Citing fatigue and stress for the three-man crew of the Russian space station Mir, Russian officials decided July 21 to delay repairs scheduled for the damaged space station until a relief crew arrives at the station early this month.
     The decision came four days after one of the current crew members accidentally disconnected a computer cable while preparing for upcoming repairs. The disconnected cable shut down the attitude system, forcing the crew to retreat to the safety of their Soyuz spacecraft as the station lost power.
     Russian Mir commander Vasily Tsibliev, flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin, and American astronaut Michael Foale used the thrusters on the Soyuz module to control the attitude of the station so that the solar panels could generate electricity again, providing power to other systems on the station. It took more than a day for the situation to return to conditions before the mishap.
     The incident, combined with a heart condition Tsibliev reported just a few days before, was enough for Russian mission controllers. "It was decided to hand over the repairs to the next crew," said deputy mission controller Igor Goncharov. "The repairs will be undertaken after the present crew leaves on August 14."
     Cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov are scheduled for launch on August 5, and should arrive at Mir two days later. Tsibliev and Lazutkin will leave the station on the 14th; Foale will stay on Mir until the next shuttle docking mission in late September.
     Solovyov and Vinogradov will start repairs to Mir around August 18-20. They will replace the current hatch that seals the Spektr module from the rest of the station with a new one that has connectors so that electricity generated by the three working solar panels on the module can be used throughout the station.
     Foale, who had been tapped to replace Tsibliev in the spacewalks had they taken place in July, is not scheduled to participate in the August spacewalks, but will be able to assist.
     Russian officials have also talked of conducting future spacewalks to seal the hole in the Spektr module, allowing it to be repressurized and used again. A member of the Kremlin Defense Council told Reuters of an unspecified "new and unique technology" the crew will use to repair the module.
     The decision also temporarily grounds French guest cosmonaut Leopold Eyharts. Russian and French officials decided to keep Eyharts off the August mission, where he would have spent three weeks on Mir, because of the lack of power available for conducting experiments.
     Eyharts has been rescheduled for a flight early next year.

Citing the possibility of repair spacewalks, NASA officials announced July 30 that astronaut Wendy Lawrence, who was scheduled as the next astronaut to stay on the Russian Mir space station, would be replaced by her backup, Dr. David Wolf.
     Lawrence, only 160 cm (5 feet 3 inches) tall, would not fit in the Russian Orlan spacesuit used for spacewalks. Wolf, on the other hand, fits in the spacesuit. NASA officials, in consultation with Russian colleagues, decided that having an extra crew member capable of performing spacewalks would be useful on the station, given its current condition.
     "When first selected to fly on the Mir, it was absolutely normal that she [Lawrence] would not be considered to be a spacewalk qualified crew member," said Frank Culbertson, NASA's Shuttle-Mir program manager.
     "Only because of subsequent events have requirements on board the Mir changed," Culbertson said. "As a result, the joint decision was made to have all three crew members on board qualified to handle spacewalking tasks."
     Wolf had been training for the following, and final, long-duration stay on Mir, scheduled for early next year. That position will likely be taken by Wolf's backup, Andrew Thomas.
     To give Wolf time to complete his training, the launch of STS-86, the shuttle-Mir docking mission, will be delayed approximately 10 days to late September. STS-86 had been scheduled for a September 18 launch on the shuttle Atlantis.
     Lawrence will remain on the mission, in part because of hew knowledge of the systems on Mir and crew and cargo transfer logistics. However, she will return to Earth with the rest of the shuttle crew, while Wolf takes Michael Foale's place on Mir.
     Culbertson said that Lawrence told him, "'Frank, I totally understand. If I were in your position I would do the same thing.'"
     It was the second time Lawrence's height had taken her off a Mir mission. She had been removed from an earlier Mir mission in 1995 when Russian officials decided Lawrence was too short to fit into the couches inside the Soyuz capsule, should an emergency evacuation of the station be necessary. Those height restrictions have since been eased, and Lawrence was placed on a later mission.
     While Culbertson said NASA made the decision in consultation with Russian Space Agency officials, some Russian officials were caught off guard by the announcement. "For us it was very unexpected," mission control spokesman Valery Lyndin told Reuters. "We only learned about it when our representative who was at NASA called from Washington."

