Oct 7 1994
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
NASA ground controllers were to send final commands to the Magellan space probe on October 7 to send it crashing to its death in the atmosphere of Venus on October 11. The robot had been in a highly successful Venus orbit since 1990 but its solar panels were failing and its gyroscopes worn out. On October 12, NASA announced that Magellan was expected to bum up within two days. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, declared Magellan dead on October 12. However, Magellan lasted long enough to radio back telemetry showing how much rocket power would be required to offset the increasing atmospheric turbulence, which was useful data for future designers seeking to use the atmosphere of Mars for orbit purposes. (LA Times, Oct 6/94; AP, Oct 6/94; USA Today, Oct 7/94; C Trib, Oct 9/94; W Post, Oct 10/94; AV Wk, Oct 10/94; AP, Oct 11/94; Reuters, Oct 11/94; W Times, Oct 12/94; LA Times, Oct 12/94; CSM, Oct 12/94; NASA Release 94-170; Fla Today, Oct 12/94; Reuters, Oct 12/94; W Post, Oct 13/94; NY Times, Oct 13/94; SP News, Oct 17-23/94)
NASA announced that Russian cosmonauts on Mir had completed the first in a series of U.S. experiments using NASA's Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS). SAMS was activated October 4 to collect vibration data in preparation for future chemistry and physics experiments. (NASA Release 94-168)
A feature article described three women engineers who worked at the Kennedy Space Center and were among the 120 finalists being interviewed by NASA's astronaut selection board for assignment as astronaut candidates. (Fla Today, Oct 7/94)
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