Sep 3 1998
From The Space Library
The investigation board of engineers and officials from NASA and the European Space Agency released their final report, determining how controllers had lost communication with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite on 24 June. The board's findings, presented at a joint news conference held in Washington, DC, and Paris, concluded that no anomalies existed on the spacecraft; the loss of SOHO "was a direct result of operational errors, a failure to monitor the status of the spacecraft adequately, and the use of insufficiently tested rescue procedures." However, the board emphasized that no single cause or particular person was responsible for the incident.
NASA announced that Lunar Prospector's gamma-ray spectrometer had returned data about the Moon's elemental composition. Scientists had used the data to develop the first global maps delineating compositional variations of thorium, potassium, and iron ore over the lunar surface. The maps provided insights into how the Moon's crust had developed. Prospector's magnetometer and electron-reflectometer data indicated that the Moon contained magnetized rocks on its upper surface, which had created the two smallest known magnetospheres in the solar system. The craft's Doppler gravity experiment had enabled scientists to develop the "first precise gravity map of the entire lunar surface," showing seven previously unknown lava-filled craters, which cause gravitational anomalies. NASA also announced that Lunar Prospector had supplied additional evidence of water-ice deposits on both poles of the Moon.
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