Jan 29 1987
From The Space Library
NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher and General Kabbaj, the Inspector of the Royal Moroccan Air Force, signed an agreement permitting the United States the use of Morocco's Ben Guerir Air Force Base for emergency landing of the Space Shuttle. The facility would be ready for such an emergency in February 1988. (NASA Release 87-6)
NASA announced that its numerical aerodynamic simulation (NAS) computer system would become operational in early March. Considered the most powerful computing system in the world, the NAS would help ensure continued national preeminence in aeronautical research. According to NASA, the research programs in which NAS would play a crucial role include work on the National Aero-Space Plane Program and a joint Department of Defense/NASA program in aerospace vehicle technologies and capabilities, including horizontal takeoff and landing. Development of new technology and validation program in this field might make possible a wide variety of operational aerospace vehicles, ranging from space launch vehicles to long-range at defense interceptors and hypersonic transports.
NASA emphasized that NAS is not a set of computer hardware, but an evolving capability. It is to be an array of 250 off-site scientists and engineers at 27 locations, accessing the system via satellite or high speed terrestrial lines. It is to be driven by the Cray 2 supercomputer, which has an enormous 256-million-word internal memory, 16 times larger than those of previous computers. (NASA Release 87-7)
China signed a contract with Teresat, Inc. of New York to launch its first satellite for an American fun. The contract called for a Teresat Westar-VIS satellite to be launched into orbit aboard a Chinese-made rocket in the first half of 1988. (LA Times, Jan 29/87).
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