Oct 19 1978
From The Space Library
NASA reported its scientists and engineers were continuing attempts to revive SEASAT, the ocean-monitoring satellite that had suddenly gone mute before an orbital pass over the Santiago, Chile, tracking station [see Oct. 11]. Gene Giberson, SEASAT project manager at JPL, said that engineers there and at GSFC were assembling and analyzing tracking-station data from the spacecraft to determine possible cause of data interruption. NASA engineers would then work backward to reconstruct a "failure model" matching the data received just before and up to the instant the spacecraft ceased transmitting. If such a match could be made, the next step would be to find an alternate method of reestablishing contact with the spacecraft. The steps could take up to 2wk.
SEASAT had not had full benefit of its solar panels because they had received full sun during only half the spacecraft's orbits. In December, when the spacecraft would be in full sun during 100% of its earth orbits, its batteries might be charged enough to overcome a problem caused by insufficient electrical power. (NASA Release 78-159; JPL Universe, Oct 13/78, 1)
NASA Deputy Administrator Dr. Alan Lovelace announced the convening of a review board to determine the cause of the SEASAT failure [see Oct. 11], Lovelace named Dr. Bruce Lundin, recently retired director of LeRC, to head the review board, with other members to be named short- 1y. In 1973, Dr. Lundin had chaired the board that had investigated failure of Skylab 1 's solar panels to deploy in orbit. (NASA Release 78-160)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
