From: yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Daily News for 10/08/92 (Forwarded)
Apparently-To: sci-space-news@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Followup-To: sci.space
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 21:31:21 GMT

Daily                 News
Thursday, October 8, 1992  24-hour audio service at 202/755-1788

 % Columbia activity on schedule, hypergolic fuel loading to begin today;
 % Hubble telescope battery reconditioning program successfully underway;
 % Goddard awards service contract for Hubble to Lockheed Missiles & Space;
 % Hubble & Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer science update today at 1:00 pm;
 % Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite still down one instrument;
 % Compton science team focusing on unusual X-ray nova source.


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

Preparations for Columbia's STS-52 mission, two weeks hence, are
continuing on schedule at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B.
Hypergolic fuel loading will occur today and tomorrow with the
hydraulic, mechanical and electrical flight readiness test set to occur
this Sunday.  The mission will be the 51st in the shuttle program and
the 13th flight for NASA's pioneering orbiter.  The window for
Columbia's launch opens at 11:16 am EDT on Thursday, October 22 and
closes two-and-a-half hours later.  The mission is planned as a 9-day,
20-hour flight with a scheduled end-of-mission landing at Kennedy's
Shuttle Landing Facility.

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

Hubble Space Telescope flight controllers at the Goddard Space Flight
Center report success in their spacecraft battery reconditioning
program.  The first four of the telescope's six nickel-hydrogen
batteries have been fully discharged and are presently being
recharged.  Following an analysis of the discharge/recharge profile of
these four batteries, the Goddard team will begin a reconditioning of
the remaining two batteries.

Goddard has awarded Lockheed Missiles and Space Inc., Sunnyvale,
Calif., a cost-plus-award-fee contract for the Hubble Space Telescope
Flight Systems and Servicing effort.  The contract is a follow-on to
current, expiring, contracts, and will be in excess of $147 million for
a 3-year period.  The effort includes defining, planning, integrating
and executing the on-orbit servicing program for the telescope,
including the first servicing mission in December 1993.  That first
mission will involve the exchange of one of the telescope's present
instruments for the corrective optics package.  Also, astronaut
crewmembers will upgrade the planetary camera with a new generation
assembly, install new solar arrays and install replacement gyro
assembly units.

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

NASA and university astronomers will present another in the Space
Astronomy Update series today at 1:00 pm EDT in the NASA Headquarters
auditorium.  The panel members will present a striking Hubble Space
Telescope picture of a gravitational lens-produced mirror image of a
distant galaxy and an Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer image of a powerful
object two billion light years from the Milky Way.  The presentation
will be shown live on NASA Select television.

The Hubble observations will help provide new information on distant
galaxies and on the distribution of dark matter, the nature of which
remains unknown.  The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer data provide new
information about objects visible in that wavelength of light.
Briefers will be Richard Ellis, University of Durham, U.K.; Bruce
Margon, University of Washington, Seattle; Daniel Weedman, Pennsylvania
State University, University Park; and Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer
principal scientist Stuart Bowyer, University of California at
Berkeley; Steve Maran, Goddard Space Flight Center astronomer and
Hubble co-investigator, will serve as panel moderator.

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

Goddard controllers working with the Upper Atmosphere Research
Satellite report that continued attempts to restart the chopper wheel
motor on the Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder instrument
have been unsuccessful.  With the exception of carbon monoxide, data
which the sounder would acquire are being taken by a combination of the
other five atmospheric measuring instruments aboard the satellite.

Compton Gamma Ray Observatory scientists report they are continuing
their observations of an unusually bright X-ray nova in the
constellation Perseus.  The science team also reports that since their
observations began last summer the observatory has detected 436 cosmic
gamma-ray bursts.

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

  
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.  Live indicates a program is transmitted
live.

Thursday, October 8, 1992
      12:00 pm  The Unwritten Contract.
      12:15 pm  Aeronautics & Space Report.
      12:30 pm  Visions of Other Worlds.
Live   1:00 pm  Space Astronomy Update presenting new 
                Hubble Space Telescope and Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer 
                images and  featuring Richard Ellis, University of 
                Durham, U.K.; Bruce Margon, University of Washington, 
                Seattle; Daniel Weedman, Pennsylvania State University, 
                University Park; and Steve Maran, Goddard Space Flight 
                Center.  Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer principal scientist 
                Stuart Bowyer, University of California at Berkeley, will 
                present his team's findings via videotape.
       2:00 pm  Total Quality Management Colloquium with 
                Edward Stone, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 
                on the topic of "Restructuring Cassini."
       2:36 pm  Around the World and on the Way.
       3:00 pm  Total Quality Management program #40 from 
                the University of New Mexico series.
       4:00 pm  8:00 pm & 12:00 midnight programming repeats.
  
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.
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