Jan 3 1991
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(New page: NASA announced that it recently signed an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) to cooperate in developing the Cassini space-craft to study Saturn. The [[Cassini spacecraf...)
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NASA announced that it recently signed an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) to cooperate in developing the Cassini space-craft to study Saturn. The Cassini spacecraft would consist of the Saturn Orbiter provided by NASA and the Huygens Probe System provided by ESA. It was scheduled for launch by NASA on a Titan IV/Centaur vehicle in April 1996. NASA would provide overall Cassini mission operations and ESA would support probe operations. The flight from launch to Saturn orbital insertion requires approximately seven years; once there, the mission baseline lifetime is four years. (NASA Release 91-1)
The findings of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite have caused astronomers to question part of the Big Bang theory, according to a report by Dr, Will Saunders of Oxford University and his colleagues in the journal Nature. The cold dark matter model cannot explain the giant superstructures and companion supervoids found in galactic surveys. These structures appear too vast to have formed since the Big Bang. (NY Times, Jan 3/91; W Post, Jan 6/91; I-A Times, Jan 4/91)
Orbital Sciences Corporation in Fairfax County, Virginia was issued its first license for commercial space launches. The Department of Transportation licensed three launches to be used for experiments on the impact of weightlessness on payloads for the Center for the Commercial Development of Space at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Orbital, which launched an experimental winged Pegasus rocket from a NASA B-52 bomber last year, was to use a different technology for the DOT-licensed flights. It would launch Prospector rockets developed by the company from a Cape Canaveral, Florida, launch pad refurbished by Orbital. The first launch was scheduled for March 1991, followed by launches in December 1991 and December 1992. (W Post, Jan 3/91)
NASA announced that in January 1991, it would conduct experiments from an orbiting satellite to test the possibility of creating an artificial aurora. The Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) was to release clouds of barium and lithium vapor in the Earth's magnetosphere, the region above the atmosphere.
The CRRES program is a joint NASA (through its Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama)-U.S. Air Force (Department of Defense Space Test Program) effort to study the Earth's ionosphere and magnetosphere and to monitor the effects of the space radiation environment on sophisticated electronics. Through the CRRES program's artificial cloud-release experiments, scientists seek to understand the processes that cause auroras by using artificial charged-particle clouds to induce them.
Seven releases were planned, three in which lithium would produce a red glow and four of barium, which would glow green and purple. The possible dates for the releases were January 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 24, and 25. Exact times for the releases, which were to occur over South America at altitudes between 3,000 and 21,000 miles, were to be announced. (NASA Release 91-2)
The Environmental Quality Permit Board for the State of Mississippi in Jackson approved an air emissions and waste water discharge plan of NASA, needed to test-fire rocket motors at the John C. Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis. Water quality certification remained to be granted. The Board had one opposing vote from the head of the Department of Wild Life because of NASA's plans to fill in 69 acres of wetlands and clear 150 to 200 acres. The official considered this plan contrary to the president's policy that there be no net loss of wetlands. (Poplarville Democrat, Jan 3/91)
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