Nearly one month into its mission on the Martian surface, the Mars Pathfinder lander and the Sojourner rover continue to work well, returning stunning images and data on the Martian surface and atmosphere.
     "The mission has already met or exceeded our wildest expectations," said project scientist Matthew Golombek at a July 31 press conference. He described both the rover and lander to be in "healthy" condition.
     Mission controllers at JPL were planning to give the lander two days off starting August 3 to allow the batteries time to recharge. The power level in the batteries had been dropping, and before the mission the batteries had been rated to be rechargeable for 30 days, hence the decision to recharge them at that time.
     The rover Sojouner continued to navigate across the Martian terrain near the landing site, making drives of over 5 meters (16.5 feet) autonomously, using only its own guidance system and computer to successfully navigate around a series of rocks. The rover has taken several samples of dust and rock between its traverses.
     The lander's atmospheric instruments reported little change in the weather since the landing, with highs of around -12 degrees Celsius (8 degrees Fahrenheit) and lows near -76 Celsius (-105 Fahrenheit). Scientists expect to see more dramatic changes in the next month, as fall arrives and dust storms begin around the landing site.
     The lander's camera did collect dramatic images of sunrise and sunset, including images of high clouds in the predawn hours. The clouds, which burn off shortly after sunrise, have prevented the lander from taking an image of the Earth in the night sky shortly before sunrise.
     Images taken by the lander also show a bright, shiny object on the horizon about 1.2 km (0.75 miles) from the lander. Project scientists believe the object is, far Mars, an alien artifact: part of the aeroshell which protected Pathfinder during its fall through the Martian atmosphere, separating just before Pathfinder landed.

Eugene Shoemaker, a geologist and astronomer who pioneered our understanding of asteroid impacts on Earth and throughout the solar system and later discovered hundreds of asteroids and comets, was killed July 18 in a car accident in central Australia.
     Shoemaker and his wife, Carolyn, were involved in a two-car collision on a highway 500 km (300 mi.) from Alice Springs, while exploring the region looking for evidence of impact craters in the area. Eugene was killed in the accident; Carolyn and the driver of the other vehicle were injured and hospitalized, but survived.
     Shoemaker first made a name for himself with geologic studies of Meteor Crater, in northern Arizona near Flagstaff. Shoemaker's work provided that the crater has been created by an asteroid impact, and not though volcanic activity as other scientists has long believed.
     Shoemaker later expanded his work to the Moon, studying images of that cratered world from telescopes and spacecraft to establish a chronology of events on that world. Although a medical condition kept Shoemaker from becoming an astronaut, he helped train the astronauts who would explore the surface during the Apollo landings.
     The Shoemakers' interests later turned to studying the population of near-Earth asteroids and comets which could pose a threat to the Earth. Eugene and Carolyn worked together on a number of asteroid surveys from Palomar Observatory in southern California, discovering hundreds of new objects.
     Their most famous discovery came in 1993 when the Shoemakers, working with amateur astronomer David Levy, found the comet later known as Shoemaker-Levy 9. The comet, which has broken into near two dozen pieces after passing close to Jupiter in 1992, collided with the giant planet in July 1994.
     Although Shoemaker retired from the U.S. Geological Survey in 1993, he continued to work on research as a staff member at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.
     "Gene was one of the most renowned planetary scientists in the world, and a valued member of the NASA family since the earliest days of lunar exploration," said NASA administrator Dan Goldin in a press release.
     "Although he never realized his dream of doing field geology on the surface of the Moon, all future exploration of that rocky world owes a debt to his pioneering spirit."

Preparations continue as scheduled for the August 7 launch of the shuttle Discovery on mission STS-85, a 10-day trip to deploy and retrieve a German scientific satellite and test a new robot arm.
     Launch of STS-85 is scheduled for 10:41am EDT (1441 UT) August 7. Preparations for the launch have proceeded without any serious problems reported.
     The primary purpose of the mission is to deploy, and later retrieve, the German scientific satellite CRISTA-SPAS 2. The satellite will conduct observation of trace gases and dynamics of the Earth's middle atmosphere for nine days before returning to the shuttle's cargo bay.
     The mission will also test a new small robot arm that Japan plans to use on the International Space Station. Other experiments on the shuttle will conduct atmospheric and astronomical observations.
     The six-person crew of Discovery is commanded by Curtis L. Brown, Jr., making his fourth flight. The crew includes one Canadian payload specialist, Bjarni Tryggvason.
     If the shuttle launches on time landing is scheduled for the Kennedy Space Center on the morning of August 18.

