (Object E) 2017-037E further satellites have reportedly also failed. Add orbits: Oct 31.24 97.88° 96.84 min 554 km 664 km 2016 Nov 18.14 47.00° 98.89 min 710 km 712 km 2017-045 Kestral Eye 2M was deployed via the Kibo airlock using a Kaber 2017 Apr 14.84 47.00° 98.89 min 710 km 712 km deployer October 24.41. Add object and orbit: 2016 Mar 12.96 47.01° 99.67 min 746 km 751 km Kestral Eye 2M 1998-067NE 2016 Nov 24.17 47.00° 98.89 min 710 km 712 km Oct 24.68 51.64° 92.54 min 400 km 407 km 2016 Nov 18.65 47.00° 98.89 min 710 km 712 km 2017-053A Amaz onas 5 was manoeuvred off its test station at 58°W October 2017 Apr 18.80 47.00° 98.89 min 710 km 712 km 23, was relocated at 61°W, co-located with Amazonas 2, 3 and 4, 2017 Apr 17.62 47.00° 98.89 min 710 km 712 km October 30 and was declared operational November 2. 2017 Oct 26.52 47.00° 98.89 min 709 km 712 km 2017-055A K osmos 2522 (Uragan-M 752) manoeuvred to slot 14 of the 2017 Oct 27.25 47.00° 98.89 min 709 km 712 km GLONASS constellation by October 13 and was declared operational October 16. Add orbit: 2017 Oct 27.36 47.00° 98.89 min 709 km 712 km Oct 13.30 64.80° 675.70 min 19,104 km 19,156 km 2017 Apr 14.51 47.00° 98.89 min 710 km 712 km 2017-056A USA 278 has manoeuvred to its operational orbit, according to 2016-065A Shi Jian 17 was re-located at 118.2°E October 9. amateur trackers. Add orbit: 2016-075A WGS 8 (USA 272) has manoeuvred off-station at 122°W and has Oct 27.45 62.65° 717.50 min 2,245 km 38,107 km relocated to 104°E, according to amateur trackers. 2017-058A-C The three Yaogan 30-01 satellites have manoeuvred to space 2017-004A SBIRS GEO 3 (USA 273) has manoeuvred off-station at 160°W and themselves equally around their orbit. Add orbits: has relocated to 139°E, according to amateur trackers. Oct 21.39 35.00° 96.54 min 598 km 603 km 2017-029B Eutelsat 172B reached geostationary orbit over 176°E October 11. Oct 17.19 35.00° 96.54 min 598 km 602 km Add orbit: Oct 19.69 35.00° 96.54 min 595 km 605 km Oct 12.45 0.06° 1,436.03 min 35,782 km 35,792 km 2017-059A Intelsat 37e was located over 84.5°E for test by October 26. Add 2017-036AF D-Sat completed its planned SatAlert, DAA and DeCAS operations orbit: September 20 and fired its on-board solid motor about October 2, but tumbled due to thrust vector misalignment and did not Oct 26.67 0.02° 1,436.04 min 35,778 km 35,796 km achieve de-orbit. Mission declared over October 10. Add orbit: 2017-059B BSAT 4a was manoeuvred off its test station at 104°E October 28 Oct 4.11 97.63° 96.57 min 506 km 686 km and was relocated at 110°E, co-located with BSAT 3a, BSAT 3b and BSAT 3c, November 8. 2017-036AG PacSciSat performed small manoeuvres August 2 and September

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ACTIVITY RECENTLY DETAILED ORBITAL DECAYS There were no orbital manoeuvres of ISS during October. International Object name Decay Designation End-of-October orbital data: Oct 31.95 51.64° 92.55 min 400 km 408 km 1979-070A Molniya 1 (47L) Oct 23.61 1999-022A ABRIXAS Oct 31.7 1998-067KT Tancredo 1 Oct 18.1 1998-067JU Flock 2e’-7 Oct 3.7

Progress MS-07 approaches the International Space Station and prepares to dock on 16 October. NASA

