Jan 4 1980
From The Space Library
NASA announced that proposals for establishing a space telescope institute in the United States were due March 3 at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).
The institute, at a sight to be chosen [see Nov 18 1979], would be a national facility for receiving and evaluating data from the space telescope and should be fully operational in the early 1980s. It would be responsible for selecting and supporting users of the telescope; science planning and scheduling; routine console operations; and data archiving, calibration, and analysis. The winning contractor would staff and operate a science support center at GSFC and would staff the institute with personnel and facilities needed to house and support principal investigators and general observers.
The space telescope itself, scheduled for launch in 1983 or 1984, would observe about 350 times the volume of space visible from ground-based observatories. The data it acquired would go through a tracking and data-relay satellite to a control center at GSFC, then to the science institute for processing and analysis. The telescope should remain in orbit until the end of the century, visited at 30-month intervals by astronauts from the Space Shuttle to perform maintenance and replace instrumentation. If needed, the Shuttle could return it to Earth at five-year intervals for major repair, which would take about 1 year, then could launch it again.
Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) would be project manager for the space telescope; GSFC would manage the on-board instrumentation and the science institute; the Headquarters Office of Space would have overall responsibility for the program. (NASA Release 80-1)
Today reported that Rockwell International, prime Space Shuttle contractor, had made "key management changes and major organizational realignments ... similar to ones made within the space agency recently." The paper said NASA now hoped to launch the Shuttle in September, two years behind schedule. (Today, Jan 4180, 12A)
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