Kaguya is blatantly TTL's version of LADEE; it's got a dust counter and a couple of spectrometers to determine dust composition. No need to have elaborate spikes, much less a bunch of cameras. (Besides, the key field gradients are right at the surface, which is too low for Kaguya to see in any case)
Kaguya is blatantly TTL's version of LADEE; it's got a dust counter and a couple of spectrometers to determine dust composition. No need to have elaborate spikes, much less a bunch of cameras. (Besides, the key field gradients are right at the surface, which is too low for Kaguya to see in any case)
As Michel noted, the Mesyat is basically a modified Ekspress GEO commsat. On the reference images I found there is quite a large gap, which I included on the Mesyat model. It could be that there were different versions of the bus throughout the project life, or various different illustrations simply had errors. Finding good, consistent reference images for Russian hardware is a lot easier from the '90s onwards than it is for the Soviet era, but it can still be a bit of a minefield!
The MLI is a combination of procedural textures (Clouds, Voronoi and Distorted Noise IIRC) mixed together. I played with the strengths and scales of each until I got something that looked about right. I first created it for the Minotaur model, and have re-used it on various models since. I normally have to tweak the scale a bit to fit each model, but it's a lot quicker than re-creating from scratch, and a lot less hassle than creating separate texture maps every time!
The gold colour I took from this tutorial. My first efforts looked like wet leather, so I decided I needed to go back to school for that one!
It's interesting how much variation there is in the illustrations. One of them looked like your Grimaldi!
Would it be plausible that the long spar connecting the solar panels to the body of the satellite could be to leave room for an additional inboard set of solar panels? Wouldn't be terribly useful to existing Mesyat/Ekspress vehicles, but may make design of other, more power-hungry variants cheaper. Would that kind of design flexibility really be worthwhile?
It's very nice and adds a lot of verisimilitude. My own attempts at MLI were just sad. I believe what I used was the packaged voronoi "crackle" bumpmap. I've been considering the cloth simulation.
Grimaldi is essentially an alt version of GRAIL, run by ESA instead of NASA. If you're curious about the precise details of the mission's operations and investigation tools, you can read up about GRAIL--it's a fun little mission.
Essentially, the problem is cost. For, say, a polar or limbic mission (near the near-side/far-side terminator), a satellite in L-2 HALO orbit is still only visible for a certain fraction of its orbit. Thus, to provide a constant relay, you need multiple satellites--as it turns out, three or four. We built the Mesyat constellation of five to provide the upper end capacity with one spare--basically, they can lose one entirely and still be okay, and lose two and be functional. However, to provide even minimal redundancy for a second constellation at L-1 would require a whole additional set of three or four birds--a dramatic increase in program cost for little return since, as you point out, point-to-point surface relay isn't as critical on the baseline Artemis flights on the nearside, given Earth's availability--cutting a second or so off the relay lag isn't worth another billion dollars that Russia can't put up itself and that NASA's not much better placed to squeeze out of Congress.
That was going to be my last word on the topic, but this morning on the plane I had a thought, which is that Mesyats are converted GEO buses. I'm trying to determine if the Ekspress bus was placed into its final circular GEO orbit by the Proton upper stage, or if it was simply deposited into an elliptical GTO it then circularized itself. If the latter, then the bus ought to have something on the order of 1500-2000 m/s of delta-v capacity onboard, and there's no reason this couldn't be retained for the Mesyat variant. Assuming such a capacity exists--I'm going to do a bit of research when I have time--then the ~140 m/s one-way transfer from L-1 to L-2 could be done several times without impinging on station-keeping margin for Mesyat. You'd still only need the one constellation, but you'd move it to whichever was better placed for the mission's needs.
It's built on some assumptions and adds a higher risk of losing birds in the transfer orbit between L-1 and L-2, so I'm not sure if it'll make it to the final plans, but we may have more options than I thought last night.
Got some info about it here, although it's specific to the Briz-M Upper Stage and therefore may not be the best place to look, considering that TTL's Vulkan LV uses a Block-R LOX/LH2 Upper Stage.
But I would believe that there's sufficient similarities to determine that TTL's Russian GEO Satellites were placed either into or close to their GEO Orbits by the Upper Stage, which would have notable implications for the EML2 Communications Relay that Russia is providing here.
Hello everyone. I hope those of you who celebrate it are having as good a Thanksgiving as I am. Unfortunately, this week's post is one of mine, and I haven't had time to give it the final polish it needed to go up today, so I think regrettably I'm going to have to delay it a week. I apologize, and I hope we'll see you all back here next week once I've slept off my turkey coma.
No update?? 
Ah well, to keep us going until next Friday's exciting installment, here's something I've been planning for a while that I never quite got round to...
(Not sure if I quite got the sequence correct, so let me know if you spot an error!)
Ah well, to keep us going until next Friday's exciting installment, here's something I've been planning for a while that I never quite got round to...
(Not sure if I quite got the sequence correct, so let me know if you spot an error!)
I see one. The Cupola is in the wrong place. It should be on the Nadir Port instead of the Zenith one. But at least the rest of it looks to be correct to me. ^_^
Actually, it is on the Nadir side. In order to show the Cupola, I inverted the station, so 'Nadir' or 'Earth-facing' is at the top. You can see this also looking at the external pallet on Kibo.
