From: yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Daily News for 07/23/92 (Forwarded)
Apparently-To: sci-space-news@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Followup-To: sci.space
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 22:11:49 GMT

	Daily                News
Thursday, July 23, 1992  24-hour audio service at 202/755-1788

 % Geotail preparations complete, launch set for 10:26 am EDT tomorrow;
 % Mission is U.S. - Japan venture, and first of 5 planned Earth-Sun
   investigations;
 % Delta II will inaugurate new service, secondary payload mounted on
   2nd stage;
 % KSC activity continues on schedule for next week's launch of Atlantis
   for STS-46;
 % Life Scientists will hold briefing tomorrow on further findings from STS-40;
 % JPL continues efforts to understand High Gain Antenna problem.

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

Preparations for tomorrow's launch of the Geotail spacecraft aboard a
Delta II have been completed.  The launch is set for 10:26 am EDT,
Friday, July 24, from Launch Pad 17-A at the Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station.  Today, at 1:00 pm EDT, NASA and Japanese Institute of Space
and Aeronautical Science project managers and scientists will hold a
pre-launch briefing on the mission at the Kennedy Space Center.  The
briefing, as well as the launch itself, will be carried live on NASA
Select television.  The window for the July 24, Friday, launch lasts
only 5 minutes.  Geotail will be placed into a highly elliptical orbit
of 32,000 by 871,000 miles for its first two-and-a-half years and then
into closer orbit.  This will allow the instruments to investigate both
far and near magnetic tail composition and activity.

This spacecraft is the first of what will be a series of five
satellites designed to explore the dynamic relationship between the
Sun's solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field and various
magnetosphere components, including the Van Allen belts and the Earth's
geomagnetic tail.  The investigations will be performed by American and
Japanese investigators.  Data from the spacecraft will be received by
the Deep Space Network stations and then transmitted to the Goddard
Space Flight Center.  The investigators will be able to access data
directly from the Goddard data facility while they remain at their home
institutions.

The spacecraft is expected to last four years and is equipped with
seven instruments that will be performing measurements on the various
magnetic field and particle components.  In addition to its principal
payload, the Delta II second stage will carry a secondary scientific
instrument, the Diffuse Ultraviolet Experiment, which will measure the
diffuse glow from the interstellar medium and thereby help our
understanding of the evolution of this interstellar matter.  This
experiment receives power from the Delta II second stage battery and
will be turned on only after the Geotail spacecraft has separated from
the second stage.

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

Meanwhile,  launch processing activity at Kennedy Space Center's Launch
Complex 39, Pad B, continues to progress on schedule for next week's
launch of Atlantis for the STS-46 Tethered Satellite and European
Retrievable Carrier mission.  Activity through the end of the week
includes purges of the external tank and installation of ordnance
devices.  The launch countdown begins next Tuesday, July 28, at 4:00 pm
EDT and launch is scheduled for Friday, July 31, at 9:56 am EDT.

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

NASA's Life Sciences Division will hold a briefing at 11:00 am
tomorrow, July 24, to report on further discoveries and results of the
Space Life Sciences 1 mission which flew on STS-40 in June 1991.  That
mission was the first dedicated Spacelab flight to conduct life science
and human space medical investigations.  NASA Life Sciences Division
Chief Scientists, Dr. Ron White, will lead a panel of four
investigators who will present the findings.  The briefing will be
carried live on NASA Select television.

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

Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight control engineers report that the
Galileo spacecraft is now about 127 million miles from Earth and
closing at about 46,194 miles per hour for its planned December 8 Earth
II flyby.  Since launch in October 1989, Galileo has flown a trajectory
of nearly 1.32 billion miles.  Performance of the spacecraft systems
and instruments, save the undeployed High Gain Antenna, remain
exemplary.  JPL engineers this week and next will be undergoing a
series of tests and exercises using the antenna deployment motors for
both the high gain and low gain antennas which will help them better
understand the undeployed condition.

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

  
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, July 23, 1992
Live   12:00 pm  NASA Today news program, features a report on the Earth's
		 geomagnetic region which will be explored by the Geotail
		 spacecraft, set for launch tomorrow; a report on the return of
		 the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite to the ranks of
		 operating scientific spacecraft; a report from the Marshall
		 Space Flight Center of a special welding system; a report on
		 a new joint venture between NASA and the National Institutes
		 of Health; a look at some Maryland Eastern Shore school kids
		 who build and launch their rockets as part of a program
		 sponsored by Wallops Island Flight Facility; and, as usual,
		 a report on historic space events which have occurred on this
		 day.
       12:15 pm  Aeronautics & Space Report.
       12:30 pm  Visions of Other Worlds.
Live    1:00 pm  Geotail pre-launch briefing from Kennedy Space Center.
        2:00 pm  Launchbox program #4 -- The Living Earth.
        2:30 pm  Gemini -- The Twins.
        3:00 pm  Total Quality Management program #11, U. of New Mexico series.
        4:00 pm  8:00 pm and 12:00 am, programming repeats.

Friday, July 24, 1992
Live    9:15 am  Launch coverage of Geotail spacecraft aboard a Delta II rocket
                 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station begins.
Live   10:31 am  Scheduled launch of Delta II rocket with Geotail payload.
Live   11:00 am  Space Life Sciences-1 results briefing from NASA Headquarters.

Wednesday, July 29, 1992
Live    1:00 pm  Pre-mission briefing on the Topex/Poseidon mission from
                 NASA Headquarters.
Live    TBD  L-2 briefings on STS-46 mission from Kennedy Space Center.

Thursday, July 30, 1992
Live    TBD  L-1 briefings on STS-46 mission from Kennedy Space Center.

Friday, July 31, 1992
Live    6:00 am  Launch coverage of Atlantis for STS-46 Tethered Satellite and
                 Eureca deploy mission begins from KSC.
Live    9:56 am  Scheduled launch of Atlantis for STS-46 mission. 

  
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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