Dec 8 1992
From The Space Library
NASA's Galileo spacecraft flew by the Earth at 10:09 a. m. EST, completing a three-year gravity-assist program and setting course to reach Jupiter in December 1995. The spacecraft was programmed to measure the near-Earth environment and to observe Earth and the Moon during this flyby. (NASA Release 92-217; UPI, Dec 2/92, Dec 7/92, Dec 8/92; Dec 9/92; AP, Dec 1/92, Dec 8/92; NY Times, Dec 8/92; W Post, Dec 9/92; WP, Dec 9/92)
Veteran NASA astronauts Richard O. Covey and Kenneth Bowersox, along with ESA astronaut Claude Nicollier, were named to the crew for STS-61, the Hubble Space Shuttle Telescope servicing mission scheduled for late 1993. Covey was appointed the mission commander, and Bowersox was to be the pilot. Nicollier was named to be a mission specialist. Three other crew members previously named to the STS-61 mission were Payload Commander Story Musgrave, and Mission Specialists Tom Akers, Jeffrey A. Hoffman, and Kathryn D. Thornton. (NASA Release 92-218)
NASA officials used satellite photos to make a video showing how the ground moved along fault lines during California's strongest earthquake in decades on June 28. Shown at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco, California, the video showed how Mojave Desert faults moved during the magnitude-7.5 Landers earthquake. This was the first time fault motion has been observed by using images from space. Other NASA scientists presented evidence on the theory of plate tectonics. Extremely accurate laser, satellite, and other measuring devices have detected what appear to be tectonic movements as small as one-eighth of an inch a year. (WP, Dec 8/92; LA Times, Dec 9/92)
The U.S. Department of Energy and the Mayak Production Association of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy signed a contract by which the Energy Department would buy Russian-produced plutonium-238 for use as a power source in U.S. spacecraft. The contract provided for the United States to purchase up to 40 kilograms (88 pounds) over five years. The plutonium is not weapons-grade and is to be used by NASA to power unmanned space missions that are being planned. (WSJ, Dec 29/92; W Post, Dec 29/92)
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