One thing I have spotted is I've shown the S1 truss being added before the US Discovery lab - they should be the other way round. I should have checked the Wiki! I think the rest is correct though, except for a question of when the external science pallets get added to the truss (presumably this happens over the course of several AARDV missions, but I've just shown them all added at IOC).
back to Lockheed Martin and Stunk Work
here video about there Fusion reactor work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAsRFVbcyUY&feature=player_embedded
here video about there Fusion reactor work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAsRFVbcyUY&feature=player_embedded
Part III, Post 13: Russian, Indian, and Chinese space activity, and operations aboard the Mir and Freedom space stations during the 1990s
Well, everyone, it's that time once again and thanks to some assistance from Workable Goblin on getting this hammered into shape over the past week, we're ready with this week's Eyes post. Last post, we looked at the international flotilla of lunar precursor probes preceding Artemis to the moon. This week, we're looking at the international operations situation back in low Earth orbit. I hope you'll find it worth the wait.
Eyes Turned Skyward, Part III: Post #13
While some of the effects of the dramatic geopolitical and space policy changes of the late 1980s and early 1990s made themselves felt immediately, many took much longer to begin to impact launch and orbital operations. With design, development, manufacturing, and processing standing between the beginning of any effort and its final realization in orbit, it simply took time for many of the major changes underway to make themselves felt. In Russia, by 1992 the exchanges and bargains made by Chelomei had finally begun to bear fruit. Indian preparations for Neva’s role in their new Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) had always been out ahead of the Russian development of the first stage/core. By 1993, Indian factories were already gearing up for production to begin as soon as Russian engineers could complete the testing of the RD-161 first-stage engine, which was currently in progress on test stands. India’s own contributions to their PSLV, their native stages based on Russian-provided hypergolic engine designs, were moving ahead apace, having multiple successful full-duration integrated stage firings under their belts. All that was needed now was a stage to lift them to altitude.
That, however, was proving to be a problem. Chelomei’s engineers, badly paid and worse supplied in the chaotic post-Soviet Russian economy, were running into enormous trouble adapting tooling and designs repeatedly adapted and evolved from the R-7 family’s 1950s genesis to the more modern Neva design, and those troubles were rolling down the line and across the Hindu Kush into the subcontinent. A giant new factory was being built at Vikram Sarabhai in Kerala, the home of India’s rocket programs, for license production of the new cores--but it would be little more than an empty shell, the design’s flux preventing the importation or construction of the necessary tooling to actually begin production. The plants supposedly for producing RD-161s were in a state of forced idleness, waiting not just for testing to finish but for core production to start. And although the upper stages were finished, they had no rocket to fly on, yet. With the core slipping definitively out of 1995 and into the hazy later parts of the decade, there was no hope to a quick resolution of these issues, either.
In the meantime, a combination of payload slots on Vulkan and Soyuz with continued launches of their native-built ASLV would have to fulfill Indian requirements and, the Russians hoped, soothe their partner’s frustrations enough to prevent them from executing their backup plan--a new solid-fuel core which could replace Neva as a first stage. The design, which had been floating around Indian design bureaus since before Neva had been approved, would have enough thrust and fuel capacity to meet the basic PSLV capacity requirements without the unreliability of their Russian counterparts, a growing concern to Indian program managers. However, given the cost of developing an entirely native core with no Russian input, and the necessarily long time it would take to perfect such a stage, going to an all-Indian design was unpalatable; at best, the PSLV capability they wanted would be delivered slightly later than the most recent Neva schedules planned, and at a far greater cost. Additionally, Neva was being designed to fill the entire gamut of payload capabilities between Soyuz and Vulkan with its multi-core variants. While the Indian version was not intended to use these capabilities, the necessary hardware and design modifications were merely being neglected, not removed, meaning that it would be relatively inexpensive to evolve the PSLV to higher payload capacities if desired at some future time. With Russian assurance of launches to fill the capability gap in the meantime at minimal cost, the Indians were content enough to retain only the threat of withdrawing from the project, meanwhile waiting and seeing if it would pan out.
About the only thing on schedule in the Indian-Russian partnership was the launch of the first Indian cosmonaut to the Mir space station. Along with the two Russian pilots of the TKS capsule, Anil Korrapati flew to Mir in November 1992, where they joined up with the existing 3-man crew that had been on the station since that April, the first Indian to fly into space since they had sent an astronaut to Salyut 7 in 1984. The revived six-person crew was finally enough to return Mir from the near-mothball status that was all a three-man crew could keep the station in even with the best of wills. Korrapati was put to work as the cosmonauts worked on deferred maintenance to life support and computer systems, conducted an EVA to take care of a fault that had developed in the station’s solar power systems, and re-activated lab equipment to bring the station back into a going concern. Anil would be followed by several other Indian cosmonauts, with 1993 seeing two more fly as Indian money secured the ability of the station to operate with something approaching a full crew, and to operate at a level that would enable actual scientific return.
Back home in India, the launches played well in news and the returning pilots were honored on their return, but the Indian contribution to the station was transient--for the Indian program, their proposal for sending crew to Mir had always been intended as a buy in to bigger things focused on their more practical satellite communication and reconnaissance needs. With Neva production secured and development begun, its purpose was served. It would be heavily preferred that any future Indian astronauts fly on Indian craft--and the multicore nature of the Neva core they were buying from Russia meant they could have the capability to do so. However, India wasn’t the only Russian partner making use of Russian developments for their own good, and there was another partner that Chelomei had arranged that was interested in a much more permanent contribution to Mir: China.
