Headline News
Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters

  Friday, December 13, 1991  Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Friday, December 13, 1991 . . .

Discovery technicians rolled the orbiter to the Vehicle Assembly 
Building yesterday, slightly ahead of schedule.  The orbiter is now soft-
mated to its external tank/solid rocket booster stack.  Kennedy Space Center 
launch team officials are anticipating a rollout of Discovery to the launch pad 
on Dec. 18.  The terminal countdown demonstration test for the STS-42 
International Microgravity Laboratory-1 flight is set for January 6 and 7 at 
KSC.  The Office of Space Flight flight readiness review for the mission is set 
for Jan. 9, also at KSC.  Space Flight officials are still looking towards a 
January 22, 1992, launch date, though the actual launch date will be set at 
the FRR.

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The crew of the recently-completed STS-44 Department of Defense 
mission aboard Atlantis will hold a press briefing at 2:00 pm EST 
today to describe their flight, share their experiences, and narrate 
videotape and photographs they acquired during the mission.  The briefing 
will be shown live on NASA Select TV.  Earth observation photographs were 
a major secondary objective of the flight.

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Galileo, now out nearly 200 million miles from the Sun, will be 
commanded to turn away from the Sun today as part of the Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory's continuing efforts to correctly deploy the spacecraft's 
high-gain antenna.  Galileo will be turned 165 degrees off the Sun and will 
stay in that configuration for 50 hours, thereby chilling the central tower 
associated with the high-gain antenna.  JPL expects this will cause further 
shrinking of that tower and hopefully will enable what are deduced to be 
three physically-stuck deployable ribs to become unstuck.  The antenna is 
comprised of gold-mesh supported by 18 deployable ribs connected to a 
central tower.  This will be the third in JPL's series of thermal cycles 
designed to unstick the antenna.

JPL also reports that Magellan, in Venus orbit, continues to perform 
nominally.  To date, Magellan has performed more than 3,200 mapping 
orbits of Earth's twin planet and provided radar coverage of more than 93 
percent of Venus's surface.  This coverage is more extensive and at a higher 
resolution than coverage of any other planetJ--Jincluding Earth.  Mapping 
cycle two ends Jan. 15, at which point Magellan will enter mapping cycle 
three and will concentrate on obtaining stereo photography data of the 
numerous fascinating features revealed thus far on the planet.

In line with keeping NASA's shareholders apprised of the discoveries 
to date, JPL will hold another in its series of Magellan-at-Venus 
science seminars on Monday, December 16, at 1:00 pm EST.  This 
seminar will feature Annette deCharon, from the JPL project office, who will 
discuss "The Twisted Tale at Tessera:  New Views from Magellan."  The 
program will be shown live on NASA Select TV.

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Today, the Lewis Research Center hosts its annual Christmas play for 
inner city children in the Cleveland area.  Lewis is expecting about 450 
second and third grade school children from six Cleveland  elementary 
schools.  The Lewis thespian production is called "Christmas 2001" and is a 
drama about two aliens who invade Earth and then attempt to kidnap Santa 
Claus.  The play was written by Lewis center staff and features Lewis staff in 
the various acting roles.  Following the play, the school kids will meet 
Santa, and receive gifts provided by Lewis staff.   This program marks 
the 28th year that Lewis has sponsored a children's Christmas party.  It is an 
entirely volunteer project with about 150 Lewis employees contributing time, 
energy and money.

  
Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA 
Select TV.  Note that all events and times may change without notice, 
and that all times listed are Eastern.

Friday, December 13, 1991
    12:00 pm  NASA Today news program.
    12:15 pm  Aeronautics & Space Report #240.
    12:30 pm  Interactive Educational Teleconference "Life Science 
              Research" will replay, the original program aired on 12/11/91.
     2:00 pm  STS-44 post-flight crew press conference from Johnson Space 
              Center.
     3:30 pm  Four Days of Gemini.
     4:00 pm  NASA Today and subsequent programming repeats.
     8:00 pm  NASA Today and subsequent programming repeats.
    12:00 am  NASA Today and subsequent programming repeats.
Monday, December 16, 1991
     1:00 pm  Magellan Science Seminar featuring Annette deCharon from JPL.
  
This report is filed daily at noon, Monday through Friday.  It is a 
service of NASA's Office of Public Affairs.  The editor is Charles 
Redmond, 202/453-8425 or CREDMOND on NASAmail.  NASA Select 
TV is carried on GE Satcom F2R, transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees 
West Longitude, transponder frequency is 3960 MegaHertz, audio 
subcarrier is 6.8 MHz, polarization is vertical.