Aug 29 1980
From The Space Library
NASA announced that the GOES-D meteorological satellite, scheduled for early launch from KSC for NOAA, would carry a new type of instrument: the visible-infrared spin-scan radiometer (VISSR) atmospheric sounder. GSFC would join with the University of Wisconsin in long-term evaluation of the VISSR's usefulness in predicting severe local storms, hurricanes; and other short-term weather phenomena.
Earlier spacecraft in the series had provided 24-hour two-dimensional cloudcover photography; the new sounder would measure temperature and moisture in various altitude layers besides returning high-resolution images. The synchronous GOES satellites, useful in observing storms during development, required observation schedules, data processing, and data analysis markedly different from those for polar-orbiting satellites such as the TIROS series. GSFC, NOAA, and the University of Wisconsin had set up facilities over the past few years to handle the atmospheric sounder data. (NASA Release 80-137)
In the last of a series on "Life Aboard the Space Shuttle," KSC's Spaceport News described the unisex space suits provided for the pilot and the ranking mission specialist on each flight. No longer tailor-made for an astronaut, the Shuttle space suit would come in small, medium, and large sizes to be worn by men or women. It consisted of an upper and a lower section SNAPping together with sealing rings, with a life-support system in the upper half.
In an emergency, each of the other crew members would use a "personal rescue enclosure," a 34-inch-diameter ball. fitted with life-support and communications gear for one person. Nonsuited crew would climb into the enclosures, and the suited astronauts would transfer them from a disabled vessel to a rescue ship by carrying them, by attaching them to the remote manipulator arm used for deploying payloads, or by using a pulley line between the two spacecraft. (Spaceport News, Aug 29/80, 4)
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