China had begun its association with the Russian space program in a much more advanced position than the Indians--while India’s largest launcher was the ASLV, with a payload of just under half a ton, the Chinese had their ICBM-derived Long March 2 rocket family, with a base payload of over 3.8 tons and (with boosters) a launch capacity of up to 9.5 tons. Similarly, their own Lóngxīng system had already been under development for several years, with detailed design and prototype development underway even before they signed on Russian assistance. Thus, unlike India, China’s program didn’t need help bootstrapping its spaceflight program into existence, but instead aimed simply to tap Russia’s long-earned knowledge and seize whatever advantages China could--including a place to launch to. The fourth Mir DOS lab, originally the Earth observation lab module Zemlya, was returned to its production cradles in 1992 for a refitting to meet Chinese intentions. In many ways, what the Chinese wanted was for the DOS module to be fitted out for its own independent operations: solar panels added to supplement Mir’s main power supply, crew quarters (the first on Mir, as most Russian crew used sleep stations aboard the FGB of their TKS transports), cargo stowage, and limited lab facilities. Contrary to the more co-operative nature of arrangements aboard Freedom, the Chinese essentially planned to operate the module, renamed by its new owners as Tiangong (meaning “heavenly palace”), as a separate space station, which simply happened to be connected and operated in direct contact with another nation’s station in which China would have an operating role.
The Chinese were similarly picky about Russian assistance with their Long March and Lóngxīng vehicles. The Chinese had been experiencing difficulties with their Long March guidance software, as well as more general production headaches, and they wanted their new Russian “allies” to help troubleshoot the issues and assist in resolving them. Similarly, Russian input was sought on the final design of Lóngxīng as the vehicles intended for flight moved towards the pad. By 1994, the insight offered by these “consultations” had begun to bear fruit--the Long March 2F that was to carry Chinese crews to space aboard Lóngxīng was in final testing for its maiden launches, and Lóngxīng itself was preparing for ground testing ahead of its first unmanned test missions. At the same time the termination of the Indian portion of the Mir international operations allowed the first Chinese cosmonaut to be assigned a flight slot to Mir in July 1994, there to begin working on procedures involved with space station operations and prepare for the arrival of the new module at the station in early 1995.
Meanwhile aboard Mir’s sister, the American Space Station Freedom, station completion had put scientific operations into full swing. Supplied by American Aardvarks and European Minotaurs, the station’s labs and personnel were busily generating new information about the physical, chemical, and biological effects of microgravity and spaceflight. Perhaps the single largest experiment campaign on the station was the series using the Centrifugal Gravity Lab to test the effects of simulated partial gravity on plants and animals--interesting both for the implications for understanding the human body, but also key data for long-duration beyond-Earth spaceflight or habitation. This made the CGL a particularly popular project among the membership of O’Neill’s Lunar Society and Zubrin’s On To Mars, for whom the question of potential for long-term or indeed permanent inhabitation of low gravity worlds was of critical importance. Over the two years since its launch, the lab’s rotor had been hard at work, spinning cargos of rats and small planters at a variety of gravity levels between near-microgravity and roughly 0.45 Gs (any higher required excessively high spin rates even given the 5.5m rotor diameter).
The results after two years were both roughly as expected and pleasant--even minimal gravity levels (as low as 0.1 G) were sufficient to be “noticeable” and appeared to eliminate symptoms of space sickness in the test subjects, but higher levels were necessary to achieve noticeable reductions in long-term detrimental effects of microgravity like bone density losses and muscular degeneration. Of the two, muscular degeneration was the easiest to fight--even lunar gravity was enough to yield substantial reductions (though not enough to totally eliminate reacclimation after lengthy tours of duty), and while Martian gravity was insufficient to eliminate the problem entirely, it came close enough that with some additional exercise, rats returned from space aboard Europe’s Minotaur capsule after spending eight months aboard station showed little difficulty in adapting. However, the problem of bone density losses was more challenging--lunar gravity was only enough to attenuate the decreases by about a quarter, while Martian gravity was enough to drop it only by half. While this was enough that a human could easily adapt to permanent life on the Moon or Mars (gravity decreases more than compensating for the potential drops in bone strength), it wasn’t an entirely satisfactory answer for advocates of commercial exploitation of space, who were skeptical whether workers would sign on to jobs that might prevent them from returning to Earth. With basic effects qualified, the CGL’s experiments moved on into other areas of research focusing on acceptable spin rates and adaptation periods to varying levels of microgravity, key criteria for the design of future space habitats that might use a human-scale centrifuge to generate artificial gravity, as seen in science fiction like the Odyssey film series.
However, unlike their Russian counterparts on Mir, where limited man hours meant that their days were filled, even overloaded with tasks related to station operations, Freedom’s 10-person crew was also taking precautions against the warning that all work and no play makes a dull routine. Instead, the crew was able to make use of their off hours for a variety of recreation and hobbies. As with Canadian astronaut Doug MacKay, Earth-watching or photography was a popular hobby, with most of the station’s crew indulging in the pursuit at one time or another. For those who found the rather oceanic view offered by the station less than compelling, the station had begun to accumulate a library of books brought up as part of the personal effects allowed in an Apollo’s expendable cargo but not always returned to Earth. The station was also equipped to receive transmissions of television and movies from Earth, with sporting events, including the 1992 Olympics, proving consistent hits with the crew. At the personal request of Star Trek fan (and New Voyages guest star) Peggy Barnes, who was onboard Freedom at the time in what would be her final mission before retirement, the second Star Trek movie received a special airing in space shortly after it hit theaters in 1994, prompting a certain level of ribbing from her crewmates for the rest of her stay. However, the crew didn’t just consume media--some members of the astronaut corps had always been musicians, and Freedom continued a tradition started aboard Spacelab of keeping a variety of musical instruments (including guitar, synth keyboard, and more) aboard for crew use. Given the larger size of the Freedom crew, there were occasionally several musicians onboard at once, but in 1994 an alignment of crew schedules resulted in no fewer than three astronauts on orbit with musical hobbies. Lead by Expedition 23 commander Maxwell Quick on the synthesizer keyboard, Gerald Mitchell (Expedition 22 commander) on synthesizer, and flight scientist Beverly McDowell on saxaphone, the so-called “LEO Trio” practiced regularly throughout their time on-station.
