Aug 18 1993
From The Space Library
Officials at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico announced that the Delta Clipper Experimental rocket had successfully completed its first test flight, boosting backers' hopes that the single-stage design would be cheaper and more reliable than current space launch rockets. During the test flight, which lasted only about a minute, the rocket hovered briefly, flew about 350 feet to one side, and then touched down vertically on a landing pad. It was the first time a spacecraft had landed vertically on Earth. A second test flight was tentatively set for Aug. 27. In that test, the rocket was scheduled to go up about 650 feet. (AP, Aug 18/93; WSJ, Aug 19/93; H Chron, Aug 19/93; H Post, Aug 19/93; W Times, Aug 21/93; Time, Aug 30/93)
NASA began replacing Space Shuttle Discovery's main engines in preparation for another launch attempt next month. The third countdown for Discovery ended on August 12 with an engine shutdown three seconds before launch. Engineers traced the problem to a sensor that was supposed to monitor the flow of fuel in Main Engine No. 2. (AP, Aug 18/93)
Late this month, the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft was scheduled to visit a big chunk of rock named Ida, only the second asteroid to be explored up close. Galileo, launched from a Space Shuttle in 1989, was scheduled to be within 1,500 miles of Ida in late August, on its way to its 1995 rendezvous with Jupiter. Galileo made the world's first asteroid encounter-with Gaspra-in October 1991.
The mission was successfully carried out on August 28, when Galileo photographed the asteroid from a distance of 1,500 miles. The resulting mosaic of five photographs shows a narrow object 32 miles long, riddled with pock-marks. (NASA Release 93-149; AP, Aug 18/93; B Sun, Aug 19/93; NY Times, Aug 22/93, Sept 28/93)
Several articles in the media discussed the planet Mars. An article in the Christian Science Monitor discussed Mars exploration, noting that the arrival of the Mars Observer spacecraft on Mars was just the beginning of a new saga of planetary exploration. U.S. News and World Report, in a cover story on Mars, suggested that exploration of the red planet would usher in a new space age; the article mentioned the upcoming missions to Mars, for example the NASA Mars Observer spacecraft, and then went on to identify key questions about Mars that explorations hoped to resolve. These questions concerned whether or not Mars has water, what the weather is like, and what gave Mars its shape. The article also discussed where scientists are headed in their explorations of this planet. (CSM, Aug 18/93; U.S. News and World Report, Aug 23/93)
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