From: yee@atlas.arc.nasa.gov (Peter Yee)
Subject: NASA Daily News for 11/05/92 (Forwarded)
Apparently-To: sci-space-news@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Followup-To: sci.space
Originator: yee@atlas.arc.nasa.gov
Reply-To: yee@atlas.arc.nasa.gov (Peter Yee)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 07:08:51 GMT

Daily                 News
Thursday, November 5, 1992  24-hour audio service at 202/755-1788

 % Scout launch postponed because of power problem, next try Saturday;
 % KSC technicians finishing stacking work, Discovery goes to pad Sunday;
 % Discovery's STS-53 mission will be its 15th, 51st for shuttle program ;
 % First Town Meeting comes up Monday at NC State in Raleigh;
 % Lewis links 33 powerful micro-computers for supersonic engine simulation.

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

The launch of the Department of Defense Miniature Seeker Technology
Integration payload aboard a NASA Scout launcher from Vandenberg Air
Force Base was scrubbed this morning because of a power systems
problem.  The launch team was in the process of safing the Scout late
this morning.  The next launch attempt will be Saturday, November 7,
when the launch window again opens at 8:42 am EST and closes at 9:42
am.

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

Technicians at the Kennedy Space Center today are in the process of
testing the mechanical interfaces associated with the Discovery and its
external tank and solid rocket booster components.  Tomorrow
technicians will begin the electrical interface test of these
components.  On Saturday, the transporter crawler will be positioned
for a planned rollout of Discovery to Launch Pad 39-A just past
midnight Sunday morning, November 8.

The flight crew and Houston and Kennedy ground team launch dress
rehearsal - the terminal countdown demonstration test - is set to take
place next Thursday and Friday, Nov. 12 and 13.  The five-member flight
crew will depart Houston Tuesday morning to arrive at Kennedy that
afternoon for the dress rehearsal.  Wednesday, Nov.  11, is Veteran's
Day.  Discovery's launch for the planned 4-day Department of Defense
STS-53 mission is presently scheduled for the first week in December.
Discovery is the shuttle fleet leader and this will be the 15th flight
for OV-103.  It will also be the 51st mission in the space shuttle
program.  In the ten years since reusable orbiters have been flying,
the number of orbital miles accumulated by the fleet has exceeded 120
million, which is nearly twice the round-trip distance to Mars at its
closest point to Earth.

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

Earlier this month NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin announced the
details for a series of town meetings across the U.S. which are
intended to give Americans an opportunity to get personally involved in
the future of the U.S. civil space program.  This coming Monday, Nov.
9, the citizens of North Carolina's fabled Research Triangle area will
have their opportunity to tell NASA what they think as the first Town
Meeting opens at  2:00 pm EST in the Jane S. McKimmon Center on the
North Carolina State University campus in Raleigh.  The open meeting
session will last until  6:30 pm and will be televised live on NASA
Select television.  The dates and location of the other scheduled
meetings are:  Nov. 17 in the Lincoln Theater on the campus of the
University of Hartford; Nov. 20 in the Indiana University-Purdue
University Place Conference Center in Indianapolis; Dec.  3 in the Ramo
Auditorium on the campus of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena; Dec. 11 in Theatre 1 on the Tampa campus of the University of
South Florida; Dec. 15 in the Student Union Building auditorium on the
main Seattle campus of the University of Washington; and at a
to-be-determined location and date in Denver early in 1993.

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

Computer scientists at the Lewis Research Center have assembled what
they are calling the world's most powerful array of RISC workstations.
The center recently installed a networked set of 33 IBM RISC/6000
workstations, one of the most powerful personal workstations currently
available.  The combined power of the array makes it capable of
computations up to a billion floating point calculations a second.  The
system can be set up for both distributed processing and parallel
processing.  This is one of NASA's responses to the national
multi-agency High Performance Computing and Communications program and
will be used to explore the problems associated with designing aircraft
propulsion systems for supersonic aircraft.  One of the workstation
array's first challenges involves a complete simulation of the
supersonic airflow through a fanjet powerplant.  For this task, the
33-workstation system will be set up as a distributed array with
individual workstations computing the airflow through specific elements
of the engine.  This is the first step in a grander challenge to
completely simulate the supersonic performance of an aircraft in flight -
in this case in computer flight.

  
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, November 5, 1992
Live   12:00 pm  NASA Today news program.
       12:15 pm  Aeronautics & Space Report.
       12:30 pm  Second Flight.
        1:00 pm  Journey through the Solar System.
        1:30 pm  Portrait of Earth.
        2:00 pm  Starfinder program #3.
        2:15 pm  Beyond the Clouds.
        2:30 pm  Life in the Universe.
        3:00 pm  Total Quality Management program #63 from 
                the University of New Mexico series.
        4:00 pm  8:00 pm & 12:00 midnight - 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