The LEO Trio wasn’t the only international collaboration coming to fruit in 1994. In addition to the flight of their first cosmonaut to Mir, the Chinese also successfully launched the first unmanned test of Lóngxīng, which made several orbits after launch aboard a Long March rocket before reentering and landing on the empty steppes of Inner Mongolia. Despite several in-flight computer glitches, the flight was generally considered a success and a solid foundation for future Chinese spaceflights even as they accumulated experience aboard Mir. However, things were going less well for their Tiangong DOS lab headed for Mir, with delays in equipment design, refit dilemmas, and quality control problems forcing a launch slip from early 1995 to late 1995. Within China there were parties who, comparing to promises made to the Indians on Neva (which had itself slipped another year, to an introduction no earlier than 1997), were wondering if it might take longer still, and, like their Indian counterparts, beginning to mull backup options if the Russians could no longer deliver. However, threats to pull funding from Mir--a critical element of the ramshackle financial backing for the Russian space agency--were enough to devote a surge of effort to Tiangong that would hopefully keep it to the new launch date.
1994 marked not only the launch of the first Chinese cosmonaut, but a more general resurgence in international space operations, beyond the old Cold War-era flights involving astronauts from only one or the other of the ‘blocs’. For the first time since the ASTP II mission in 1978, Russian cosmonauts would fly to an American space station, while for the first time in history Americans would travel to a Russian station. In addition to promoting international unity and allowing both sides to examine each other’s technologies and practices, this exchange would also establish joint operations protocols for Russian cosmonauts if, as had been proposed in exchange for Russian communications support and high-performance Russian hypergolic engines for the lander, they joined Europeans and Japanese in accompanying Americans to the moon aboard Artemis missions. The exchange began with the Freedom 24 expedition of October, in which Andrei Orlov flew fifth-seat to the American station where he would spend a full six months as a member of the 10-man station crew, operating experiments and conducting repairs at the direction of American station crew and ground control in Houston. This was a change from the shorter joint operations in ASTP II, in which the Russians aboard the Soyuz that had docked to Spacelab had operated more independently under Moscow’s control. Similarly, in November, veteran American astronaut Ryan Little, who had been part of Freedom Expedition 2, flew aboard a TKS to Mir as part of the third TKS to join the station as the financial picture finally allowed Russia to return to a 9-person total crew (though only six Russians were on station, the other slots being filled by Ryan and two Chinese cosmonauts).
The exchanges were generally a success, with the crew members integrating relatively well into their respective station operations. Aboard Freedom, Andrei made friends with the two remaining members of the LEO Trio (Mitchell having departed with the return of Expedition 22 to Earth). As it turned out, he was himself a guitar player, and for the first half of his time on station he joined the other two members in a much-publicized collaboration--including a performance at the station’s traditional Thanksgiving meal (a carryover from Spacelab, and a holiday celebration with precursors as early as the Christmas flight of Apollo 8). Aboard the Russian station, Little was encountering more culture shock, being exposed not only to Russian station operations but Mir’s new Chinese contingent. The Chinese government made a large propaganda push based on the “invitation” of China to this exchange in light of their status as a “rising space power,” as shown by Lóngxīng’s first launch, the upcoming Tiangong, and the inevitable future of native Chinese manned stations and exploration missions. However, at least for the moment, the fact was that China’s status was still very much a second-tier space power, behind ESA and much more “present anyway” then “invited” to the meeting of what had at their last meeting been the only two superpowers in spaceflight.
While events reflecting policy changes of the turn of the decade were reaching their ends, they were not alone--at long last, one of the last policy changes of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s was coming to fruition. The McDonnell-Douglas Delta 4000 had been the less newsworthy of the ELVRP rockets, as its big brother Saturn Multibody and its Soviet cousin the Vulkan had taken up column inches in the press in the course of Vulkan Panic just as Delta was entering service. While Delta had succeeded in standardizing most of US national security launches onto a single launch vehicle, these launches were by their very nature quite discreet in their purposes. Moreover, the commercial ancillary market that Delta had been quietly aiming at had been quite unexpectedly captured by Lockheed’s aggressively managed and marketed Titan program as satellite busses grew from two tons to more commonly four or even six tons. Worse, to even reach its two ton maximum geosynchronous transfer orbit payload, a Delta 4000 required no fewer than twelve Castor IV solid rocket boosters--requiring in turn extended pad dwell to prepare the rocket and increasing the likelihood of launch failure to uncomfortable levels.
