Tim Furniss/LONDON
Hughes Space and Communications and NASA are discussing a possible Space Shuttle mission in 2001 to capture the stranded Loral Skynet Orion 3 communications satellite. The craft was left in the wrong orbit by a failed Delta III launch in May.
The mission, which will resemble that used to rescue a stranded Intelsat VI satellite in 1992 on the maiden flight of the Shuttle Endeavour, will involve fitting the Orion with a new engine and boosting the satellite into geostationary orbit (GEO).
Spacewalking astronauts would retrieve the spacecraft using purpose-designed grapples and fix it securely in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle. A new motor would be attached and the spacecraft deployed and despatched into GEO by two separate burns. The Hughes Space and Communications HS-601 Orion 3 has enough propellant aboard to allow it to be moved into a low 400km circular earth orbit from the 419 x 1,300km elliptical one in which it has been left stranded. Loral received $247 million for the loss.
The mission is unlikely to go ahead for two years because of the training and procedures required. As three Shuttle orbiters will be busy with International Space Station flights during 2001, orbiter Columbia is the only one that would be available for the mission.
NASA critics, however, will want to see this mission as a strictly commercial one in which the customer will pay NASA a full $500 million rather than the $99 million that was paid for the Intelsat VI rescue. The Intelsat mission demonstrated the Shuttle's capability, but was flown at a loss, with the overrun absorbed elsewhere in the NASA budget.
The Orion 3 salvage mission could be shared with other payloads or objectives to reduce costs, but, since most of the payload bay would have to be used by the rescue team, this seems unlikely.
Loral, meanwhile, has leased the entire 27 C-band and 16-Ku band capacity of the Apstar 2R satellite operated by APT Satellite of Hong Kong, to provide services to Orion 3 customers deprived of the use of the satellite after its loss in the Delta III failure.
• The US Government has extended the suspension of Loral Space and Communications' technical assistance agreement to launch Chinasat satellites on Chinese boosters because the company "has not alleviated the administration's concerns" about work that may "have helped China obtain sensitive US technology".
Source: Flight International
