Feb 5 2002
From The Space Library
NASA’s KSC launched the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) on a Pegasus XL rocket from a Lockheed L-1011 aircraft. The purpose of HESSI’s two-year mission was to analyze particle acceleration and explosive energy released in solar flares, using imaging and spectroscopic instruments. Solar flares can release in a few minutes, or even just a few seconds, an amount of energy nearly equal to that released by the explosion of 1 billion megatons (907 trillion tonnes or 907 quintillion kilograms) of TNT, disrupting communications satellites and power grids. Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley, which would manage the US$85 million mission, had designed the 645-pound (290-kilogram) probe. (Houston Chronicle, “New NASA Probe To Analyze High-Energy Flares from Sun,” 5 February 2002; Puttkamer, “Space Flight 2002.”)
The Office of Space Flight at NASA Headquarters decided that Palmdale Manufacturing Facility in California would no longer perform major modifications to Space Shuttle orbiters. Instead, NASA’s KSC, already responsible for preparing the Shuttles for launching, would also provide the modifications. The Palmdale facility had served as the manufacturing site for all orbiters since the Space Shuttle program’s inception, as well as providing periodic maintenance and safety upgrades. Based on cost and risk assessments, the Office of Space Flight had determined that maintaining two modification facilities for four Shuttle orbiters was no longer financially feasible, and that performing such work at KSC would minimize associated costs and risks. The change was part of NASA’s effort to absorb President George W. Bush’s proposed budget cuts. Because it overhauled one of the four Shuttle orbiters every two to three years, NASA estimated that transferring this work to KSC would save approximately US$30 million per overhaul. (NASA, “Kennedy Space Center To Perform Shuttle Modifications,” news release 02-22, 5 February 2002; Mark Carreau, “NASA To Overhaul Shuttles in Florida,” Houston Chronicle, 6 February 2002.)
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