However, McDonnell had been pursuing an intermediate solution to both of these problems. In order to deal with the payload, McDonnell proposed to replace the existing Centaur-D upper stage of Delta 4000 with the higher-capacity Centaur-E, re-engined with the latest RL-10 variants to give improved fuel efficiency. Additionally, McDonnell proposed to draw upon the latest in solid booster development, replacing Thiokol’s Castor IVs with the same company’s new “Carbon-Composite Motors,” a new design that by combining advanced, lightweight, and strong graphite epoxy cases with new propellants and a larger case diameter and loaded motor weight would reduce the numbers of motors required to achieve maximum payload from twelve to just six, while at the same time boosting that maximum payload to over the commercially-desirable four tons to GTO. Funded by the DoD among the various SDI preparations and intended as an “Intermediate Improvement Program” to better the existing expendable launch vehicles while they worked on the prototype X-30 and X-40 reusable LV demonstrators, Delta IIP had by 1993 not only outlived both programs, but also reached the pad for its first launch. With the company’s main aircraft market under threat from Lockheed and Boeing wide-body aircraft, the Delta 5000 was McDonnell’s belated but best attempt to find some entry to the rapidly growing and lucrative commercial satellite market, projected to remain strong at least for at least another decade. Throughout 1994, as McDonnell’s marketing teams worked to sell commercial launches, the new Delta variant was beginning to build a solid flight history launching Department of Defense polar payloads out of Vandeberg alongside its Multibody M02 and M22 cousins.
The introduction of the Delta 5000 was perfectly emblematic of space operations during the Quiet Years. While great events had been and were being set into motion, their effects were slow in coming to public attention, and for the moment the attention of politicians and citizens was largely focused elsewhere, towards more terrestrial hopes of peace and prosperity unshackled by the spectre of nuclear war. Only in the United States, where this growing optimism was reflected in renewed interest in science fiction and enthusiasm over the Artemis program was space an important part of the national conversation, and even there it was overshadowed by the rapid growth of personal computing and the “Internet”. The peace and quiet that was enabling these views, however, was about to be decisively shattered over the lonely Pacific Ocean...
Eyes Turned Skyward, Part III: Post #13
While some of the effects of the dramatic geopolitical and space policy changes of the late 1980s and early 1990s made themselves felt immediately, many took much longer to begin to impact launch and orbital operations. With design, development, manufacturing, and processing standing between the beginning of any effort and its final realization in orbit, it simply took time for many of the major changes underway to make themselves felt. In Russia, by 1992 the exchanges and bargains made by Chelomei had finally begun to bear fruit. Indian preparations for Neva’s role in their new Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) had always been out ahead of the Russian development of the first stage/core. By 1993, Indian factories were already gearing up for production to begin as soon as Russian engineers could complete the testing of the RD-161 first-stage engine, which was currently in progress on test stands. India’s own contributions to their PSLV, their native stages based on Russian-provided hypergolic engine designs, were moving ahead apace, having multiple successful full-duration integrated stage firings under their belts. All that was needed now was a stage to lift them to altitude.
That, however, was proving to be a problem. Chelomei’s engineers, badly paid and worse supplied in the chaotic post-Soviet Russian economy, were running into enormous trouble adapting tooling and designs repeatedly adapted and evolved from the R-7 family’s 1950s genesis to the more modern Neva design, and those troubles were rolling down the line and across the Hindu Kush into the subcontinent. A giant new factory was being built at Vikram Sarabhai in Kerala, the home of India’s rocket programs, for license production of the new cores--but it would be little more than an empty shell, the design’s flux preventing the importation or construction of the necessary tooling to actually begin production. The plants supposedly for producing RD-161s were in a state of forced idleness, waiting not just for testing to finish but for core production to start. And although the upper stages were finished, they had no rocket to fly on, yet. With the core slipping definitively out of 1995 and into the hazy later parts of the decade, there was no hope to a quick resolution of these issues, either.
In the meantime, a combination of payload slots on Vulkan and Soyuz with continued launches of their native-built ASLV would have to fulfill Indian requirements and, the Russians hoped, soothe their partner’s frustrations enough to prevent them from executing their backup plan--a new solid-fuel core which could replace Neva as a first stage. The design, which had been floating around Indian design bureaus since before Neva had been approved, would have enough thrust and fuel capacity to meet the basic PSLV capacity requirements without the unreliability of their Russian counterparts, a growing concern to Indian program managers. However, given the cost of developing an entirely native core with no Russian input, and the necessarily long time it would take to perfect such a stage, going to an all-Indian design was unpalatable; at best, the PSLV capability they wanted would be delivered slightly later than the most recent Neva schedules planned, and at a far greater cost. Additionally, Neva was being designed to fill the entire gamut of payload capabilities between Soyuz and Vulkan with its multi-core variants. While the Indian version was not intended to use these capabilities, the necessary hardware and design modifications were merely being neglected, not removed, meaning that it would be relatively inexpensive to evolve the PSLV to higher payload capacities if desired at some future time. With Russian assurance of launches to fill the capability gap in the meantime at minimal cost, the Indians were content enough to retain only the threat of withdrawing from the project, meanwhile waiting and seeing if it would pan out.
About the only thing on schedule in the Indian-Russian partnership was the launch of the first Indian cosmonaut to the Mir space station. Along with the two Russian pilots of the TKS capsule, Anil Korrapati flew to Mir in November 1992, where they joined up with the existing 3-man crew that had been on the station since that April, the first Indian to fly into space since they had sent an astronaut to Salyut 7 in 1984. The revived six-person crew was finally enough to return Mir from the near-mothball status that was all a three-man crew could keep the station in even with the best of wills. Korrapati was put to work as the cosmonauts worked on deferred maintenance to life support and computer systems, conducted an EVA to take care of a fault that had developed in the station’s solar power systems, and re-activated lab equipment to bring the station back into a going concern. Anil would be followed by several other Indian cosmonauts, with 1993 seeing two more fly as Indian money secured the ability of the station to operate with something approaching a full crew, and to operate at a level that would enable actual scientific return.
