December 1990
From The Space Library
NASA awarded contracts to Centennial Contractors, SPACEHAB, and Dyncorp. Centennial was given a one-year, $5 million con-tract for various minor constructions, modifications, and rehabilitation projects at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, SPACEHAB received a five-year, $184,236,000 contract for providing commercial mid-deck augmentation module services: physical and operational integration of the module and the experiments; power, cooling, data management; and crew training in six Space Shuttle flights at six-month intervals. Dyncorp procured a $30 million contract for technical services that included operation and maintenance of radar, telecommunications, and optical services. (NASA Release C90-gg; 90-157; W Times, Dec 4/90)
Colonel Robert C. Springer retired from NASA and the Marine Corps. He was both an astronaut and a mission specialist and planned to work for Boeing Aerospace. (NASA Release 90-159)
During 1990: The year saw both major scientific achievements and several disappointments. The Hubble Space Telescope was successfully deployed from Space Shuttle Discovery in April but was discovered to have a spherical aberration that prevented the most distant observations for which it was designed. However, it began unprecedented scientific work in spectroscopy, photometry, astronomy, and ultraviolet wavelength imaging not possible from the ground. The telescope also sent back impressive photographs from Orion's nebula and the giant Saturn storm by using computer image processing.
The Magellan spacecraft began detailed mapping of Venus in August, the European Space Agency's Ulysses spacecraft was launched in October by Space Shuttle Discovery to study the poles of the Sun, and the Galileo spacecraft made its first gravity-assisted pass of the Earth in December. Meanwhile, NASA Administrator Richard Truly launched an effort to collect the best ideas on how to return to the Moon and go to Mars.
Six successful Shuttle missions were flown, a stand down of five months because of hydrogen leaks notwithstanding. Two Department of Defense pay-loads, a SYNCOM IV communications satellite, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Ulysses spacecraft were deployed, and the Long Duration Exposure Facility satellite was retrieved. The Astro-1 astronomy mission was also successfully completed, though not to every scientist's satisfaction. (NASA Release, 90-160)
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