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SOCIETY NEWS SOCIETY NEWS

Astronaut Bruce McCandless, who presented to a Space Lectures gathering in early November. RICK MULHEIRN McCANDLESS UNTETHERED KEN WILLOUGHBY HAS BEEN bringing inspirational space everyone who came –especially those who generously donated pioneers to the UK for 12 years, so you could be forgiven for some unique auction pieces. Helen Sharman clearly has a fan in thinking that nothing former astronaut Bruce McCandless could Bruce: he bid on, and won, a signed copy of her book Seize the possibly say would be “news”. How wrong! Moment. There was also speculation on whether Bruce would Bruce and his wife Ellen began their Space Lectures adventure write an autobiography – and if so, what it would be called. The following a brief European vacation that included 1,000 miles following morning, over breakfast, the team settled on McCandless driving around the UK. During their time in Scotland, Bruce made Untethered” – the natural choice, perhaps, but also one with more tentative enquiries into his family’s genealogy. I’m not sure how than a whiff of intrigue. much he learned, but one wag in tartan did suggest “If you want Saturday’s lecture was a treat. Bruce spent only part of the talk to learn more about the McCandless clan, you should start at covering his own career before moving on to deal with topics as Glasgow prison!” varied as the development of the Manned Manoeuvring Unit, the On the morning of Friday, 3 November, Oyster Park Primary achievements of the Apollo and Shuttle programmes, the Hubble School in Castleford rolled out the red carpet for the Space Telescope, Doppler shift, infrared astronomy, SpaceX and McCandlesses and could not have been more welcoming. The unmanned probes. NASA’s job today, he insisted, was to manage children had been studying space ready for Bruce’s visit and were risk, promote research and conduct deep space exploration, while a credit to the school. The only squeaks and fidgeting came from leaving the bulk of near-Earth space activity to the private sector. the teachers, who were so enamoured by Bruce that they formed He reaffirmed that it was the agency’s job to do so in the true a posse around him during lunch. Kennedy spirit, “not because it is easy, but because it is hard”. SF Friday’s dinner went well and Ken has asked me to thank Rick Mulheirn THANK YOU BRUCE AND ELLEN!

THE SPACE LECTURES TEAM would like and £240 to The Fior Di Loto to thank Bruce McCandless and his wife Foundation of India. A big “thank you” Ellen (described by Al Worden as “the to you all. nicest person you could ever hope to (And a note of gratitude to Space meet”) for their time and effort. Lectures, too, from SpaceFlight and the And it almost goes without saying BIS for their magnificent contribution that without the support of everybody to such a worthy cause. Good to see who attended the Space Lectures talks that Bruce has finally slipped the in 2017, regulars and “newbies” alike, epithet “Bruce McCordless…”, given to these events would not be possible. him by wags in Houston following his Your support has enabled Space return from Shuttle mision STS-41B in

Lectures to donate £1125.00 to UNICEF February 1984! – Ed). SF RICK MULHEIRN

46 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight SOCIETY NEWS BRIAN BLESSED ROCKS BIS HQ

