Dec 6 1994
From The Space Library
After three years of testing by NASA's Langley, Virginia, research center, the airline industry, industry suppliers, and the Federal Aviation Administration, a new device was approved to alert pilots of wind shear danger. Called the Bendix RDR-4B, it was made by Allied Signal Inc. in Morristown, New Jersey and was being installed by various commercial air-lines. The device complements ground-based wind-shear detection systems, known as Terminal Doppler Weather Radars, being installed at 47 major U.S. airports. (W Times, Dec 6/94)
NASA announced that astronomers using its Hubble Space Telescope had obtained the clearest views yet of distant galaxies that existed when the universe was a fraction of its current age. Hubble findings suggested that elliptical galaxies developed quickly into their present shapes. However, spiral galaxies in large clusters evolved over a much longer period. (NASA Release 94-201; Reuters, Dec 6/94; NY Times, Dec 7/94; W Post, Dec 7/94; W Times, Dec 7/94; H Chron, Dec 7/94; USA Today, Dec 7/94; CSM, Dec 7/94; H Post, Dec 7/94; Newsweek, Dec 19/94)
NASA announced that it had selected eight projects that could lead to new private sector applications of space-based and airborne sensing technologies. Named Earth Observations Commercial Applications (EOCAP) '94, the projects represented the fourth cycle in a continuing program designed to increase use of NASA-developed technology for gathering and analyzing valuable data about Earth and ocean resources through remote satellite or air-craft observations. (NASA Release 94-203)
The $20 million docking ring, known as the Androgynous Peripheral Docking System, which would enable Space Shuttle Atlantis to dock with Russian Space Station Mir in 1995, arrived from Russia after it had been tested in Russia, in California, and in orbit. NASA managers expressed confidence in the ring although they could not read the Russian plaque on it. (0 Sen Star, Dec 7/94; Fla Today, Dec 7/94)
NASA scientists would like to send an unmanned spacecraft to look for ice inside craters on Mercury, the solar system's hottest planet with temperatures reaching 800 degrees at its equator. However, inside the craters at Mercury's poles the temperatures were 235 below zero and scientists conceived that life might exist. Robert M. Nelson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena discussed JPL's proposal for a mission to Mercury, named Hermes, which NASA was considering. The discussion occurred at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. (AP, Dec 6/94)
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