At 15:57 20-01-96 -0500, you wrote: >Have they begun testing yet? I have no idea why they haven't started yet but in addition to what Leo Barhorst already told us, this came from Satellite News (ES6291) from Geoffrey Falworth: US Department of Defense is planning to launch a joint international ballistic missile tracking target spacecraft in cooperation with Russia's Moscow Aviation Institute aboard an SL-6 launch vehicle from Baikonur, Kazakhstan in 1994 December(now one year later...) alongside India's fourth Indian Research Satellite Earth rersources spacecraft. Main objectives of the cylindrical, 229.72kg spacecraft are to investigate bow shock emissions and aerothermal chemistry reactions produced in Earth's upper atmosphere by manoeuvering and re-entering missile warheads having velocity profiles similar to those expected from the next generation of fast-burning solid propellant missiles. Skipper spacecraft is an orbital successor to the suborbital Bow Shock 1 and 2 sounding rocket missions which revealed unexpected date on re-entering warhead signatures and which now require more extended experiment and observation time provided by an orbital test. Spacecraft will carry instrumentation including three scanning spectrometers, a hydrazine thruster system and a photometer plus instrumentation support systems, attitude control and manoeuvering thrusters and science and engineering telemetry to acquire data from higher altitudes and velocities where significant changes in physical processes associated with re-entering warheads are encountered. Skipper will be launched aboard a Russian SL-6 launch vehicle from Baikonur as a subsidiary payload during the IRS 1C launch and will be placed in an initial circular 819-km orbit following ejection from the launch vehicle's third stage about 20 seconds after IRS 1C is separated. Skipper's onboard propulsian system will manoeuvre the spacecraft into an orbit ranging from 819 km at apogee to 150 km at perigee and on subsequent revolutions perigee well be gradually reduced through controlled manoeuvres to between 120 km and 130 km, spacecraft traverses through very low perigees being observed to simulate warhead re-entries into Earth's upper atmosphere. Perigee will be decreased until atmospheric drag threatens to initiate re-entry whereupon the spacecraft will be placed in a circular orbit for between seven and ten days prior to be commanded to de-orbit over US Department of Defense's Kwajalein Missile Range in the Pacific Ocean for a final series of comparative observations down to at least 80 km. Mission duration of between 24 and 34 days, with numerous transits through very low perigee altitudes, is possible because low solar activity is not causing increased atmospheric drag at these altitudes and adequately designed and protected spacecraft, such as Skipper, can make several transits through Earth's upper atmosphere in a series of aerobraking manoeuvres without risk of premature re-entry. Greetings, Tristan cools tcools@nic.INbe.net