Feb 1 1982

From The Space Library

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Current revision

February 1-5: George Bush, U.S. vice president, unveiled at KSC the flight version of Spacelab, a reusable scientific-research facility designed to fly on the Shuttle.

At the ceremony, Mr. Bush called the Spacelab "an extraordinary engineering achievement. . .the largest cooperative space project ever." Noting that more than 2,000 persons, from 50 European firms and 10 member nations, helped to build it, he added: "If today can be considered Spacelab's birthday, then there are a great many proud parents celebrating. ..Let us continue to be partners," he concluded, "and let me take this opportunity to assure you that we intend to continue our international cooperative programs, just as President Reagan recently reconfirmed the commitment of the United States to a vigorous space program." The joint venture of NASA and ESA was a cylindrical module built to fit into the Shuttle cargo bay, where both astronaut mission specialists and civilian scientists (payload specialists) would work in a shirtsleeve environment, with a series of unpressurized pallets to support experiments requiring direct exposure, to space. The first Spacelab flight, planned for a seven-day Shuttle mission in September 1983, would carry out some 70 investigations in 5 different disciplines. About 50 firms in ESA's participating nations had supplied parts to ERNO, prime contractor in Bremen, West Germany, for assembly and integration. The program, which cost ESA about $1 billion, would provide NASA, at no charge, with one engineering model and one complete flight version of Spacelab with associated ground-support equipment and some computer soft-ware. NASA was buying, for about $300 million, a second flight-model Spacelab to be delivered in mid-1982. MSFC would manage the first mission with ESA and had been in charge of U.S. development of flight-hardware items, such as the transfer tunnel and other operating equipment. MSFC would manage the second and third (NASA-only) missions alone. (Ofc of VP anno, Feb 5/82; NASA Release 82-14; MSFC Release 82-15; ESA Info 6, Feb 2/82, Feb 3/82)

Dr. Stephen P. Synnott of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced evidence for the existence of four (possibly as many as six, new satellites of Saturn in data from Voyager 2's Saturn encounter. This brought the number of known Saturnian satellites in between 21 and 23; the two "possible" satellites had only one observation each, and their orbits were not yet confirm-ed. In 1979, Synnott, a member of the Voyager navigation team, had found two new satellites of Jupiter in images studied after the Voyager encounters.

Some of the new "moons" seemed to be influenced by the gravity of larger moons as well as by Saturn itself: while orbiting between the planet and its larger moons, they would move faster than the large ones because of the strong pull of Saturn's gravity. But, while closing from behind on the larger moons, the gravity of those bodies would pull them into orbit outside the larger moons, where Saturn's pull was weaker, and they would slow and drop back into inner orbit. Scientists called this type of track "horseshoe orbits." (JPL Release Feb 1/82; W Post, Feb 3/82, A-6)

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