Provisions of the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA)

In an acknowledgement that private spaceflight is becoming a reality, the USA has enacted legislation, in the form of the CSLA, to assist the development of commercial, including passenger-carrying, launch vehicles. This report describes the salient features of the new act and explains the steps necessary for the obtention of a commercial launch license.     

Data From the Precision Solar Photometric Telescope (Pspt) in Hawaii From March 1998 to March 1999

Two Precision Solar Photometric Telescopes (PSPT) designed and built at the U.S. National Solar Observatory (NSO) are in operation in Rome and Hawaii. A third PSPT is now in operation the NSO at Sunspot, NM. The PSPT system records full disk solar images at three wavelengths: K line at 393.3 nm and two continua at 409 nm and 607 nm throughout the observing day. We currently study properties of limb darkening, sunspots, and network in these images with particular emphasis on data taken in July and September 1998. During this period, the number of observations per month was high enough to show directional properties of the radiation field surrounding sunspots. We show examples of our PSPT images and describe our study of bright rings around sunspots.     

A liquid propulsion panorama

Liquid-propellant rocket engines are widely used all over the world, thanks to their high performances, in particular high thrust-to-weight ratio. The present paper presents a general panorama of liquid propulsion as a contribution of the IAF Advanced Propulsion Prospective Group.After a brief history of its past development in the different parts of the world, the current status of liquid propulsion, the currently observed trends, the possible areas of future improvement and a summarized road map of future developments are presented. The road map includes a summary of the liquid propulsion status presented in the “Year in review 2007” of Aerospace America.Although liquid propulsion is often seen as a mature technology with few areas of potential improvement, the requirements of an active commercial market and a renewed interest for space exploration has led to the development of a family of new engines, with more design margins, simpler to use and to produce associated with a wide variety of thrust and life requirements.