April 1985

From The Space Library

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Current revision

NASA announced it had scheduled for launch on April 12 from KSC the remanifested Space Shuttle 51-D mission with landing on KSC's Space Shuttle runway after the five-day 78-orbit flight.

NASA originally scheduled mission 51-D for March 1 for deployment of NASA's Long Duration Exposure Facility, but cancelled the 51-E Challenger mission and revised the 51-D cargo to include LEASAT-3 and the Canadian communications satellite ANIK C-1. Other payloads were the continuous-flow electrophoresis system and the American echocardiograph experiment [see Apr. 12], two middeck student experiments, and two Getaway Special canisters. (NASA Release 85-47)

NASA announced that Space Shuttle flight 51-B/Spacelab 3, an ESA-developed Spacelab carrying 15 experiments [see Spacelab, Apr. 17], was scheduled for launch April 29 from KSC. The mission's main objective was to provide a high-quality microgravity environment for materials processing and fluid experiments.

For the second time in U.S. space history, crew members would perform scientific investigations continuously. Two scientists who developed Space-lab 3 experiments, payload specialists Dr. Lodewijk van den Berg, a materials scientist from EG&G Energy Management Corp., and Dr. Taylor Wang, a fluid physicist from JPL, would conduct onboard research during the mission.

Mission specialist Dr. Don Lind, a high-energy astrophysicist, and Drs. Norman Thagard and William Thornton (both medical doctors making their second Space Shuttle flight) would also do scientific research.

The payload operations control center (POCC) at Johnson Space Center would manage all Spacelab 3 operations. Members of the Marshall Space Flight Center mission management team and the investigator teams that developed Spacelab 3 experiments would monitor, direct, and control experiment operations from the ground control center. The mission control center in the same building as POCC would control the orbiter and basic Spacelab systems. (NASA Release 85-60) During April: NASA announced it awarded to Howard University's School of Engineering Large Space Structure Institute (LSSI), Washington, D.C., an ongoing grant expected to total $1.9 million to develop theoretical knowledge supporting the design and construction of very large space systems. NASA expected the knowledge to make a significant contribution to the establishment of large space stations and space settlements.

The LSSI research project would help demonstrate the practical benefits of U.S. space capabilities, including construction of a solar power satellite that would convert the sun's energy into electricity for transmission back to earth and construction of large platforms that would allow scientists to observe the earth for improved understanding of the weather and the ground water table.

The LSSI team would consist of Dr. Taft Broome, chief project investigator and chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering, and other Howard University faculty members; and one faculty member each from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Graduate students from the latter institutions would also participate.

NASA was primarily interested in LSSI doing the concept development and the research and demonstration analysis. Once Broome and his team provided the agency with the needed data, NASA could turn the project over to private industry for implementation. (NASA Activities, Apr 85, 8)

GEOPHYSICS

In response to a request from the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory to acquire more information on how to predict ocean wave behavior, the Wallops Flight Facility's P-3 aircraft participated October 1984 in NASA's SEASAT Imaging Radar B (SIR-B) experiment to monitor ocean waves while, 140 miles above it, the Space Shuttle Challenger produced images of the same waves with its radar.

Scientists knew what caused waves to swell, but found it difficult to predict exactly how they would behave. Researchers hoped they might be able to predict through the use of satellite data the occurrence of dangerous waves before they caused serious damage to ships and coastal towns.

Analysis of previous data from the SIR had indicated that a synthetic aperture radar could observe ocean waves from space, but the lack of information on the actual directional wave spectrum on the ocean at the time of the SIR observations made it difficult to obtain an accurate assessment of the radar's performance.

During Challenger's eight-day flight, the P-3 under flew the spacecraft for five nights off the coast of Chile to obtain sea surface observations. Each night the aircraft flew along several hundred kilometers of the Space Shuttle's imaging radar taking sea-surface observations with its complement of remote sensing instruments. The P-3's airborne oceanographic lidar provided laser elevation profiles of the wave field and the radars (surface contour radar, radar ocean wave spectrometer, and advanced applications flight experiment altimeter) measured significant wave height and provided information on the directional wave spectrum.

Because state of the sea varied over the series of flights from low seas to waves with 6-m height and 400-m wavelengths, the data sets collected should become classic and provide a basis for the quantitative evaluation of synthetic aperture radars in space. (Inside Wallops, Apr 85, 1)

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