Mar 11 1993
From The Space Library
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin announced a number of organizational changes in the Agency. He named John R. Dailey to be acting Deputy Administrator and said that Dr. Joseph Shea, recently named as Assistant Deputy Administrator for Space Station Analysis, would have over-sight over all Space Station related development activities.
Goldin also reorganized the Agency's science divisions: Harry C. Holloway, deputy dean of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, was scheduled to become NASA Associate Administrator of the new Life and Microgravity Science office. Assisting him was to be Bonnie J. Dunbar, a NASA astronaut, who has a doctorate in biomedical engineering. Others named included Deidra A. Lee, appointed Associate Administrator for Procurement. (NASA Release 93-044; W Post, Mar 15/93; Space News, March 16-21)
The first flight of NASA's Small Expendable-tether Deployer System (SEDS) was scheduled to be launched aboard a U.S. Air Force Delta 2 rock-et from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, no earlier than March 18. The SEDS tether system would be a secondary payload on the Delta 2 launch vehicle. (NASA Advisory, Mar 11/93)
NASA announced that the Galileo spacecraft's main antenna remained jammed following an increase in the spacecraft's spin rate, a maneuver that was executed as a test for a future mission but also had a possibility of releasing the stuck antenna. NASA gave up any real hope of fixing the problem in January after hitting the stuck antenna dish 13,320 times with motors that were designed to open the device.
The jammed antenna was expected to hamper the ship's $1.4 billion mission to Jupiter because the spacecraft would have to use a much smaller antenna dish to transmit data. NASA said it expected to accomplish 70 percent of the mission's scientific goals. (AP, Mar 11/93)
Officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, announced that an SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft, once used as a spy plane, took off this week on its maiden science flight. The plane was equipped with an ultra-violet camera to study stars and comets.
The plane, one of six planes decommissioned by the Air Force two years ago and turned over to NASA, was operated by NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility and was expected to be flown an average of once a month for the rest of the year. (NASA Release 93-071; RTw, Mar 11/93; AP, Mar 22/93; Antelope Valley Press, Mar 13/93)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
