Headline News
Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters
Monday, December 16, 1991       Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Monday, December 16, 1991...

This afternoon at 1:00 pm EST, JPL will hold another in its series of
Magellan-at-Venus science seminars.  This seminar will feature Annette
deCharon from the JPL project officee, who will discuss "Twisted Tale
at Tessera:  New Views from Magellan."  The proogram will be shown live
on NASA Select TV.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, December 17, Administrator Truly will deliver his
year-end message to all NASA employees.  It can be seen on NASA Select
at noon, and will be repeated at 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm EST

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Jet Propulsion Laboratory radar scientists and engineers have developed
a new, more accurate, airborne radar system for topographic mapping of
the Earth's surface.  TOPSAR--topographic synthetic aperture radar--is
an interferometric radar mapper deloped in collaboratn with the Italian
Consortium for Research and Development of Advanced Remote Sensing
Systems.  TOPSAR has many potential commercial and scientific uses and
will be about three times more accurate than any topographic mapper now
readily available.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Researchers at Langley Research Center have developed a laser-based
system for measuring winds above launch sites that eventually may
replace weather balloons as a data-gathering method on high.  CLAWS, or
Coherent Launch Site Atmospheric Wind Sounder, has two main advantages
over balloons:  Scieists can get a vertical wind profile in about a
minute instead of an hour; and  CLAWS is capable of a 5-meter vertical
range resolution, which lets scientists see fine-grained phenomena that
balloons miss, such as sharp wind shears.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A recent agreement between NASA's Office of Commercial Programs and the
University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) will provide additional flight
research opportunies on the Space Shuttle for NASA's 17 Centers for the
Commercial Development of Space (CCDS).  In support of this initiive,
Instrumentation Technology Associates, Inc., (ITA) , has signed a
commercial agreement with NASA to provide the university's CCDS with
flight hardware which will be flown on five Shuttle missions.  Under
this agreement, ITA-developed Materials Dispersion Apparatus minilabs
will be flown aboard the Shuttle.  This hardware made two development
flights this year on shuttle missions.  The rst [?? -PEY] flight of experiment
hardware is anticipated for the fall of 1992.


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


Monday, December 16, 1991
        12:0pm       NASA Today news program
        12:30 pm     Life Sciences at Manned Space Station
         1:00 pm     Magellan Science Seminar (Live from JPL)
         1:30 pm     Life into Space
         2:00 pm     Project Laser
         2:30 pm     Safe Computing
         3:00 pm     New Look at an Old Moon
         3:30 pm     Life in the Universe

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.