Compiled and written by Daniel Fischer, Skyweek - older "Mirrors" in the Archive - and find out what the future might bring!

The reason for the IUS failure on April 9 during a Titan launch has meanwhile been traced back to a staging problem. At 6 h 30 m after liftoff, Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the IUS were scheduled to separate. Telemetry shows several anomalous events that occurred during the separation sequence. Specifically, although two separation break wires indicate separation had occurred, a separate connector continued to carry signals, indicating the separation was not complete. The difficult task now is to determine precisely what happened and why this sequence of events occurred. (AFSC News Release May 6) No news are available yet on the investigation into the 2nd Titan failure of the month when a Centaur misfired.

The hope is now that in late June, when the solar arrays will receive much more sunlight than now, the start-up process will continue further. Ground controllers will then try to upload a software patch that allows for a quicker start - and then tell the spacecraft to change the settings of the batteries. It is possible that only one cell is damaged and the others can still be used: That could even permit the sky survey to begin. If, however, no battery loading is possible, just some basic experiments involving the advanved CCD system would take place.

The DLR official put the chances for a recovery of ABRIXAS at well below 50 percent, though - in which case the company that made it (and was to formally 'deliver' the satellite one month after launch) would have to repay the German space agency an unspecified amount of money as a 'malus'. Otherwise OHB would have received a bonus of 2 million DEM. This fixed-prize, bonus & malus system is widely used with commercial satellites but rather unusual with science spacecraft.

The Galileo team had since pooled engineering and problem-solving talents to develop special software, known as a "bus reset patch." The name refers to Galileo's "data bus," which transfers information to various parts of the spacecraft. The software was designed to teach Galileo to recognize symptoms of the glitch and correct the problem itself, without entering safing mode. That was put to the test twice on Monday, May 3, when the glitch popped up as Galileo was approaching Callisto.

Galileo quickly diagnosed the problem, determined there was no threat to spacecraft health, and decided for itself not to enter safing mode. This allowed all spacecraft and scientific functions to continue uninterrupted, with Galileo snapping pictures and gathering observations from an altitude as close as 1322 kilometers above Callisto. The flyby was also part of maneuvers to bring Galileo's orbit closer to Jupiter and to reach Io eventually. (JPL Press Release # 38 of May 5, 1999)

The launch on April 28 had taken place at 20:30 UTC as planned, and at 21:06 UTC the very first contact was made through Canberra. One hour later, at 22:05 UTC, the signal was aquired at the ground station in Weilheim, Germany, with telemetry flowing 5 minutes later. All systems on board were in excellent condition at that time. But during the 2nd contact two hours later a raised temperature in the battery was noted, and at 0:15 UTC on the 29th a rapid change in voltage indicated major trouble. For two days contact could be held with the help of an additional battery, but late on the 30th the signal from the satellite was lost and hasn't been recovered since, despite international efforts. Even if the power supply comes back in June, it is still questionable whether the complete sky survey will ever be possible.

A Kosmos-3M (11K65M) rocket had carried the 500 kg satellite on the first orbital launch from GTsP-4 (State Test Range 4) at Kapustin Yar since 1988 (and the first-ever launch there for a paying customer). According to Jonathan's Space Report, "ABRIXAS separated from the Kosmos-3M second stage one hour after launch into a 544 x 603 km x 48.4 deg orbit. The 48.4 deg inclination was familiar to Soviet space watchers in the early 1960s, used by Kosmos satellites on 63S1 rockets from Kapustin Yar, but this is the first time it's been used since 1973." A secondary payload on the same launch, to quote Jonathan's Space Report again, "was Megsat-0, a small technology development satellite built and owned by MegSat, the space division of the Gruppo Meggiorin companies based in Brescia (Italy). The 0.4-meter box has a mass of 35 kg. It carries an experimental high bit rate data transmission payload."