THE BIS IS ALIIIIIVE!!! The HQ’s Conference Room reverberated to the mighty sound of Brian Blessed as the celebrated actor and explorer gave a talk on his love of space and science fiction. The audience was treated to an Oscar-worthy performance as Brian told us of his space training with the Russians at Star City, his three expeditions to Everest without supplemental oxygen, and a trek to the North Magnetic Pole on foot. Brian’s varied career has included a meeting with the Dalai Lama, and even a stretch as a boxer in his youth. He also reminded us that he has been nominated for the Chancellorship of Cambridge University. He talked of his long relationship with Alan Brunstrom from ESA helps would-be rocket engineers static-test a Solid Fellow actor Patrick Stewart, also born in Yorkshire, and his time Rocket motor – with Mark Perman supervising and Steve Salmon supporting. working with George Lucas on Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom MICHAEL BRYCE Menace. Then, of course, there is arguably his most famous role –as Prince Vultan in the 180 film Flash Gordon. Brian’s talk was a powerful stream of consciousness, involving WEST MIDLANDS SPACE DAY some colourful language, and he held the packed audience in his THIS YEAR’S WEST MIDLANDS BRANCH Space Day event was the biggest so far. grip for 90 minutes. It was also a brilliantly comic performance, On 7 October, 26 organisations and groups from across the UK Midlands exhibited and during which people were frequently in stitches. Brian has been a promoted themselves to the public. The event was hosted by the Hive – a unique joint supporter of the BIS for many years, and as a token of the venture between the University of Worcester and Worcestershire County Council to Society’s appreciation he was presented with gifts – along with an create a joint University and Public library. Hive staff and the West Midlands branch exceptionally loud and enthusiastic round of applause. SF worked together to sound out potential exhibitors over a period of 6 months. Colin Philip The result was an excellent programme including a large number of exhibitors, and two very interesting and well received talks – one from Alan Brunstrom of the European Space Agency, and another by Dave Shayler of Astro Info Service. The Planetarium Shows, courtesy of “The Black Hole” mobile planetarium, got a great reception and Hazel Hiles gave a reading from her book Robbie’s Supersonic Rocket in the Children’s Library. A Space Selfies Booth, where participants could take a photo of themselves as an Astronaut or an Alien visitor, proved hugely popular, and there was a “Build a Model Spaceship” competition. Last, but hopefully not least, the author ran a series of “Solid Rocket Motor Static Firings” where rocket engineers of the future were given the opportunity to prepare, fire and record the thrust of small rocket motors. One disappointment was that the UK Space Agency chose not to participate. Other than that, it was fun and very rewarding for all concerned. Even better, the BIS stand was kept busy with applications for new members! The next West Midlands events are talks at the Gardeners Arms in Droitwich. SF Mark Perman

Prince Vultan strikes again! For more details see the BIS Website or the Facebook group page (BIS - WM) British

BRIAN BLESSED Interplanetary Society - West Midlands Branch.

Watch this space for the latest developments BIS WEBSITE NEWS in our ever-evolving online presence NOT JUST FOR ADULTS! Eleven year-old Vashaanth and his mum Sharmi contacted us early Log in to the BIS website using the in 2017 to ask if Vashaanth could put some of the articles he had Members Space button and your written on our website. We jumped at the opportunity to display the membership number. Here you will find work of such a talented young person – he’s currently planning to the Admin Bar where you can update take his maths, physics, chemistry and biology GCSEs early, and is and personalise your profile and more. studying science courses via the Open University. Vashaanth is also In the Library Database, members can passionate about astronomy/space science, and is a member of the browse the books in our London HQ Institute of Physics. We felt that having a section on the Education library. The Member Downloads holds and Outreach part of our previous editions of Odyssey, the website under Educational SpaceFlight index, and Council Minutes. Resources entitled “Cool Facts Under Recordings and Online Material about Space Science for Kids is a list of previous lectures, and Teenagers” would be great symposia, conferences, and other for other young people to use as material and footage. In the Archives Vashaanth Gowri-Kriszyk (above) and a resource – and even to section, you can now browse per (right) Voyage – our online magazine contribute to themselves. ■ category. View previous events by for children of all ages. https://tinyurl.com/yca2b8xs clicking on Past Events ■ PHOTOS: SHARMI VASHAANTH, BIS SHARMI VASHAANTH, PHOTOS:

SpaceFlight Vol 60 January 2018 47 SOCIETY NEWS

BIS LECTURES & MEETINGS

SOCIETY NEWS CHRISTMAS GET-TOGETHER 6 December 2017, 6.30–8.30pm VENUE: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ Tickets £20 including refreshments.

DALLAS CAMPBELL 17 January 2018, 7pm VENUE: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1SZ BIS member and TV personality, Dallas, will be discussing his new book Ad Astra: An Illustrated Guide to Leaving the Planet. Copies will be available to purchase which Dallas will happily sign. BRAD GIBSON: WHERE ARE THE ALIENS?!?

8 February 2018, 7pm Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden tries his hand at the Apollo CM simulator. VENUE: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1SZ BIS Prof Brad Gibson, Director of the E.A. Milne Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Hull will give a version of his TED on galactic habitability and the perils of life in the Milky Way. VIVA BIS-ITALIA! Call for Papers IN MID-NOVEMBER, AMATEUR INVENTORS from around the world converged on the MARS IN THE AGE OF NEW SPACE LAUNCHERS Italian capital for Maker Fair Rome 2017 – the international show for technology 28 February – March 2018 enthusiasts who like to get their hands dirty. More than 40,000 visitors attended the three-day event, which featured 750 projects from 40 different countries in 100,000 sq m VENUE: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ of exhibition space (one-tenth of which was devoted to children). A two-day symposium to explore the emerging possibilities for human The BIS-Italia crew was there in force to showcase the Apollo CSM Flight Control System Mars exploration and ultimately settlement, as NASA’s SLS rocket demonstrator that we brought to New Scientist Live in September, and also the Q-Cube approaches its first flight and as competing plans from private industry project, which featured two prototypes and an educational plan for schools. Events such take shape. as these present a marvellous opportunity for the BIS to bring its work to the attention of Day 1 Transportation systems needed to reach Mars. a larger audience, and to recruit new members. We look forward to supporting more of Day 2 Consequences and potential for exploitation of being able to send them in months to come. SF people to Mars. Please email proposals to: [email protected] LAST AUTUMN, THE ITALIAN BRANCH of the BIS organised two public talks at the Call for papers Faculty of Engineering of Sapienza University in Rome. RUSSIAN/SINO FORUM The first talk, held by David Iron, BIS member and founder and trustee of the Lunar 2 & 3 June 2018, 9.30am-5.00pm Mission One project, was an introduction to the technical, social and ethical issues behind LM1. David explained each aspect of the project in detail, and was ably assisted by VENUE: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1SZ Alessandro Menchinelli, who covered mission planning and the engineering of the vehicle The BIS is organising its 38th annual Russian/Sino forum; one of the The audience of 70 people also heard about recent developments in drilling technology, most popular and longest running events in the Society’s history. Papers and about the educational aspects of the project. Participation in LM1 is iopen to are invited and registration will be open in the New Year. everyone, with BIS-Italia the first point of contact in Italy. In the second talk, Francesco Castellini, ESA/ESOC Flight Dynamics engineer, gave an Call for Papers impressive presentation on the roles, challenges, and achievements of the group that SPACE SAFETY AND SAFETY FORUM manages trajectories and orientations for ESA interplanetary missions. The talk, which 5 September 2018 was supported by Telespazio Vega Deutschland, focused on navigating Rosetta, landing Philae on comet 64P, and on the orbital insertion and aerobraking of ExoMars TGO. There VENUE: tba was also a discussion on the events leading to the loss of ExoMars’ EDM/Schiaparelli. More Over the past six decades, the development of Space Rescue techniques than 100 people, mostly engineering students, participated in the discussion, and many of and technologies, together with the awareness of crew safety, has been at them affirmed their wish for closer contact with the BIS in the future. the forefront of human spaceflight. We have seen several major incidents The BIS thanks both David and Francesco for their time and effort. We look forward to involving issues of safety and rescue, where the lives of the crew have welcoming Francesco on his visit to BIS HQ in 2018. SF been placed at risk or has sadly resulted in their loss. Fabrizio Bernardini FBIS / BIS-Italia As we enter new phases of human space flight development, so emerging technologies will be developed to support crew safety and rescue scenarios encompassing operations from low Earth orbit to the Moon, at WELCOME TO OUR NEW BIS MEMBERS Mars, and eventually far beyond. We are pleased to announce 37 new members who joined the British Interplanetary Society This Forum will address the history and future potential of both in November 2017. Of this total, 29 are resident in the UK, three in Europe and five in other Rescue and Safety in spaceflight and it is hoped will become a regular countries. Previously, SpaceFlight published the names of those who signed up to international Forum hosted by the Society. membership but new laws concerning the disclosure of personal details prevents us from continuing that policy. Whether new or existing, we encourage all members to watch this If you wish to present a paper in the field of Space Safety or Rescue: space, as we will be providing additional information on the breakdown of membership Please email proposals to: [email protected] worldwide. We are also building a more comprehensive database to inform those interested in knowing more about the statistical trends of membership, and the results will be made available on these pages.

48 Vol 60 January 2018 SpaceFlight