From: yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Daily News for 09/02/92 (Forwarded)
Apparently-To: sci-space-news@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Followup-To: sci.space
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 19:46:46 GMT

	Daily                News
Wednesday, September 2, 1992  24-hour audio service at 202/755-1788

 % STS-47 Flight Readiness Review concludes, sets Sept. 12 as launch date;
 % Pioneer Venus Orbiter scheduled to perform final Venus observations;
 % Voyagers 1 and 2 continue to perform like champs at edge of solar system;
 % Kennedy Space Center begins coordinated hurricane victim program.

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

NASA's Space Flight management yesterday concluded their Flight
Readiness Review for the STS-47 Spacelab-Japan mission and set
September 12 as the launch date, pending resolution of a technical
problem concerning an oxygen line quick disconnect valve in Endeavour's
main propulsion system oxygen umbilical.  Assuming this problem is
closed out, there are no further constraints on the launch.  The launch
window for Endeavour's second launch and the 50th in the shuttle
program opens at 10:23 am and continues to 2:17 pm EDT.  The mission is
scheduled to last just over 6 days and 20 hours with a planned landing
on September 19 at the Kennedy Space Center.

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

Pioneer Venus officials at the Ames Research Center have planned a
series of observations and altitude-maintenance maneuvers for the
14-year-old planetary mapper in anticipation of its orbit decay and
plunge into the Venusian atmosphere sometime between this October and
December.  On September 7, Ames flight controllers will begin a series
of Pioneer Venus Orbiter thruster firings to maintain the low point of
its elliptical orbit just above the Venus atmosphere.  The spacecraft
will be able to explore Venus' upper atmospheric regionsPsomething no
other probe has yet done.  The data will help answer questions about
the complex interactions between Venus' atmosphere and the solar wind.
Unlike the Earth, Venus has no dynamo-induced planetary magnetic field
and its atmosphere therefore interacts directly with the incoming
million-mile-per-hour solar wind.

The final stages of the spacecraft's exploration may also help answer
the question of whether Venus has lightning and whether or not the
planet once had an ocean.  Project manager Richard Fimmel of Ames says
this will "culminate 14 years" of exploration by the craft and will
complete the picture of Venus' outer environment.

Launched in 1978, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter has provided scientists
with the first nearly-complete topographic map of the planet.  Data
from those altimeter maps enabled planetary geologists to identify
mountain ranges, plateaus, plains and deep depressions on its surface
and paved the way for the investigations currently underway with the
higher-resolution radar mapper on the Venus-orbiting Magellan
spacecraft.

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

Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight controllers report that the two
Voyager spacecraft continue to perform nominally.  Voyager 1 recently
used its onboard fault-detection system to correct the failure of one
of its two Ultra Stable Oscillators, switching autonomously to the
backup unit.  These oscillators are the source of the carrier for the
spacecraft downlink transmitter.  The onboard system completed the
reconfiguration and was back transmitting to Earth in less than 10
minutes.  JPL flight engineers have no plans to override the onboard
systems current setup.  Both Voyager 1 and 2 continue to provide
deep-space fields and particles data as well as observations using
onboard ultraviolet sensors.  Voyager 1 is presently 4.6 billion miles
from EarthPor nearly 50 Astronomical Units.  Voyager 2 is trailing
because of the tighter ellipse required for its four planet encounters
and is 3.5 billion miles from here, or nearly 38 AU.

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

Kennedy Space Center officials are coordinating a continuing effort
from the nearly 20,000-plus employees to help the quarter-of-a-million
homeless victims of Hurricane Andrew.  The center has begun a unified
effort to collect all types of items from the employees and to then
provide convoy transportation from the Center to the south Dade County
region of most of the Miami-area victims.  Items being collected
include all types of baby products and baby food, canned food items,
camping gear including large tents, flashlights and batteries, and
personal hygiene items.  The center is providing a packaging specialist
who will begin preparing food packs in sizes useful for small, medium
and large families to help speed up the distribution of these
much-needed items.  Cash donations are also being coordinated through
an arrangement the Center has made with the Titusville Salvation Army.

Last week KSC sent a series of trucks loaded with hurricane relief
equipment along with water tankers to the Miami area to help in the
initial recovery from the wreckage.  The water tankers will remain in
the Homestead area on indefinite loan.

  
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.

Wednesday, September 2, 1992
  12:00 pm  Yesterday's highlights from the World Space Congress, being held
            this week in Washington, D.C.
   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.
  
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.
Newsgroups: sci.space.news