L’importance du role pris en France et en Europe par les satellites T&corn 1 sur le marchi des services de telecommunications et de television justifie qu’une continuiti soit assuree au-deli de leur duree de vie nominale de 7 ans. C’est chose faite grace au programme Telicom 2, decide en 1987, et qui comprendra 3 satellites. Chaque satellite sera dote de 26 repeteurs: 10 repiteurs a 614 GHz, 5 repiteurs a 8/7 GHz (pour les besoins de ia Defense Nationale), et 11 repeteurs (de 55 W) a 14/12 GHz. Le lancement du premier satellite Telecom 2 est p&u pour la fin 1991. La presence de France Telecom sur le marche des services par satellite est ainsi assume pour la prochaine decennie.
4.12. FRG-CHINA ~UABO~TION
IN SPACE””
The joint FRG-Chinese Expert Commission on Space recently held its third meeting in Bonn to discuss bilateral cooperation. Among the topics dealt with was the projected test flights on board the Chinese ‘Long March rocket for carrying out technological experiments under conditions of weightlessness. The Chinese side, in turn, expressed their interest in participating in Spacelab experiments scheduled to take place in the early 1990s. In a comment to the meeting, Research Minister Riesenhuber underlined the importance of German industrial participation in the Chinese Radio/TV satellite project ‘DFH-3’, and also welcomed the broad scope of cooperation between the DFVLR (German Aerospace Research and Testing Establishment) and the Chinese Space Technology Academy.
4.13. MEASUREMENT OF RELATIVISTIC TIME DILATION BY THE SPACELAB-EXPERIMENT NAVEX’13’
Two atomic clocks were flown during the first FRG Spacelab Mission (Dl) on-board the U.S. Space Shuttle Challenger (its last succesful flight) from 30 October-4 November 1985. The centrepiece of the navigation payload of NAVEX was a Cs-clock, as the main frequency standard, together with an Rbclock as a back-up. The frequency stability of the Cs-clock was better than ‘“)From UK Overseas Technical Information Services Notice 88/8336, July 1988. ‘“‘Note submitted by Dr S. Starker (DFVLR, Institut fir HF-Technik, Wessling.