Russia's Secret: Did Space Station Nearly Die The Day It Was Born?

Pat Flannery wrote in
:

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

Interestingly, at the tail end of Space Station Freedom, as it was
morphing through Space Station Alpha on it's way to ISS, the final
"restructure/rephase" was to consider the option of using a
Lockheed-designed "service module" to perform the task later given to
FGB. It was not divulged how and why Lockheed had designed such a
module nor were we encouraged to ask; it was enough that we were told:
"It works and this is what it can do . . ." Obviously (moreso now than
in the summer of 1993), this was a core vehicle used for various
classified NRO payloads that NASA was essentially begging for permission
to use for early attitude and orbital control.

This probably gives the recon satellites the ability to change their
orbital parameters on-station; both to evade interception and to make
their time of passage over interesting photo targets less predictable.

More the latter than the former; neither superpower actually deployed ASAT
capability. But photorecon birds are generally in sun-synchronous orbits,
so that their passage over a given target is near the same local time every
day. That makes photo analysis easier but also makes overflights
predictable. As you say, periodic maneuvers will change the overflight
times.

--
JRF

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Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Should be an interesting story why NASA preferred to deal with NRL vice
Lockheed.

A story that you will likely never hear.

Brett

Brett Buck wrote in :

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Should be an interesting story why NASA preferred to deal with NRL vice
Lockheed.

A story that you will likely never hear.

It depends on how long I live. The stories behind Corona and Discoverer
have been declassified after 40 years; if this story comes out after the
same interval, I'll be in my 70's. I figure I have a decent shot.

--
JRF

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In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Interestingly, in 1997, when NASA was looking for backup options in the
event the Russians failed to launch the ISS service module, rather than
going back to Lockheed/Bus-1, they went to the Naval Research Laboratory
and their Interim Control Module (ICM). Like Bus-1, ICM is a propulsion
module used on some top-secret NRO birds, and was designed to be compatible
with both the Space Shuttle and Titan launch vehicles.

And TLD (Titan Launch Dispenser -- it was built to deploy multi-bird
ocean-surveillance satellite constellations) was a particularly strange
choice for the ICM application, because TLD was spin-stabilized! It would
have needed some serious changes to become ICM. NASA *really* didn't want
to deal with Lockheed and/or NRO for some reason.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
This probably gives the recon satellites the ability to change their
orbital parameters on-station; both to evade interception and to make
their time of passage over interesting photo targets less predictable.

More the latter than the former; neither superpower actually deployed ASAT
capability.

Actually, both superpowers had some limited ASAT capability (the US via
the nuclear-tipped Thors on Johnston Island) deployed at times. But it
never became a big factor in military satellite design.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...
Does this refer to Polyus?

Yes indeed -- artwork at Khrunichev showed soyuz docking missions, and
options for man-tended operations.

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

More the latter than the former; neither superpower actually deployed ASAT
capability.

We deployed one under Program 437; it was based on Thor missiles and was
deployed at Johnston Atoll from 1963-1975; there is a PDF on it he
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aup...F_Bin/chun.pdf
The Pentagon sure thought that the Soviet system was operational, if
"Soviet Military Power-1986" is anything to go by:
http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/smp_86_ch3.htm
....their drawing in the book shows five ready-to-go ASATs being housed
in a hanger at Tyuratam: http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/86_48.jpg

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...
It's fascinating to speculate what would have happened it Polyus got
successfully into orbit, rather than malfunctioning and heading into the
ocean- I get the impression that the militarization of space would have
started pronto.


Agreed, it might have set off all the wrong sort of 'space race'.

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
I don't think they were *forced* to do it, so much as they found it a more
attractive alternative. The FGB module had in-orbit refueling capability,
had rather more ACS authority than the Lockheed bus (which was marginal in
this area and might have needed upgrading), and looked cheaper. Moreover,
NASA historically has been very reluctant to get involved with highly
classified stuff, just because it is so much hassle.

The cheaper option was to launch SM first, or use Mir as the assembly
'construction shack'.

Neither would have passed congress, or public opinion.

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote:

Should be an interesting story why NASA preferred to deal with NRL vice
Lockheed.

Might have had something to do with the fact that the NRL is a
govermental organization, and Lockheed isn't.

D.
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