Jul 15 1998
From The Space Library
NASA released "unusually detailed" images of Jupiter's moon Ganymede taken by the Galileo probe in June 1996 and June 1997. Although the images did not indicate the existence of any form of life, they showed that life had been possible in Ganymede's oceans billions of years ago. At that time, the moon had water, heat, and organic material, brought by comets from outer space. The images also revealed geological formations, including mountain-like ridges and a valley system of volcanoes. Early in the moon's history, the volcanoes had supplied water for Ganymede's oceans, which are now frozen.
NASA's Inventions and Contributions Board announced the winners of its 1998 Software of the Year Award. The first winner, Tempest, a breakthrough technology "originally developed to support the science experiments on the ISS," had "spawned new markets," and NASA predicted that the technology would continue to do so. NASA's Ames Research Center had designed the second winner, Center TRACON Automation System Software, a set of three software tools for managing air-traffic-control systems at major airports, to optimize flight operations. Analyzing and predicting aircraft paths, the software created visual representations of arriving traffic flow, providing controllers with "up-to-the-second advisories of information" for pilots, thus reducing time between landings to a minimum. The Federal Aviation Administration had chosen the software for immediate implementation at all major airports.
NASA officially opened its new communications terminal on Guam, to provide "global, full-time and real-time communications support for NASA's Space Network customers." The Guam ground station replaced the interim ground terminal in Canberra, Australia, established to provide continuous, full-time, real-time communications support for NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, after it had "suffered an on-board tape recorder failure in March 1992."
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