May 14 1991
From The Space Library
The Magellan spacecraft temporarily lost contact with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, when its antenna was misdirected toward Earth. Contact was restored, and only 0.3 percent of the mission's scheduled surface mapping was lost. (C Trin, May 14/91)
The Baltimore Sun reported that Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Sam Durrance, who flew with Shuttle Columbia's Astro flight in December 1990, lobbied for an Astro-2 flight to continue use of the telescopes and other equipment that made significant scientific discoveries. Some NASA and other officials were giving the possibility serious consideration. (B Sun, May 14/91)
A feature article in the New York Times discussed the impact of space rockets on the ozone layer. Reportedly, NASA estimated that each Shuttle flight injected some 75 tons of chlorine into the stratosphere. Dr. Michael J. Prather, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute in New York City, calculated that the lifting of nine Shuttles and six Titan IVs every year would add 0.3 percent to stratospheric chlorine, which in turn would destroy much less than one percent of the ozone there. This made the Shuttle a large source of pollution but small by comparison to any other industry such as refrigeration or solvents. (NY Times, May 14/91)
The New York Times reported that although the weather satellite known as GOES-NEXT (from next generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) was flawed and would not gather all the data it was designed to collect, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration planned to launch it anyway because the existing main U.S. weather satellite, GOES-7, was nearing the end of its life. The GOES-NEXT program was more than three years behind schedule and was now scheduled for launch in October. (NYT, May 14/91)
NASA announced its launching of the NOAA-D environmental satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The satellite was to collect meteorological and environmental data and ultimately would replace NOAA-10, which was nearing the end of its life. (NASA Release N91-36; W Times, May 15/91; USA Today, May 15/91)
NASA announced it would test a structural component made of advanced carbon-carbon composite material as part of the X-30 National Aerospace Plane (NASP) program. The material took years to develop and was stronger and lighter than metal. (NASA Release 91-75)
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