Jan 12 1993
From The Space Library
NASA announced that it planned to use the eight Space Shuttle flights scheduled for 1993 for research relating to the building and operation of Space Station Freedom, scheduled to he launched in three years.
Endeavour, scheduled for its first 1993 launch in January, was to conduct extravehicular activities involving station assembly and maintenance; a 10-hour test shut-down of one of the Shuttle electricity-generating fuel cells in order to demonstrate the capability required to certify the Shuttle for long duration stays at the Freedom; and an experiment called the Application Specific Preprogrammed Experiment Culture System (ASPECS) designed as a cell growth and maintenance device to support cell biology research and improve existing bioreactor technology.
Columbia, a German-sponsored mission, the first Spacelab module flight of 1993, scheduled for launch in February, was scheduled to continue studies in materials and life sciences research. The Spacelab Discovery, scheduled for lift off in March, was to measure the long-term variability in the total energy radiated by the Sun and study its interaction with the Earth's atmosphere. An April Endeavour flight was to fly the first Spacelab middeck augmentation module and retrieve the European Retrievable Carrier deployed from Atlantis in August 1992. SPACEHAB also would carry a space station flight experiment called the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems Flight Experiment, containing two components of Freedom's environmental control system. A Discovery flight in July was scheduled to expose various materials to the space environment to help determine which materials would work best in future spacecraft design, including the space station. The Columbia, scheduled to be launched in August, was to focus on understanding how the human body reacts and adapts itself to the space flight environment.
A November Discovery flight, the second SPACEHAB flight of the year, was scheduled to carry the Wake Shield Facility (WSF), designed to be released from the payload bay to create an atomic oxygen wake as it circled the Earth. Discovery astronauts would conduct experiments to determine the effect the "space wake" had on them. The December flight of Endeavour was scheduled to be the first servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA Release 93-10)
NASA appointed Deidre A. Lee as acting Associate Administrator for Procurement. She replaced Don G. Bush, who announced his intention to resign in November 1992. Since September 1991, Lee has been serving as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Procurement. Prior to that she was the executive officer to NASA's acting Deputy Administrator. (NASA Release 93-11)
Russian scientists on the Mir spaceship were scheduled to begin an experiment that involved using a mirror to reflect sunlight down to Earth. In the experiment, a 65-foot-diameter disk of aluminum-coated plastic film would be unfurled in space. The experiment would test the possibility of illuminating areas on the Earth with light equivalent to that of several moons. Scientists agree on the need for environmental studies to access the possible effect of such a practice. (B Sun, Jan 12/93; NY Times, Jan 12/97; W limes, Feb 3/93; AP, Feb 3/93; USA Today, Feb 4/93; W Post, Feb 4/93; LA Times, Feb 4/93)
Researchers hoped that the lead coffins buried beneath the floor of the 17th-century Great Brick Chapel in St. Mary's City, Maryland, contained 300-yearold air. However, according to Joel Levine, the scientist who headed the team analyzing the air at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, the coffins appeared to contain modern air, as signaled by the presence of Chlorofluorocarbons, which were first manufactured in the 1940s. Scientists hoped to compare the chemistry of the old air with modern air in order to determine how much the atmosphere has been altered by industrial pollution and the burning of fossil fuels. Although disappointed that no "old air" was found in the coffins, Levine was pleased with the technology that had been developed to extract it. (B Sun, Jan 12/93; P Inq, Jan 13/93; AP Jan 12/93)
The military's plans to test a Russian Topaz 2 nuclear reactor in orbit were criticized by the governing council of the American Astronomical Society and some other scientists. Council members were concerned because experience with previous Russian reactors had shown that they emit radiations that "can significantly disrupt x-ray and gamma-ray astronomical observations." Society officials noted that they were not opposing the mission or the use of nuclear reactors in space; rather they were asking that the test be conducted at higher levels, which would presumably be safer.
Plans called for the Topaz 2 reactor to he put into an orbit 1,000 feet high; over the span of a year, the spacecraft housing the reactor would be lifted to 19,000 feet by an electric propulsion system powered by the reactor. The mission was projected to cost $150 million. To stay within this budget, the Pentagon would need to use the planned Delta rocket rather than a more expensive Atlas rocket. (NY Times, Jan 12/93)
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