From: yee@atlas.arc.nasa.gov (Peter Yee)
Subject: NASA Daily News for 12/14/92 (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: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:26:33 GMT

Daily                 News
Monday, December 14, 1992  Two Independence Square, 
Washington, D.C.  Audio service: 202/358-3014

 % Launch dress rehearsal starts tomorrow at Kennedy for STS-54;
 % Stennis and Marshall centers continue with busy educational schedule;
 % Students and teachers continue to access Spacelink in growing numbers;
 % Hubble Space Telescope astronomers to discuss proto-planets Wednesday;
 % Next NASA Town Meeting opens in Seattle on Wednesday, at 4:00 pm EST;
 % Galileo team to present post-Earth encounter briefing on Tuesday, Dec. 22.

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

Preparations for Endeavour's STS-54 mission continue on schedule at
Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B.  Activity today includes the
end-to-end test of the Inertial Upper Stage-Tracking and Data Relay
Satellite-F system.  Late this morning, the five-member crew of
commander John Casper, pilot Donald McMonagle, and mission specialists
Gregory Harbaugh, Susan Helms and Mario Runco, will arrive at Kennedy
from Houston for tomorrow's Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test.  The
test will culminate in a simulated launch at 11:00 am EST on Wednesday,
December 16.  The Kennedy launch management review for the mission will
be conducted the next day, Thursday, Dec. 17.  The Office of Space
Flight formal Flight Readiness Review will be conducted next Tuesday,
Dec. 22.  The mission is presently scheduled for launch the second week
in January.  In addition to deploying the TDRS, the crew will also
activate and operate the Diffuse X-ray Spectrometer instrument, which
will be used to observe galactic X-ray sources.  The mission is
scheduled as a six-day mission and will be Endeavour's third flight.
All the crewmembers except Susan Helms will be making their second
flight.  This will be Helms' first flight.

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

Public affairs officials at Stennis Space Center report nearly 1,500
visitors toured the center last week, 75 of whom were escorted to the
A-2 test stand to witness an engine test firing.  The center also
conducted programs and tours for 288 youngsters and students from
nearby Mississippi and Louisiana.

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

Education specialists at the Marshall Space Flight Center report they
conducted 70 presentations with their Spacemobile lecturers at 28
schools for a student-reach total of more than 10,000.  During the same
period, the Center's educational staff conducted 28 teacher workshops
for nearly 300 teachers.  These two groups, students and teachers,
continue to fuel the growing user logs of the Center's computer-based
space and technology databaseP Spacelink.  The service, which is
accessible through dial-up phones or through the national Internet
system, logged over 24,000 calls for November.  Student registration
for the system continues to grow.  User breakdown shows 35 percent of
the users registering as students and an additional 21 percent
registering as teachers.  The remaining 44 percent users are comprised
of a variety of individuals including journalists.

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

Hubble Space Telescope astronomers will present more new findings, this
time concerning proto-planets, at a Space Astronomy Update program on
Wednesday, Dec. 16, at 1:00 pm.  The program will be shown live on NASA
Select television.  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next NASA Town Meeting will occur this Wednesday, at 4:00 pm EST,
in Seattle, Washington, at the Student Union Building on the campus of
the University of Washington.

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

Galileo project managers and scientists will present the first look
results of the spacecraft's Dec. 8 near- encounter with the Earth and
its high-resolution reconnaissance of the Moon's polar regions on
Tuesday, Dec. 22, in a presentation from the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory.  The spacecraft trajectory past the Earth enabled it to
photograph the Earth and Moon in sequential, receding, views which JPL
expects to make into an Earth-Moon rotation computer-reconstructed
video.

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

  
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.

Monday, December 14, 1992
Live   12:00 pm  NASA Today news program.
       12:15 pm  Aeronautics & Space Report.
       12:30 pm  A Dive into Space.
Live    1:00 pm  STS-52 post-mission review with mission pilot Michael Baker
                 and mission specialist Charles Lacy Veach.
        1:30 pm  Safe Computing.
        2:00 pm  Starfinder program #26.
        2:30 pm  Setting the Stage for the Future.
        3:00 pm  Total Quality Management program #15 from 
                 the University of New Mexico series.
     at 4:00 and 8:00 pm and 12:00 midnight the broadcast schedule of the day
                 repeats.

Wednesday, December 16, 1992
Live     1:00 pm  Astronomy Update series on Hubble Space Telescope images of
                  proto-planets.
Live     4:00 pm  NASA Town Meeting from Seattle, Washington.

Friday, December 18, 1992
Live      2:00 pm  Total Quality Management Colloquium from NASA Headquarters.

Tuesday, December 22, 1992
Live       1:00 pm  Galileo-Earth 2/Moon flyby encounter post-encounter science
                    press briefing from Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

  
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, 202/358-3014 or CREDMOND on NASAmail.  NASA Select TV is
carried on GE Satcom F2R, tr 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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