NASA is still proposing a derring-do rescue of a $265 million telecommunications satellite. The rescue would involve sending the stranded bird looping around the moon once on a bonus science mission before placing it in its correct Earth orbit.
NASA official Daniel C. Tam said this week that the plan calls for space shuttle astronauts to attach a new booster to the Orion 3 satellite – along with cameras and possibly a small payload – and then slinging it around the moon. The satellite would then be placed in a correct Earth orbit ranging from a low point of 115 miles (184 kilometers) to a high point of 15,969 miles (25,550 kilometers).
Stranded in space
That left the Loral Space & Communications-owned satellite, which was to have provided video and data communications for a wide swath of Asia, stranded in an elliptical orbit just 98 miles (156 kilometers) by 856 miles (1,369 kilometers) high.
Loral has since washed its hands of the mammoth 9,485-pound (4,268-kilogram) satellite. In August 1999 the New York company announced it had used its insurance settlement to cover most of the lease cost of all the available transponder payload of the Apstar 2-R satellite to replace the Orion 3.
NASA has toyed since last summer with the idea of using a space shuttle – with Columbia the likely pick – to rescue the Hughes satellite. NASA has pressed the shuttle into performing similar salvage tasks on a handful of previous occasions.
Tam, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin’s assistant for commercialization, mentioned the possibility of an Orion 3 rescue mission as recently as Tuesday during a meeting of the California Space and Technology Alliance in Pasadena, California.
A Hughes spokesman said using the space shuttle was only one of a number of options under consideration.
"The way I would characterize it, is it’s premature," said Hughes spokesman George Torres, of the shuttle proposal.
Meanwhile, Boeing hopes its Delta 3 can return to flight in the "near term," said spokesman Walt Rice. The rocket has an 18-launch backlog.
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