Aug 8 2001
From The Space Library
NASA launched the Genesis solar research spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Genesis would collect samples of solar wind to assist scientists in studies of the formation of Earth’s solar system. Scientists believed that the plasma in solar wind might contain material similar to or identical with the material that formed the solar system. The 633-kilogram (1,400-pound) spacecraft was equipped with four instruments: a wide-angle ion collector, a concentrated ion collector, an ion spectrometer, and an electron spectrometer. Donald S. Burnett of California Institute of Technology was Principal Investigator and Project Scientist for Genesis.( Spacewarn Bulletin, no. 574, 1 September 2001, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/spx574.html (accessed 7 November 2008); NASA JPL, “Genesis, Search for Origins: Why Study the Sun?” http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/gm2/science/solarwind.htm (accessed 7 November 2008).
NASA suspended indefinitely the launch of the climate-monitoring satellite Triana, which NASA had designed to provide imagery of entire hemispheres from nearly 1 million miles away in space. By contrast, weather satellites often remain in low Earth orbit and, therefore, are only able to provide images of continents. Triana was also called GoreCam or GoreSat, because former Vice President Gore had originated the project. Gore had conceived of the satellite in March 1998, choosing to name it in honor of Rodrigo de Triana, the sailor on Columbus’s ship who had first sighted land. NASA had planned to launch the US$120 million Earth-observation satellite by the end of 2001. However, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives had voted to eliminate the project’s funding from NASA’s fiscal year (FY) 2000 appropriation. A conference committee of the House and the Senate had later agreed to suspend funding for Triana and to delay its launch, so that the National Academy of Sciences could review the project’s merits. Although the National Academy of Sciences had strongly endorsed the project, NASA had decided to shelve the satellite project indefinitely, as part of its effort to prioritize scientific expenditures and concentrate its resources on projects such as the HST and the ISS. (Joel Achenbach, “For Gore Spacecraft, All Systems Aren’t Go; Earth Observation Satellite Shelved,” Washington Post, 8 August 2001.)
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