Back home in India, the launches played well in news and the returning pilots were honored on their return, but the Indian contribution to the station was transient--for the Indian program, their proposal for sending crew to Mir had always been intended as a buy in to bigger things focused on their more practical satellite communication and reconnaissance needs. With Neva production secured and development begun, its purpose was served. It would be heavily preferred that any future Indian astronauts fly on Indian craft--and the multicore nature of the Neva core they were buying from Russia meant they could have the capability to do so. However, India wasn’t the only Russian partner making use of Russian developments for their own good, and there was another partner that Chelomei had arranged that was interested in a much more permanent contribution to Mir: China.
China had begun its association with the Russian space program in a much more advanced position than the Indians--while India’s largest launcher was the ASLV, with a payload of just under half a ton, the Chinese had their ICBM-derived Long March 2 rocket family, with a base payload of over 3.8 tons and (with boosters) a launch capacity of up to 9.5 tons. Similarly, their own Lóngxīng system had already been under development for several years, with detailed design and prototype development underway even before they signed on Russian assistance. Thus, unlike India, China’s program didn’t need help bootstrapping its spaceflight program into existence, but instead aimed simply to tap Russia’s long-earned knowledge and seize whatever advantages China could--including a place to launch to. The fourth Mir DOS lab, originally the Earth observation lab module Zemlya, was returned to its production cradles in 1992 for a refitting to meet Chinese intentions. In many ways, what the Chinese wanted was for the DOS module to be fitted out for its own independent operations: solar panels added to supplement Mir’s main power supply, crew quarters (the first on Mir, as most Russian crew used sleep stations aboard the FGB of their TKS transports), cargo stowage, and limited lab facilities. Contrary to the more co-operative nature of arrangements aboard Freedom, the Chinese essentially planned to operate the module, renamed by its new owners as Tiangong (meaning “heavenly palace”), as a separate space station, which simply happened to be connected and operated in direct contact with another nation’s station in which China would have an operating role.
The Chinese were similarly picky about Russian assistance with their Long March and Lóngxīng vehicles. The Chinese had been experiencing difficulties with their Long March guidance software, as well as more general production headaches, and they wanted their new Russian “allies” to help troubleshoot the issues and assist in resolving them. Similarly, Russian input was sought on the final design of Lóngxīng as the vehicles intended for flight moved towards the pad. By 1994, the insight offered by these “consultations” had begun to bear fruit--the Long March 2F that was to carry Chinese crews to space aboard Lóngxīng was in final testing for its maiden launches, and Lóngxīng itself was preparing for ground testing ahead of its first unmanned test missions. At the same time the termination of the Indian portion of the Mir international operations allowed the first Chinese cosmonaut to be assigned a flight slot to Mir in July 1994, there to begin working on procedures involved with space station operations and prepare for the arrival of the new module at the station in early 1995.
Meanwhile aboard Mir’s sister, the American Space Station Freedom, station completion had put scientific operations into full swing. Supplied by American Aardvarks and European Minotaurs, the station’s labs and personnel were busily generating new information about the physical, chemical, and biological effects of microgravity and spaceflight. Perhaps the single largest experiment campaign on the station was the series using the Centrifugal Gravity Lab to test the effects of simulated partial gravity on plants and animals--interesting both for the implications for understanding the human body, but also key data for long-duration beyond-Earth spaceflight or habitation. This made the CGL a particularly popular project among the membership of O’Neill’s Lunar Society and Zubrin’s On To Mars, for whom the question of potential for long-term or indeed permanent inhabitation of low gravity worlds was of critical importance. Over the two years since its launch, the lab’s rotor had been hard at work, spinning cargos of rats and small planters at a variety of gravity levels between near-microgravity and roughly 0.45 Gs (any higher required excessively high spin rates even given the 5.5m rotor diameter).
The results after two years were both roughly as expected and pleasant--even minimal gravity levels (as low as 0.1 G) were sufficient to be “noticeable” and appeared to eliminate symptoms of space sickness in the test subjects, but higher levels were necessary to achieve noticeable reductions in long-term detrimental effects of microgravity like bone density losses and muscular degeneration. Of the two, muscular degeneration was the easiest to fight--even lunar gravity was enough to yield substantial reductions (though not enough to totally eliminate reacclimation after lengthy tours of duty), and while Martian gravity was insufficient to eliminate the problem entirely, it came close enough that with some additional exercise, rats returned from space aboard Europe’s Minotaur capsule after spending eight months aboard station showed little difficulty in adapting. However, the problem of bone density losses was more challenging--lunar gravity was only enough to attenuate the decreases by about a quarter, while Martian gravity was enough to drop it only by half. While this was enough that a human could easily adapt to permanent life on the Moon or Mars (gravity decreases more than compensating for the potential drops in bone strength), it wasn’t an entirely satisfactory answer for advocates of commercial exploitation of space, who were skeptical whether workers would sign on to jobs that might prevent them from returning to Earth. With basic effects qualified, the CGL’s experiments moved on into other areas of research focusing on acceptable spin rates and adaptation periods to varying levels of microgravity, key criteria for the design of future space habitats that might use a human-scale centrifuge to generate artificial gravity, as seen in science fiction like the Odyssey film series.
