Jun 17 1985
From The Space Library
NASA announced that Loren Shriver, pilot of Space Shuttle mission 51-C, would command mission 61-I scheduled for launch from KSC no earlier than July 15,1986. The pilot would be Bryan O'Connor, also scheduled to fly as pilot on mission 61-B in November 1985. Mission specialists would be William Fisher, also scheduled as a mission specialist on 51-I in August 1985; Mark Lee, making his initial flight; and Sally Ride, who flew June 1983 on STS-7 as the first U.S. woman in space and then again October 1984 on 41-G. (JSC Release 85-027)
NASA announced it appointed Dr. Raymond Colladay associate administrator for aeronautics and space technology to be responsible for the overall management of the agency's aeronautics, space technology, and terrestrial energy programs including the institutional management of Ames Research Center (ARC), Langley Research Center (LaRC), and Lewis Research Center (LeRC). On April 18, 1982, NASA had named Colladay deputy associate administrator for the office of aeronautics and space technology; since April 17, 1985, he had served as acting associate administrator for that office.
Colladay began his career with LeRC in 1969, where he conducted analytical and experimental research in advanced high-temperature gas turbine engines. In 1974 NASA named him head of the turbo machinery fundamentals section and then temporarily assigned him to NASA Headquarters as acting chief of the propulsion branch in the aircraft energy efficiency office. Later he served as assistant manager of the LeRC efficiency engine project, deputy manager of the advanced propulsion systems office, manager for propulsion research and technology, and beginning in 1982 director of the research and technology division.
Colladay received B.S., MS., and Ph.D. degrees from Michigan State University, East Lansing. He authored or co-authored more than 20 NASA technical reports and journal articles relating to aeronautical and space research. (NASA Release 85-93)
NASA launched today from KSC Space Shuttle Discovery mission 51-G with a crew of seven, including Saudi Prince Sultan Salman Al-Saud and Patrick Baudry from France, for the 18th Space Shuttle flight, the Washington Post reported.
Earlier NASA had announced that mission 51-G would carry the automated directional solidification furnace (ADSF), Spartan 1, and the French echocardiograph (FEE) and posture (FPE) experiments. The objective of the ADSF was to provide a technology demonstration of the capability of the equipment to perform directional solidification of a magnetic composite material and to study the role of gravity-driven phenomena in such processing. The apparatus used for the directional solidification experiments was a specially designed furnace that melted a sample contained in a quartz tube one cm in diameter and 35 cm long. A furnace module (a heater with an integral quench block) moved along the four tubes in the experiment so that the manganese-bismuth alloy samples melted and solidified at a controlled rate. Electric resistance provided the heat; the quench block was liquid cooled. In that first flight, all four samples were the same alloy with only the solidification rate changed to allow a better understanding of that aspect of the process.
Spartan 1 was the first of a continuing series of low-cost free flyers designed to extend sounding rocket experiment capabilities. The Spartan 1 objective was to map the X-ray emissions from the Perseus Cluster, the nuclear region of the Milky Way galaxy, and the Scorpius X-2 (SCO-X-2). NASA had flown the Spartan 1 instrument several times on sounding rockets; the resulting information led to the need to obtain greater viewing time of the selected targets, thus permitting more detailed studies with greater resolutions. The crew would deploy the Spartan 1 from the Space Shuttle and retrieve it using the Canadian-built remote manipulator system. After deployment, the Spartan 1 would perform scientific observations for up to 40 hours via an onboard microcomputer controller that commanded all pointing sequences and satellite control. There was no command or telemetry link; when observing sequences were complete, the satellite "safed" all systems and placed itself in a stable attitude for retrieval.
The objectives of the FEE and FPE, a part of a cooperative program with France, was to obtain on-orbit data regarding the response of the cardiovascular and sensorimotor systems to weightlessness. French payload specialist Patrick Baudry would perform the experiments with participation from other crew members including the Arabsat payload specialist. The USSR's July 1982 Salyut mission had also flown the FEE system.
By 4:30 p.m. June 17, Discovery's crew had successfully deployed a Mexican satellite, Morelos-1, the first of two identical satellites, which headed for a position 22,300 miles above the equator west of the Galapagos Islands. It would beam TV programs to the most remote regions of Mexico. (NASA Flight Operation Report M-980-51-G [prelaunch] June 5/85, NASA MOR E-420-51-G-16 [prelaunch] June 7/85, MOR E-420-51-G-17 [prelaunch] June 5/85, MOR E-420-51-G-18 [prelaunch] June 13/85, MOR-989-51-G [postflight] July 3/85; W Post, June 18/85, A3)
The Air Transport Association reported that a record 343 million passengers and five million tons of cargo traveled without a single passenger fatality on 5.4 million scheduled jet airline flights in 1984. The industry achieved a 1984 net profit of more than $800 million, after losses for three consecutive years. The year's operating profit was a record $2.2 billion on revenues of $44 billion.
Other facts noted in the association's annual report included lengthened airline passenger trips (average passenger trip length was 887 miles, up from 785 miles 10 years previously), average passenger's cost was 12.1 cents per mile (compared with 11.6 cents in 1983 and 12.3 cents in 1981), airlines in 1984 accounted for more than 88% of the intercity public passenger traffic miles in the U.S. (up from 80% in 1974), and Chicago's O'Hare was the busiest passenger airport in the country, handling more than 45.7 million people (New York's JFK airport handled the most air cargo, 1.3 million tons). (ATA Release No. 38)
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