Dec 8 1981
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(New page: MSFC said that the Spacelab 1 payload crew was in Japan for a week, practicing the use of instruments scheduled to fly on the first mission in 1983. A ...)
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MSFC said that the Spacelab 1 payload crew was in Japan for a week, practicing the use of instruments scheduled to fly on the first mission in 1983. A NASA-sponsored package, SEPAC (space experiments with particle accelerators), would study the interaction of Earth's magnetosphere with the upper atmosphere. Professor Tatsuzo Obayashi of the University of Tokyo would be the principal investigator.
Before leaving Japan December 15, the crew would be trained on the actual flight hardware at Japan's National Space Development Agency. The crew civilian scientists called payload specialists and two NASA mission-specialist astronauts-were Drs. Byron Lichtenberg and Michael Lampton of the United States, Dr. Ulf Merbold of West Germany, Dr. Wubbo Ockels of the Netherlands, and NASA mission specialists Drs. Owen Garriott and Robert Parker. Two payload specialists would actually fly on the mission with the mission specialists; the other two would support the mission on the ground. (MSFC Release 81-146)
NASA said that one of Japan's major newspapers, Asahi Shibmun, had signed an agreement to fly a "getaway special" experiment on the Shuttle, possibly in late 1982, using the weightlessness of space to make pure artificial snow crystals directly from a gaseous substance while the Shuttle was in orbit.
A Japanese physicist, the late Dr. Ukichiro Nakaya, had made the first artificial snow-crystal experiments in 1936. The Shuttle experiment, a first try at creating artificial snow in a weightless environment, would contribute significantly to crystallography, especially growth of semiconductor crystals or other items from a vapor source. The idea, suggested by two Japanese students, was chosen for 17,000 suggestions by the newspaper's readers.
To date NASA had accepted 321 getaway specials-privately funded experimental payloads-for flight on the Shuttle on a space-available basis, beginning with the fifth mission in 1982. (NASA Release 81-191)
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