However, unlike their Russian counterparts on Mir, where limited man hours meant that their days were filled, even overloaded with tasks related to station operations, Freedom’s 10-person crew was also taking precautions against the warning that all work and no play makes a dull routine. Instead, the crew was able to make use of their off hours for a variety of recreation and hobbies. As with Canadian astronaut Doug MacKay, Earth-watching or photography was a popular hobby, with most of the station’s crew indulging in the pursuit at one time or another. For those who found the rather oceanic view offered by the station less than compelling, the station had begun to accumulate a library of books brought up as part of the personal effects allowed in an Apollo’s expendable cargo but not always returned to Earth. The station was also equipped to receive transmissions of television and movies from Earth, with sporting events, including the 1992 Olympics, proving consistent hits with the crew. At the personal request of Star Trek fan (and New Voyages guest star) Peggy Barnes, who was onboard Freedom at the time in what would be her final mission before retirement, the second Star Trek movie received a special airing in space shortly after it hit theaters in 1994, prompting a certain level of ribbing from her crewmates for the rest of her stay. However, the crew didn’t just consume media--some members of the astronaut corps had always been musicians, and Freedom continued a tradition started aboard Spacelab of keeping a variety of musical instruments (including guitar, synth keyboard, and more) aboard for crew use. Given the larger size of the Freedom crew, there were occasionally several musicians onboard at once, but in 1994 an alignment of crew schedules resulted in no fewer than three astronauts on orbit with musical hobbies. Lead by Expedition 23 commander Maxwell Quick on the synthesizer keyboard, Gerald Mitchell (Expedition 22 commander) on synthesizer, and flight scientist Beverly McDowell on saxaphone, the so-called “LEO Trio” practiced regularly throughout their time on-station.
The LEO Trio wasn’t the only international collaboration coming to fruit in 1994. In addition to the flight of their first cosmonaut to Mir, the Chinese also successfully launched the first unmanned test of Lóngxīng, which made several orbits after launch aboard a Long March rocket before reentering and landing on the empty steppes of Inner Mongolia. Despite several in-flight computer glitches, the flight was generally considered a success and a solid foundation for future Chinese spaceflights even as they accumulated experience aboard Mir. However, things were going less well for their Tiangong DOS lab headed for Mir, with delays in equipment design, refit dilemmas, and quality control problems forcing a launch slip from early 1995 to late 1995. Within China there were parties who, comparing to promises made to the Indians on Neva (which had itself slipped another year, to an introduction no earlier than 1997), were wondering if it might take longer still, and, like their Indian counterparts, beginning to mull backup options if the Russians could no longer deliver. However, threats to pull funding from Mir--a critical element of the ramshackle financial backing for the Russian space agency--were enough to devote a surge of effort to Tiangong that would hopefully keep it to the new launch date.
1994 marked not only the launch of the first Chinese cosmonaut, but a more general resurgence in international space operations, beyond the old Cold War-era flights involving astronauts from only one or the other of the ‘blocs’. For the first time since the ASTP II mission in 1978, Russian cosmonauts would fly to an American space station, while for the first time in history Americans would travel to a Russian station. In addition to promoting international unity and allowing both sides to examine each other’s technologies and practices, this exchange would also establish joint operations protocols for Russian cosmonauts if, as had been proposed in exchange for Russian communications support and high-performance Russian hypergolic engines for the lander, they joined Europeans and Japanese in accompanying Americans to the moon aboard Artemis missions. The exchange began with the Freedom 24 expedition of October, in which Andrei Orlov flew fifth-seat to the American station where he would spend a full six months as a member of the 10-man station crew, operating experiments and conducting repairs at the direction of American station crew and ground control in Houston. This was a change from the shorter joint operations in ASTP II, in which the Russians aboard the Soyuz that had docked to Spacelab had operated more independently under Moscow’s control. Similarly, in November, veteran American astronaut Ryan Little, who had been part of Freedom Expedition 2, flew aboard a TKS to Mir as part of the third TKS to join the station as the financial picture finally allowed Russia to return to a 9-person total crew (though only six Russians were on station, the other slots being filled by Ryan and two Chinese cosmonauts).
The exchanges were generally a success, with the crew members integrating relatively well into their respective station operations. Aboard Freedom, Andrei made friends with the two remaining members of the LEO Trio (Mitchell having departed with the return of Expedition 22 to Earth). As it turned out, he was himself a guitar player, and for the first half of his time on station he joined the other two members in a much-publicized collaboration--including a performance at the station’s traditional Thanksgiving meal (a carryover from Spacelab, and a holiday celebration with precursors as early as the Christmas flight of Apollo 8). Aboard the Russian station, Little was encountering more culture shock, being exposed not only to Russian station operations but Mir’s new Chinese contingent. The Chinese government made a large propaganda push based on the “invitation” of China to this exchange in light of their status as a “rising space power,” as shown by Lóngxīng’s first launch, the upcoming Tiangong, and the inevitable future of native Chinese manned stations and exploration missions. However, at least for the moment, the fact was that China’s status was still very much a second-tier space power, behind ESA and much more “present anyway” then “invited” to the meeting of what had at their last meeting been the only two superpowers in spaceflight.
