From: yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Daily News for 07/22/92 (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 22:08:22 GMT

	Daily                News
Wednesday, July 22, 1992  24-hour audio service at 202/755-1788

 % Geotail preparations near completion, launch set for 10:26 am EDT, Friday;
 % Geotail Delta II launcher to inaugurate new feature P secondary payload;
 % Atlantis continues on schedule, STS-46 mission set to launch next Friday;
 % NASA and NIH sign joint agreement to enhance biomedical research;
 % Marshall Freedom mockup to make Oshkosh and Chicago appearances;
 % Administrator Goldin to appear at Oshkosh Air Show, will hold briefing;
 % NASA-Aerospace industry education program coordination moves forward;
 % Astronaut Hilmers to retire, will pursue new career as medical doctor.

Activities associated with the launch of the Geotail spacecraft are
nearing completion in preparation for Friday's launch at 10:26 am EDT
aboard a Delta II rocket from Launch Pad 17-A at the Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station.  Tomorrow, at 1:00 pm EDT, NASA and Japanese Space
Agency project managers and scientists will hold a pre-launch briefing
on the mission at the Kenendy 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.  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 mission
namesake P the Earth's geomagnetic tail.

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.

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

And, 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.  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 and National Institutes of Health officials yesterday signed an
agreement which will enhance each agency's biomedical research
capabilities.  The agreement, signed by NASA Administrator Daniel
Goldin and NIH Director Bernadine Healy, is expected to stimulate new
opportunities in the biomedical and behavioral research communities.
The agreement calls for joint management and funding of focused,
university-based research that can address health and research elements
of the human neurovestibular and musculoskeletal systems.  Under terms
of the agreement, NASA may grant supplements to exhisting NIH-funded
centers, the two agencies jointly will sponsor workshops and symposia
on specific topics, and opportunities for space-flight experiments will
be expanded.  The participants expect that research performed under
this agreement will help provide an understanding of how the bone,
muscle, vestibular and sensory motor systems function in space crews,
and how that knowledge can lead to an understanding of the potential
diseases or dysfunctions that can strike these systems.  Ultimately,
the research is expected to lead to a better understanding of how to
counter the effects of debilitating diseases of these systems for
Earth-bound patients.

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

Education specialists at Marshall Space Flight Center last week hosted
briefings for 26 Tennessee teachers who form part of the statewide
Tennessee Space Week coordination team.  The Tennessee Space Week
activities take place in February.

Marshall Center education staff also report they have scheduled the
Center's two-trailer Space Station Freedom exhibit to be displayed by
the Adler Planetarium, Chicago, from August 8 through 22.  The display,
which lets visitors walk through high-fidelity mockups of the U.S.
habitable and laboratory modules, will be on display at the Oshkosh Air
Show from July 31 through August 6, when it will be moved to Chicago.

NASA Administrator Goldin announced yesterday he will give several
presentations at the Oshkosh show, the first time ever a NASA chief has
appeared at the Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-In.
Administrator Goldin will hold a press briefing at 3:00 pm on August 1
at the air show and will also host a special presentation honoring the
Langley Research Center's 75th anniversary.

This year's NASA exhibit at Oshkosh will highlight the National
AeroSpace Plane development with a 50-foot-long model of the hypersonic
vehicle at the entrance of the NASA Pavilion.  Inside the NASA tent,
NASP enabling technologies will be displayed and visitors will be led
through an exhibit which shows how these technologies will come
together to allow development of the NASP.

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

Stennis Space Center education and visitor staff report they hosted 752
students in education activities at the Center's visitor facility last
week.  The center's education staff, with help from the Stennis
operations staff, also presented a program given to the National
Science Foundation's Young Scholars of America on environmental
issues.

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

NASA Administrator Goldin yesterday announced that NASA and 25
aerospace contractors have taken a major first step in efforts to
coordinate the aerospace industries education activities.  This first
step involved a survey of over 600 education-related programs and
activities conducted by NASA and the 26 firms.  That survey resulted in
the publication of a report that assessed how the various individual
programs supported the national education goals established by the
President and the nation's governors.  The next step in this process
will be to coordinate programs and leverage resources from the
aerospace industry group and apply that effort to the National
Education Goals.  As a major element of the aerospace industry
education program, nearly one-third of all the programs are
specifically geared towards enhancing science and technical education
opportunities for women, minorities and individuals with disabilities.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Four-time shuttle astronaut David Hilmers has announced his resignation
from NASA's astronaut corps and his retirement from the U.S. Marine
Corps on November 1 to pursue a new career in medicine.  Hilmers, who
always served as a mission specialist on the shuttle flights, will
attend Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.  Hilmers said "I feel that
I have been assigned to a new mission in the field of medicine and my
hope is that my service to others would someday approach the support I
have enjoyed at NASA."

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, July 22, 1992
        8:00 am  through 4:00 pm, validation testing of ground stations for
 	         the STS-46 mission.
Thursday, July 23, 1992
Live   12:00 pm  NASA Today news program.
       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.
  
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.