Aug 8 1990
From The Space Library
Government officials said that the mirrors attached to the Nation's next generation of weather satellites used to reflect images from Earth's atmosphere into internal sensors would warp from the Sun's heat, according to recent tests. NASA formed a team of nine experts from Ford and ITT, makers of the spacecraft, to correct the problem in time to meet the 1992 launch date. A single Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite was in orbit at the time. Officials were worried that, if it failed, the Nation would have to rely on planes, radar units, and other satellites that were not capable of giving the comprehensive overview needed, for example, to follow storms. There were normally two satellites of this type in orbit, but one was destroyed in 1986 when a Delta rocket malfunctioned. Solutions for the GOES-NEXT flawed mirrors ranged from repairing them, which would cause a six-month delay, to re-manufacturing, and causing a delay of more than one year. (NY Times, Aug 8/90; W Post, Aug 9/90; W Times, Aug 9/90)
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