While events reflecting policy changes of the turn of the decade were reaching their ends, they were not alone--at long last, one of the last policy changes of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s was coming to fruition. The McDonnell-Douglas Delta 4000 had been the less newsworthy of the ELVRP rockets, as its big brother Saturn Multibody and its Soviet cousin the Vulkan had taken up column inches in the press in the course of Vulkan Panic just as Delta was entering service. While Delta had succeeded in standardizing most of US national security launches onto a single launch vehicle, these launches were by their very nature quite discreet in their purposes. Moreover, the commercial ancillary market that Delta had been quietly aiming at had been quite unexpectedly captured by Lockheed’s aggressively managed and marketed Titan program as satellite busses grew from two tons to more commonly four or even six tons. Worse, to even reach its two ton maximum geosynchronous transfer orbit payload, a Delta 4000 required no fewer than twelve Castor IV solid rocket boosters--requiring in turn extended pad dwell to prepare the rocket and increasing the likelihood of launch failure to uncomfortable levels.
However, McDonnell had been pursuing an intermediate solution to both of these problems. In order to deal with the payload, McDonnell proposed to replace the existing Centaur-D upper stage of Delta 4000 with the higher-capacity Centaur-E, re-engined with the latest RL-10 variants to give improved fuel efficiency. Additionally, McDonnell proposed to draw upon the latest in solid booster development, replacing Thiokol’s Castor IVs with the same company’s new “Carbon-Composite Motors,” a new design that by combining advanced, lightweight, and strong graphite epoxy cases with new propellants and a larger case diameter and loaded motor weight would reduce the numbers of motors required to achieve maximum payload from twelve to just six, while at the same time boosting that maximum payload to over the commercially-desirable four tons to GTO. Funded by the DoD among the various SDI preparations and intended as an “Intermediate Improvement Program” to better the existing expendable launch vehicles while they worked on the prototype X-30 and X-40 reusable LV demonstrators, Delta IIP had by 1993 not only outlived both programs, but also reached the pad for its first launch. With the company’s main aircraft market under threat from Lockheed and Boeing wide-body aircraft, the Delta 5000 was McDonnell’s belated but best attempt to find some entry to the rapidly growing and lucrative commercial satellite market, projected to remain strong at least for at least another decade. Throughout 1994, as McDonnell’s marketing teams worked to sell commercial launches, the new Delta variant was beginning to build a solid flight history launching Department of Defense polar payloads out of Vandeberg alongside its Multibody M02 and M22 cousins.
The introduction of the Delta 5000 was perfectly emblematic of space operations during the Quiet Years. While great events had been and were being set into motion, their effects were slow in coming to public attention, and for the moment the attention of politicians and citizens was largely focused elsewhere, towards more terrestrial hopes of peace and prosperity unshackled by the spectre of nuclear war. Only in the United States, where this growing optimism was reflected in renewed interest in science fiction and enthusiasm over the Artemis program was space an important part of the national conversation, and even there it was overshadowed by the rapid growth of personal computing and the “Internet”. The peace and quiet that was enabling these views, however, was about to be decisively shattered over the lonely Pacific Ocean...
oh, oh, there is disaster coming in part 14 ?!
question on Lóngxīng, it's based on Soyuz, TKS or Gemini/MOL ?
question on Lóngxīng, it's based on Soyuz, TKS or Gemini/MOL ?
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So a very different manner of International Co-Operation here relative to OTL? Not surprising when you take into account the many differences that have emerged here. Chiefly, thanks to SpaceLab and now Freedom, NASA Astronauts already have plenty of Station experience and therefore don't need Mir to gain any.
With the traditional delays (and I assume cost overruns) slowing down Neva and the Chinese re-fitted DOS, it really looks like there's issues for them, with only the fact that restarting will cost more keeping things going for them. Russia best hope things pick up soon enough or they're really going to be facing issues in the next few years - oh wait......1998 Asian Stock Markets......
But China's gearing up to be only the Third Nation to ever achieve Independent Cosmonaut Launch and Return Capability (I'll assume Taikonaut applies ITTL as well), and is already meeting some of the critical intermediate steps needed for it. That'll be worth its own Post IMHO.
I wonder if that's what's going to be shattering the Peace as you teased us all with that last sentence.
With the traditional delays (and I assume cost overruns) slowing down Neva and the Chinese re-fitted DOS, it really looks like there's issues for them, with only the fact that restarting will cost more keeping things going for them. Russia best hope things pick up soon enough or they're really going to be facing issues in the next few years - oh wait......1998 Asian Stock Markets......
But China's gearing up to be only the Third Nation to ever achieve Independent Cosmonaut Launch and Return Capability (I'll assume Taikonaut applies ITTL as well), and is already meeting some of the critical intermediate steps needed for it. That'll be worth its own Post IMHO.
I wonder if that's what's going to be shattering the Peace as you teased us all with that last sentence.
Great update, as always, and a very tantalising ending. As I recall, in the mid-1990s in the Pacific there were French nuclear tests, China-Taiwan tensions ran pretty high, and India and Pakistan were both gearing up for nuclear tests. Plenty of scope for mischief there, but as a liberal hippy I hope it's something a bit more positive!
The illustration update will be tomorrow as usual, but here's a quick correction of the Freedom construction GIF:
The illustration update will be tomorrow as usual, but here's a quick correction of the Freedom construction GIF:
Hi everyone! This week's illustrations focus on two main areas, the ongoing operations on Freedom and the rise of China's space ambitions. So first up, a look inside that important (and sadly missing IOTL) module, the Centrifuge Gravity Lab.
