Nov 21 2000
From The Space Library
Two Earth-monitoring satellites launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket, successfully reaching orbit. NASA launched its Earth Observing I (EO-I) satellite, part of its New Millenium Program, to test several advanced technologies for possible use in future missions. NASA planned to fly the US$193 million craft within 2 miles (3 kilometers) of the Landsat 7 satellite to collect the same images, with the Landsat 7 images serving as the benchmark for the new imager aboard the EO-I. The second satellite-the multinational SAC-C satellite, a joint venture of NASA, Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, France, and Italy-carried 11 instruments for studying the Earth's surface, atmosphere, and magnetic field, including an instrument to observe the migration of the Franca whale.
NASA selected six teams of scientists to participate in the first new mission of its Origins Program. The teams would use the new Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), scheduled for launch in July 2002, to study the formation of galaxies, stars, and dust discs, under the following projects: "Galaxy Birth and Evolution," "Black Holes and Galaxies," "Unveiling Hidden Stars," "Inside the Milky Way," "From Gas to Stars," and "Planet Formation: When the Dust Settles." The teams, selected from 28 proposals submitted by astronomers located around the world, comprised the SIRTF Legacy Science Program.
NASA selected 41 proposals of the 109 scientists had submitted, to conduct research on Earth and in space using NASA's microgravity research facilities. NASA intended the researchers to use the facilities to "enhance understanding of physical, biological, and chemical processes associated with fundamental physics." NASA was funding the research with more than US$15 million in grants over a four-year period, under the sponsorship of its Office of Biological and Physical Research. Sixteen of the grants continued work already funded by NASA, and twenty-four were for new research efforts. Thirty-six grants funded ground-based research, and the remaining five funded flight-definition projects.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced its selection of the Idaho Engineering and Environmental Laboratory to produce plutonium-238, the most radioactive form of plutonium. NASA planned to use the isotope, which generates electricity to "keep things from freezing up," to fuel a spacecraft on a mission to Pluto planned for after 2020.
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