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NASA announced selection of 222 scientists representing the U.S. and 14 other countries to participate in the first [[Spacelab]] flight scheduled for 1980. More than 2 000 candidates had responded to invitations to participate in the joint NASA/[[ESA]] mission. NASA chose 86 of the scientists, 81 from the U.S. and others from India, Japan, Canada, France, and Belgium. [[ESA]] had selected 136 from 10 other [[ESA]]-member states plus Austria and Norway.

Prime objective of the first [[Spacelab]] flight would be to verify systems and subsystems performance and to measure the environment around the Shuttle; secondary objective would be the scientific, applications, and technology data that would demonstrate [[Spacelab]]'s ability to perform space research. First-flight emphasis would be on stratosphere and upper-atmosphere research, with other experiments in plasma physics, biology, botany, medicine, astronomy, solar physics, and earth observations, plus areas such as thermodynamics, materials processing, and lubrication.

Manager of NASA's [[Spacelab 1]] payload would be the Solar Terrestrial Division of the Hq Office of Space Science; manager of [[ESA]]'s payload would be its office of [[Spacelab]] Payload Integration and Coordination in Europe (SPICE) at Porz-Wahn in West Germany. (NASA Release 77-26 [[MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER|MSFC]] Release 77-27)

NASA announced it had developed a new system with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to monitor the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Mo., to the Gulf of Mexico this spring, providing information to the Corps on the vast water resources of the river valley, including the Atchafalaya River basin in La.

Using off-the-shelf space technology, the system-called [[Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite]] (GOES) Data-Acquisition System-would take vital measurements using data transmitters at strategic locations along the river and its tributaries, and would relay information on river or reservoir water level, rainfall, and water quality through the GOES satellite to a central ground station. There, Corps workers would process, store, and display the data on a board that would give water-control managers real-time data on the river's status. NASA had set up the system at the request of the Lower Miss. Valley Div. of the Corps, to permit quicker response to flood situations and levee reinforcement calls than in the past. The automated system would start with 80 stations, 20 now operating. (NASA Release 77-25)

Launch preparations had begun for the 2-spacecraft mission to outer planets Jupiter and Saturn scheduled for late summer 1977, KSC announced. The center described them as "almost a replay" of the Mars [[Viking spacecraft|Viking]] launches in 1975.

Launch date for the first Mariner Jupiter/Saturn (MJS) at complex 41 would be Aug. 20, with the second scheduled 10 days later. Preparation for two major launches within a 10-day timeframe had required "the choreography of an intricate ballet," the center said. Checkout of the [[Titan-Centaur]] rockets 6 and 7 was in progress; operations personnel expected arrival Apr. 11 of a pathfinder spacecraft to be used for pad tests, along with 2 flight craft expected Apr. 25 and May 23. The MJS spacecraft would weigh 3 times more than the [[Pioneer 10]] and 11 that reached Saturn in 1973 and 1974, respectively, and would carry additional instrumentation such as narrow- and high-resolution wide-angle TV cameras, cosmic-ray detectors, and infrared spectrometers and radiometers to study the outer planets and satellites.

John Noble Wilford reported in the NYT that the new vehicles would have a new name-either Voyager or Discovery-fitting the new design for outer planet environments characterized by pale sunlight and great radio distances. The new craft looked like "a giant round ear," Wilford said, consisting of a dish antenna with struts and booms resembling spider legs. The powerful lightweight radio-transmitter tubes that had been the major problem in building the spacecraft had arrived from the contractor a year behind schedule, reducing the time for "life tests" of their durability and performance.

Each of the spacecraft would also carry a 3-computer system to handle failures during flight, in view of the 2.5hr required for round-trip radio signals between earth and Saturn. Trajectories chosen should provide data on particles and magnetic currents (magnetosphere) around Jupiter and Saturn, and if possible Uranus; on the atmospheres of those planets, believed to have gaseous rather than solid surfaces; and on the surfaces of any solid moons of the outer planets. The Uranus encounter would occur in Jan. 1986, nearly 8.5yr after launch from earth. (KSC Release 65-77; NYT, Feb 22/77, 15)

*[[January 1977|January]]
*[[February 1977|February]]
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*[[March 1977|March]]