Aug 27 1976
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
NASA's Scientific and Technical Information Office announced publication of the first formal report on early scientific results from the Viking mission to Mars: an 80-p book, "Viking 1 Early Results." The book, a concise description of the Viking mission, its scientific experiments, and its objectives, told the story of the Viking 1 lander's first 25 days of operation on the surface of Mars and gave "a preliminary and tentative account of early conclusions." The book also contained 50 photographs of Mars taken from the surface and from orbit. (NASA Release 76-151)
A Spacelab simulation mission known as ASSESS 11 would be flown jointly next spring by NASA and the European Space Agency, and the payload specialists for the 4-engine jet mission would be named shortly, NASA announced. ASSESS was the acronym for airborne science Spacelab experiment-systems simulation. Carlos C. Hagood, NASA mission manager for Spacelab 2 and ASSESS, said two U.S. candidates would be named as prime payload specialists, with a third as backup; ESA would also select prime and backup specialists. Launch date of the 10-day mission had been set for 15 May 1977. The mission would be flown in the Galileo II, a Convair 990 operated by Ames Research Center, one of several ARC flying laboratories supporting research activities internationally. The aircraft would fly 6.5 hr each day, and the payload specialists would remain in the plane and work another 6 hr on the ground; their off-duty time would be spent in a van containing living quarters connected to the aircraft.
ASSESS was developed to involve individual principal investigators (PI) in defining and operating the scientific payload; to study the investigator working-group (IWG) concept, providing PIs a means of full and direct visibility into mission management and a direct channel for making recommendations; to evaluate the concept of PI selection of payload specialists; and to validate a concept for training and cross-training PI-selected payload specialists. MSFC was lead center for the ASSESS II mission. Dr. Anthony C. DeLoach was MSFC mission scientist; ESA mission scientist was Dr. John Beckman of the European Space Research and Technology Center at Noordwijk, The Netherlands. ESA mission manager was Johannes de Waard, based in Porz-Wahn, West Germany. NASA candidates for payload specialist would be selected by NASA members of the investigator working group, and European candidates by the ESA members; the selections would be recommended to the ASSESS program manager, Bernard T. Nolan of NASA Hq Office of Applications. (MSFC Release 76-158)
A Soviet-American symposium of oceanography experts in the Black Sea town of Yalta ended as scientists agreed on a 2-yr program of joint effort in the Atlantic aimed at compiling a theoretical model of the ocean. The model would aid in more accurate weather forecasting, in predicting climate fluctuations several yr in advance, and in combating environmental pollution. Cooperating in the work would be 10 Soviet and American vessels, earth satellites, and meteorological ground stations. (FBIS, Tass in English, 27 Aug 76)
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