NEWS BRIEFS

OEDIPUS LAUNCH - RECORD FOR LONGEST CONDUCTING TETHER

Bristol Aerospace, Canadian Space Agency - November 7th, 1995 - The OEDIPUS-C sounding rocket was successfully launched November 6th to an altitude of 869 km from Poker Flats, Alaska. Tethered separation of the two sub-payloads reached 1207 metres. This is a new record for length of separation achieved for a conducting tether in space, exceeding the record previously made by OEDIPUS-A in 1989.

OEDIPUS-C is a double payload connected by a conducting tether. Antennae on the two sub-payloads are used in active and passive modes to measure electromagnetic wave phenomena in Earth's ionosphere. The experiment also provided the opportunity to study tether dynamics, an increasingly important field in space mission operations. OEDIPUS payloads were developed by CAL Corp. and Routes Inc. of Ottawa and Bristol Aerospace was Prime Contractor and developer of the tether mechanism. OEDIPUS was launched by Bristol's Black Brant XII rocket

RADARSAT LAUNCH

RADARSAT was launched November 4th from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The solar arrays and synthetic aperture radar antenna have since been successfully deployed. RADARSAT is currently in a "checkout" phase where each subsystem is progressively verified. In the coming weeks, RADARSAT's orbit will be raised slowly through a number of propulsion maneuvers to take it to its final operational orbit. RADARSAT is expected to become operational in early 1996.

SHUTTLE AMATEUR RADIO IN CANADA

CSA, St-Hubert, November 13th 1995 - The space agency announced today that it has established an amateur radio base station at its headquarters in St-Hubert, Quebec. The station is to be used in conjunction with the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX) and as mechanism for disseminating mission status reports through a local amateur radio group.

In other related news, a number of Canadians have made contact through amateur radio with Astronaut Chris Hadfield. Hadfield recently obtained his radio operator's certificate in order to participate in the SAREX program. Known contacts were made in Manitoba and Alberta during the mission.

CANADA IN SPACE - SHUTTLE FLIGHT STS-74

Canadians have made their presence known in space on Shuttle Flight STS-74. The launch occurred November 12th and early Wednesday morning the Shuttle docked with the Mir Space Station with the help of the Canadian built remote manipulator system. The flight is the first for a Canadian Mission Specialist. Also onboard was the Advanced Space Vision System, a technology developed by the National Research Council in Ottawa to aid astronauts with complex proximity operations in space.

The Shuttle is scheduled to depart Mir on November 18th at 03:15 EST and land at Kennedy Space Centre November 20th at 12:31 EST.

SPAR AWARDED CONTRACT

Spar Aerospace Limited, November 13th - Spar has been awarded a cost shared contract to design and develop low noise amplifier assemblies for mobile satellite payloads. The contract was awarded under the International Mobile Satellite Communications Program sponsored by the Communications Research Centre and the Canadian Space Agency. The contract is valued at approximately $494,000 CDN.

ORBITAL AND MDA FINALIZE MERGER

MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) says shareholders voted 98% in favour of MDA's takeover by U.S. based Orbital Sciences Corporation. The deal is expected to be finalized November 17th.

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