Aug 18 1988
From The Space Library
The fifth and final test of NASA's redesigned Space Shuttle solid rocket motor, prior to resumption of Shuttle flights, was conducted at Morton Thiokol's Space Operations facility near Brigham City, Utah. The 126-footlong, 1.2 million-pound motor, designated Production Verification Motor-1 (PVM-1), underwent a full duration, horizontal test firing of two minutes. The motor was extensively flawed to demonstrate the fail-safe characteristics of the redesign. (NASA Release 88-113; AP, Aug 18/88; UPI, Aug 18/88; NY Times, Aug 19/88; W Post, Aug 19/88; WSJ, Aug 19/88; USA Today, Aug 19/88; W Times, Aug 19/88; B Sun, Aug 19/88 )
NASA announced that TRW, Inc. had been selected for final negotiations leading to the award of contracts for extended definition and development of the space-based Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF). The facility would be the third in NASA's series of space-based great observatories, following the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gamma Ray Observatory into orbit in the mid 1990s. These observatories, as well as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, would permit simultaneous, complementary observations of astrophysical phenomena over different wavelengths of the spectrum. The objective of this project would be to develop a high-quality, x-ray telescope to be used by the international scientific community, in conjunction with NASA, for an operational period of 15 years. The proposed cost of the contract was approximately $508 million. (NASA Release 88-118; MSFC Release 88-131)
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