Citing high production costs, Japan's Space and Technology Agency decided in early July to scrap its planned HOPE reusable spaceplane, replacing it with a modified version of its prototype.
     The budget for NASDA, Japan's space agency, was cut by over $5 billion over the next six years by the Science and Technology Agency, including $650 million in cuts for the next year. The cuts forced NASA to drop plans for HOPE.
     HOPE would have been an unmanned reusable spacecraft launched on a Japanese H-2 rocket that was designed to ferry supplies and equipment to and from the Japanese module on the International Space Station, as well as conduct its own operations. It would glide to a landing on Earth for reuse.
     NASDA's new plan calls for refitting HOPE's prototype, HOPE-X, after a test flight in 2001. NASA will refit HOPE-X with a cargo bay, improved thermal protection system, and guidance system to allow it to carry out some of the tasks HOPE was planned to do.
     NASA believed it can get up to seven flights out of the refitted HOPE-X vehicle, for a cost of about $1 billion for the prototype and $300-400 million for the refits. The full-fledged HOPE would have cost over $4.5 billion to develop, according to NASDA officials.
     NASDA will consider a new reusable rocket plane for use starting around 2010, but development for that is not expected to begin before 2003.
     Budget cuts will also hit two planned satellites under development. One a communications satellite, will continue as planned but with different testing scheduled, while a remote sensing satellite will save money by reusing components like the ones planned for another satellite.
     A joint moon probe with ISAS, the Japanese agency that conducts scientific space missions, will also be radically altered by the cuts.

Efforts by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) to amend a NASA appropriations bill in the House of Representatives failed when events moved faster than expected and the congressman was unable to get to the House floor in time to offer his amendments.
     Rohrabacher had offered amendments to redirect $100 million intended to go to Russia for space station work to NASA's "Future-X" project to start building a new experimental reusable launch vehicle. Rohrabacher also planned amendments to protect space science finding from diversion to the space station and to call for up to $50 in Earth remote sensing data be procured by data purchase.
     However, in what Rohrabacher later called a "snafu", discussion of the appropriations bill moved faster than planned, coming up for debate two hours earlier than planned. People ahead of Rohrabacher were not on the floor in time and lost their slots to discuss amendments, thus moving Rohrabacher even farther ahead of schedule.
     Rohrabacher said he arrived on the House floor "one minute late" to introduce his amendment. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), chair of the House Science Committee, tried to offer it in Rohrabacher's absence but was blocked by a procedural motion.
     Rohrabacher later told SpaceViews that it was unlikely his amendments would make it into legislation later this year. They cannot be introduced into a House-Senate conference committee unless the amendment exists in the House or Senate version, and it is unlikely the Senate would consider such an amendment, Rohrabacher said.
     "Next time around we'll be ready," he said.

Two companies developing new reusable launch vehicles introduced new designs for their vehicles at July 21 press conferences held in conjunction with a space access symposium.
     Rotary Rocket Company (formerly HMX, Inc.) unveiled their new design for their Roton single-stage-to-orbit vehicle. The new design features an aerospike engine to propel the spacecraft into orbit and to start the reentry process. A rotor deploys to guide the vehicle to a vertical landing without using additional fuel.
     The company also announced that it raised $6 million, enough for "technology validation" work through the rest of this year. Investors in Rotary Rocket include author Tom Clancy, who joined the company's board of directors though a "substantial" donation to the company, estimated by outside expert at around $1 million.
     The Roton will have the capacity to carry up to 3 tons into low Earth orbit. Rotary Rocket plans tests of the Roton in 1999 with commercial launches planned to start in early 2000.
     One of Rotary Rocket's competitors, Pioneer Rocketplane, announced its own changes in its design at a press conference later that day. The new design moves the twin jet engines that propel the Pathfinder spacecraft in the atmosphere from the side of the fuselage to the top.
     According to Pioneer Rocketplane vice president Charles Lauer, the move makes the design simpler and less complicated, without impacting the performance of the vehicle.
     The Pathfinder proposal is an aircraft-like proposal that takes off from a runway like a jet, flies to 9,000 meters (30,000 feet) for a mid-air refueling to take on a tank of liquid oxygen. It then lights its rocket engines for a suborbital flight, deploying its satellite payload and upper stage on the way before returning to Earth for a powered landing.
     Both announcements were made in Washington, DC, at the Cheap Access to Space Symposium. See the in-depth article later in this issue for more information about the conference.

