Mar 6 1985
From The Space Library
NASA announced selection of the scientific investigators whose projects would be included on the proposed Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), an observatory that would operate in low-earth orbit for at least 15 years. A spacecraft carrying an array of instruments and providing power, precise pointing, and data transmission would house the observatory containing a 1.2m diameter, 10m focal length telescope. AXAF construction could begin around 1987-88 with launch approximately five years later.
In orbit, AXAF would join the Hubble Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 1986, and the Gamma-Ray Observatory, planned for a 1988 launch. The three observatories, together with the planned Space Infrared Telescope Facility, would provide simultaneous observations of cosmic sources over infrared, visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths.
Those selected included instrument principal investigators to design and fabricate scientific instrumentation for placement in the telescope focal plane, interdisciplinary scientists to provide expertise on X-ray astrophysics and other fields of astronomy, and a telescope scientist to guide telescope fabrication.
Instrument principal investigators selected were Dr. Gordon Garmire, Pennsylvania State University (charged coupled device imaging spectroscopy); Dr. Steven Murray, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (high-resolution camera); Dr. Stephen Holt, Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) (X-ray spectroscopy investigation for the AXAF); Dr. Claude Canizares, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy using AXAF); and Dr. Albert Brinkman, University of Utrecht, Netherlands (high throughput transmission grating for cosmic X-ray spectroscopy).
Interdisciplinary scientists selected were Dr. Riccardo Giacconi, Space Telescope Science Institute (advanced X-ray astrophysics facility mission); Dr. Jeffrey Linsky, National Bureau of Standards (the coronal structures of selected cool stars and close binary systems); Dr. Richard Mushotzky, GSFC (a program to measure the mass of galaxies and clusters of galaxies with AXAF); Dr. Andrew Wilson, University of Maryland (studies of radio jets and the narrow line regions of active galaxies with AXAF); and Dr. Andrew Fabian, Cambridge University, United Kingdom (cooling flows in clusters and galaxies).
Dr. Leon Vay Speybroeck, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, would serve as telescope scientist.
The investigators, as members of the AXAF science working group, would provide scientific and technical guidance throughout the project and would receive a specified amount of time to use the telescope during its first 30 operational months. Astronomers from the U.S. and around the world would use the majority of observing time.
Marshall Space Flight Center managed the AXAF project for NASA's astrophysics division, Office of Space Science and Applications. (NASA Release 85-33)
NASA announced it awarded a $145.8 million contract to General Electric Co.'s Valley Forge Space Center, Philadelphia for development of the upper atmosphere research satellite (UARS) observatory. Scheduled for October 1989 deployment from the Space Shuttle, the satellite would carry 10 scientific instruments into a 373-mile circular orbit. Valley Forge Center would design the observatory system, design and fabricate an instrument module compatible with the NASA standard multimission modular spacecraft (MMS), integrate the instrument module with the MMS and flight instruments, test the observatory system, integrate the observatory into the Space Shuttle, and support postlaunch flight operations.
The UARS, with its remote sensing instruments providing essentially global coverage, would for the first time generate data for understanding the composition and dynamics of the upper atmosphere, important to solving many questions about the earth's weather and climate. For example, the observatory would provide previously unavailable data on the nature of natural and human effects on earth's ozone layer.
GSFC would provide UARS project management for NASA's office of space science and applications. (NASA Release 85-32)
NASA announced new crew assignments for the STS 51-D mission set for late March-early April would be Karol Bobko, commander; Donald Williams, pilot; M. Rhea Seddon, Jeffrey Hoffman, and S. David Griggs, mission specialists; and Charles Walker (McDonnell Douglas) and Sen. E. J. "Jake" Gam, payload specialists. NASA would assign the originally announced 51-D crew of commander Daniel Brandenstein, pilot John Creighton, and mission specialists Shannon Lucid, John Fabian, and Steven Nagel to a future mission.
The Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and NASA had agreed to reassign payload specialist Patrick Baudry (France) from the 51-E mission to STS 51-G, as the earliest flight opportunity with adequate middeck experiment stowage capability for the French medical experiments. As a sewn-day mission, 51-G would also offer more time for data collection.
For fluid-transfer experiments designed to assist Hughes Aircraft in the refinement of their satellite design activities, NASA would assign a Hughes payload specialist to the 51-I flight to substitute for the lost opportunity on 51-D. Hughes would announce later whether John Konrad or Gregory Jarvis would fly the mission scheduled for early August.
Preservation of the year's flight and crew training schedules had necessitated the changes. Bobko's crew had to fly soon in order to preserve subsequent training schedules for the 51-J dedicated Department of Defense (DOD) mission, the first flight of the Atlantis orbiter.
The reassignment was consistent with NASA's crew selection policy of separating crew from payload flight assignments except in the case of Space-lab and dedicated DOD missions, for which substantial crew/payload interaction was required. (NASA Release 85-34)
The Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger made a three-mile, six hour journey from the launch pad back to a hanger as a result of mission cancellation due to problems with the intended payload, a tracking and data relay satellite, the NY Times reported. NASA would replace Challenger on the launch pad with the orbiter Discovery on about March 15 and would combine elements of the scrubbed mission with some from Discovery's flight originally scheduled for March 22. Officials had selected Discovery for the mission because they decided it could be modified more easily and quickly than Challenger. (NYT, Mar 6/85, B10)
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