Soviet-European Lab To Send Data Soon

LONDON—Space scientists from Western Europe and the Soviet Union are involved in what may be the most extensive extraterrestrial collaboration between the two sides in the 30-year history of the space age. The cooperation comes in the form of an orbiting observatory that is expected to begin transmitting data shortly. The Roentgen laboratory for collecting X-rays in space was built largely by scientists from the Netherlands, Britain, West Germany and the 13-nation European Space Agency and was lifted into orbit by the Soviet Union. It was carried inside Kvant, an 11-ton unmanned module that docked April 13 with Mir, the Soviet Union's latest space station that currently is manned by two cosmonauts. Soviet scientists plan to switch on Roentgen by early June, when the four instruments inside the laboratory will start collecting radiation to help plot new star maps. A team of a dozen scientists from the four Western European groups in the venture expects to be in Moscow to collect data. According to Peter Willmore, head of the space research department at Birmingham University, the Roentgen venture could be the prelude to several more joint projects in space-based astronomy between Western Europe and the U.S.S.R. Wilimore's department was partly responsible for one of the instruments inside the laboratory, an imaging X-ray telescope to help scientists learn the amount of radiation emitted from stars in the telescope's field of view. "The collaboration worked very well and we built up good personal relationships with our counterparts in the Soviet Union," said Willmore. He said he hoped that conducting joint ventures with the Soviets would not stand in the way of future space science missions involving the United States, with which Willmore began collaboration in 1962. Scientists from Western Europe will meet in Moscow June 9-12 to discuss more collaborative ventures in space-based astronomy. The possibilities include a free-flying platform to collect X-rays that is due to be launched in the early 1990s. The platform, for which Birmingham University could provide another X-ray instrument, would dock periodically with a space station but spend most of its time in independent orbit. Gains for All The Birmingham scientists worked on their Roentgen telescope with the Dutch government's Space Research Organization in Utrecht. The other three instruments inside Roentgen were provided by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, near Munich; ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands; and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Joachim Truemper, managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, said all the participants should benefit from the Roentgen venture. The Soviets will obtain a greater range of instrumentation for their laboratory, he said, and the West Europeans will have had the chance to put hardware into space without bearing the flight costs. Under the terms of the agreement, the Western Europeans built their experiments—at a total cost of about $2 million—and then shipped the instruments to the U.S.S.R. The scientists are due to receive their data on computer tape shipped from Moscow to the West. Roentgen is the main piece of scientific apparatus inside Kvant, which carries 1.5 tons of experiments and a further 2.5 tons of equipment to add to Mir's technical capabilities. The other experiments, provided solely by the Soviet Union, include a telescope and an electrophoresis setup for biotechnology studies. The collaboration over Roentgen began in the late 1970s with a series of informal meetings between scientists from ESA and the Soviet Institute for Space Studies. Leading these talks were Roald Sagdeyev, who remains as director of the Soviet institute, and Ernst Trendolenburg, ESA's former science director who has since retired. The discussion focused on a joint X-ray venture during the early 1980s. Individual space groups in Britain, the Netherlands and West Germany later joined in the talks. The Roentgen lab follows several years of sporadic collaboration between the Soviets and Western Europe. France and the Soviet Union have participated in joint projects for several years; in 1982, for example, a French scientist conducted experiments aboard the Soviet space station. Scientists from ESA and the Soviet Union worked together last year to send spacecraft to Halley's comet. Western European countries will also be involved in deciphering the data from a mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, which the U.S.S.R. plans to launch next year. Marsh is on the staff of the Financial Times in London. Soviet Space Program Looks West NEW YORK—The Russians are working harder to sell their space capabilities to the West—but with little hope of finding any takers. A delegation from Glavcosmos, an organization created two years ago to explore civilian uses of space, has just completed a visit to the United States to discuss launching satellites and housing experiments in orbit, for a fee. The delegation met with representatives of Congress, the Commerce Department and the Houston-based Space Commerce Corporation, the U.S. marketing agent for Soviet rockets. To ease concerns about technology transfer, officials said at a May 18 press conference here, Glavcosmos will forgo customs inspection of equipment and allow foreign technicians into the Soviet Union to prepare payloads for launch. But such guarantees seem unlikely to impress a skeptical Reagan administration. "I think it's unlikely that they will have any U.S. customers," said Marcia Smith, a specialist in aerospace policy at the Library of Congress. And since most payloads from Western nations contain American technology, said Smith, the United States will have an effective veto on any commercial use of Soviet space facilities by the West.

Soviet-European Lab To Send Data Soon

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