Three launches of spacecraft using Delta, Atlas, and Pegasus rockets were successful in a ten-day period, placing global positioning, communications, and imaging satellites into orbit.
     A Delta II launched an Air Force GPS satellite from Cape Canaveral July 22 at 11:43pm EDT (0343 UT July 23). The Block IIR satellite is the first in a new generation of global positioning satellites planned by the Air Force. The satellite is identical to one destroyed in January when a Delta II exploded 13 seconds after launch.
     An Atlas IIAS placed Superbird-C, a Japanese communications satellite, into orbit with a launch July 28 at 9:15pm EDT (0115 UT July 29) from Cape Canaveral. The satellite will be used by Space Communications Corporation to provide communications and direct television broadcasts for Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.
     The launch was delayed for two days, one day for technical reasons, and the next because of poor weather. The launch took place just over 40 years after the first Atlas launch from the Cape, in June 1957.
     A Pegasus XL launched the OrbView-2 satellite August 1 at 12:20pm PDT (1920 UT) from Orbital Science Corporation's L-1011 aircraft flying off the California coast near Vandenberg Air Force Base. The satellite is the first privately-owned spacecraft providing high-resolution images at multiple wavelengths of the land and ocean. ORBMIAGE, a subsidiary of OSC, plans to market the images to commercial and scientific interests.

Europa's Atmosphere: Scientists have found evidence of an ionosphere, and thus an atmosphere, around the Jovian moon Europa. A series of radio occultations by the Galileo spacecraft confirmed the moon has a very tenuous atmosphere. Similar thin atmospheres may exist on the other large Jovian moons of Io, Ganymede, and Callisto. "While this discovery does not relate to the question of possible life on Europa," said lead investigator Arvydas Kliore, "it does show us there is a surface process occurring there, and Europa is not just some dead hunk of material."

Distant Galaxy: Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Telescope have found what appears to be the most distant galaxy yet discovered: a dim, young galaxy about 13 billion light years from Earth. The galaxy formed when the universe was only about 1 billion years old, astronomers estimate. Observations of the distant galaxy were aided by a gravitational lens, a star cluster between the galaxy and the Earth which bent the light from the galaxy around it to make it easier to observe from the Earth. The observations will help astronomers better understand the formation of galaxies in the early universe.

Religion and Space: If you ever wondered if space exploration and Catholicism were in conflict, you can rest easy now, thanks to ARCSEC. The "Association of Roman Catholics for the promotion of Space Exploration and Colonization" plans to "take an active part in the space development and the emerging pro-space culture," according to a press release. The organization plans to "encourage the participation of Catholics in the next great historic endeavor of mankind," by providing "a trans-political forum for the issues of space exploration, development, and research."

In Brief: The world chuckled over the news that three Yemeni men claimed ownership of the planet Mars and planned to sue NASA for trespassing, but NASA news chief Brian Welch made perhaps the most insightful observation noting that claims like these may have more significance in the future "when people actually are going to these places and the resources found have some value. ... More complicated issues will have to be resolved between countries, or between companies"... Space in the Movies: The movie "Conspiracy Theory", starring Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson, features Gibson as a conspiracy theorist. One of his claims: that NASA planned to kill the President by triggering an earthquake from space. So that's where those space station overruns went to... Another movie currently filming is "Deep Impact", starring Tea Leoni as an intrepid MSNBC reporter (apparently they ran out of CNN reporters?) who discovers that the government is hiding evidence of a comet on a collision course with the Earth. Don't you just hate those comets that are only visible in government telescopes?... A new McDonalds radio commercial advertises that there are 687 days in a Martian year, 322 more than on Earth. The announcer says he'll use the "extra" days to enjoy more McDonald's breakfasts, then says, "Is Mars a great planet, or what? ... Let's colonize! Let's franchise!" Hey, if it takes the Golden Arches to get us to Mars, let's go eat Big Macs and Egg McMuffins... And a special farewell to McDonnell Douglas, which disappears as an independent company August 4, completing its merger with Boeing...