Swatch scare
On Thursday, April 15, 1999, Swatch had apparently cancelled the mission! However, a Reuters news report dated Friday April 16 8:23 AM ET, writes the following:
A Russian and French cosmonaut performed a space walk Friday, successfully launching a small satellite built by French amateur radio enthusiasts from the Russian Mir space station, mission control said.
``It's finished. They launched the satellite,'' spokeswoman Vera Medvedkova said.
Additionally, an Associated Press report released this morning states:
In the final part of the space walk, a small satellite made by Russian and French schoolchildren was put into space. If all goes well, the satellite will beam a recording of their voices that will be heard on the Mir and at Mission Control, outside Moscow.
Is Swatch entirely truthful about their magnanimous gesture to donate the batteries to equipment on the Mir station? Check out the Reuters report release and the Associated Press report on the Yahoo site. I welcome your comments and any additional information to my e-mail address.
A reassuring sentence in this quote from Swatch on their web site is highlighted below.
The beatnik satellite has been finally sent into orbit. On the 22nd of April, between @375 and @437 Internet time (10.00 to 11.30 CET) a Russian cosmonaut in space will read your messages by video-conference. You'll be able to follow it live on our Internet site. Unfortunately, the Russian transmission satellite "Gelios", a key link with the MIR space station, was severely damaged a few days ago.
Swatch has decided to assist the Spaceflight Control Centre and donate the batteries supporting the beatnik satellite to the MIR cosmonauts, thus cancelling the possibility of any radio transmission from space. However, in order to spread your messages, we have decided to launch in a few days a virtual beatnik that will carry your messages around cyberspace.
This BBC Online press release seems to indicate that Swatch did in fact abandon the launch, but contains no additional information besides that present on this and Swatch's web site.
I hope that my suspicions are just the result of some confusion on the part of the newswires, but I'll be watching carefully for the latest information, so keep checking back here at the web site.
Note that Swatch is adamant about putting a positive public relations spin on this whole ordeal. A copy of the text and graphics on this web page appeared as full page ads in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times on April 16, 1999.
Rob Carlson, KC2AEI, rcarls2@umbc.edu