Mar 1 2002
From The Space Library
Space Shuttle Columbia launched from NASA’s KSC in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 6:22 a.m. (EST). Weather, mechanical issues, and other concerns had prompted NASA to postpone Columbia’s launch several times, from its original launch date of 19 November 2001. Officially designated STS-109, the mission’s objective was to service the HST, the fourth such mission (designated Mission SM3B) for the HST. The payload consisted of various technology updates for the HST, including a new camera and solar arrays. In addition, Columbia carried seven crew members: Mission Commander Scott D. Altman and astronauts Duane G. Carey, Nancy J. Currie, John M. Grunsfeld, Richard M. Linnehan, Michael J. Massimino, and James H. Newman. (NASA, “STS-109,” http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/STS-109/mission-STS-109.html (accessed 10 August 2008); William Harwood, “Cooling Glitch Mars Shuttle’s Hubble Trip,” Washington Post, 2 March 2002.
ESA launched the environmental satellite Envisat on an Ariane-5 rocket. The primary mission of Envisat, designed to provide continuous monitoring of Earth’s atmosphere, ice caps, and land, was to measure sea color in coastal areas and in oceans. To perform this monitoring, Envisat was equipped with 10 optical and radar instruments, including the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar and the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer. ESA planned for the satellite to orbit Earth every 100 minutes, examining each region of Earth once every 35 days. (Puttkamer, “Space Flight 2002”; ESA, “Envisat Overview,” http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMWYN2VQUD_index_0_m.html (accessed 10 August 2008).
Engineers succeeded in returning NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) spacecraft to full operational status. Some of the satellite’s guidance components had failed in December 2001, and engineers had feared that the mission would terminate prematurely. Mission engineers on Earth had been able to revive FUSE with a new, innovative guidance system, which used the satellite’s electromagnets to push and pull on Earth’s magnetic field, thereby pointing the satellite in the desired direction. Engineers had originally developed the innovative guidance system as a contingency for a failure of this type, but NASA had never before used the system to navigate a satellite with the accuracy required for scientific observations. (NASA, “NASA’s FUSE Satellite Lit Again,” news release 02-45, 6 March 2002; Johns Hopkins University Department of Physics and Astronomy, “Fuse Mission Status Report” (mission status report no. 56, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 25 March 2002), http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/facts/miss_rep56.html (accessed 10 August 2008).
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