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From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Satellite deployal and bad-weather launch
Message-ID: <1077@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 28-Aug-85 16:41:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.1077
Posted: Wed Aug 28 16:41:06 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Aug-85 08:41:25 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: USAMC ALMSA, St. Louis, MO
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[Will somebody please fix the gateway between net.columbia and the
ARPA Space Digest? The Digest hasn't had net.columbia-originated
postings in it for months, it seems! Thanks!]

The TV news stories on the Australian satellite said that, due to the
jammed sunshield and the consequent overexposure to sunlight, that
satellite was deployed a day ahead of time. My question is: if it could
be launched when it was -- that is, there was an earlier launch window
for the required orbit -- why was it planned to delay the extra day in
the first place? I would think that it would be in everyone's best
interests to get those satellites out of the cargo bay and into orbit
ASAP. What, if anything, was changed by deploying this satellite "a day
early" -- were some checkouts rushed, or other experiment start-ups
delayed, or other undesireable effects incurred by this action?

Re the launch through marginal weather -- we have had the long
discussion on the net about the tiles getting damaged by rain, so I
could see that that would be a good reason to not launch in the rain.
(But would the shuttle be moving fast enough at early stages in the
takeoff, when it would pass through the rain, that there would be ill
effects? This is much slower than the speed when piggybacked on the 747
until it gains speed at higher altitudes, right?)

But won't the system, to be a viable "space truck", eventually have to
be operable during adverse weather conditions? I could see that it would
have to function under the same degree of inclement weather that
commercial aircraft operate under -- if the weather isn't bad enough
to close the airport, the planes still take off and land, using
instrument assistance. Would not the Shuttle have to function in similar
conditions? You can't just indefinitely postpone supply runs for the
Space Station, or ordnance delivery for an SDI system, the way you can
put off commercial satellite launches and scientific experiments.

Is it just that this is too early in the test & development cycle? Are
there plans (weather cooperating, and at some future time) for takeoffs
and landings in various degrees of bad weather, to test the systems'
operation in such situations? It is not impossible that some future
mission might require an emergency landing in the rain somewhere, after
all, so I would think that it should be tested out.

Comments welcomed!

Regards,
Will Martin

UUCP/USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin   or   ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA