Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Sat, 10 Nov 1990 01:45:33 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 10 Nov 1990 01:44:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #518 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 518 Today's Topics: Ulysses Update - 10/30/90 Magellan Update - 10/31/90 Re: Hiten Update Re: Magellan Update - 10/29/90 Re: "NAVY WITHHOLDING EVIDENCE" Re: Pioneer 11 Update - 10/30/90 Re: Ulysses Update - 10/30/90 Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station to be Cheap Did they launch Almaz 2? stereo images of planets Wanted: FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) code Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Oct 90 18:51:34 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@ucsd.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Ulysses Update - 10/30/90 ULYSSES MISSION STATUS October 30, 1990 All onboard systems were performing normally. Today Ulysses is about 13 million miles from Earth, traveling at a heliocentric velocity of about 90,300 miles per hour. Monitoring of science instruments continues to be the main activity for the spacecraft as the Ulysses mission nears the completion of its fourth week after launch. During the week, ground controllers will continue to watch three instruments turned on last week: the Cosmic and Solar Particle instrument, the Magnetic Fields instrument and the Cosmic Dust instrument. The Cosmic Dust instrument was switched on Saturday, October 27, after a slight delay to allow the temperature of its sensor to drop to an operational level. In addition, tests are running this week on the Energetic-Particle Composition and Neutral Gas instrument, which had been previously powered up. That instrument will be switched off Friday, November 2. Also on Friday, November 2, the spacecraft will execute its second trajectory correction maneuver, fine-tuning the flight path for its initial course to Jupiter. On Saturday, November 3, the Cosmic and Solar Particle instrument and the Magnetic Fields instrument will be switched off. The cover on the Heliospheric Instrument for Spectra, Composition and Anisotropy at Low Energies will be released, although the instrument will not be powered on until November 13. The Unified Radio and Plasma-Wave Experiment will be switched on and the 72.5-meter (238-foot) wire booms which act as its antenna will be deployed. The spacecraft's X-band radio transmitter will also be turned on for tests. On Sunday, November 4, the spacecraft's 7.5-meter (24.3-foot) axial boom will be deployed. This also serves as an antenna for the radio wave-plasma wave experiment. The Energetic-Particle Composition and Neutral Gas instrument, the Cosmic and Solar Particle instrument and the Magnetic Fields instrument will be switched on once again. On Monday, November 5, plans call for relatively quiet monitoring of the spacecraft. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 90 22:57:59 GMT From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@ucsd.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Magellan Update - 10/31/90 MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT October 31, 1990 The Magellan spacecraft, currently in suspended operation in its Superior Conjunction mode, is performing normally with one STARCAL (star calibration) and two DESATS (momentum wheel desaturations) each day. The calibrations help orient the spacecraft's attitude. Desaturations rid the wheels of excess energy. No spacecraft command activity is planned for today. The radar sensor continues to operate, but in the standby mode. Venus and Earth are now on opposite sides of the sun from one another; the alignment is called Superior Conjunction. The earliest date that mapping will resume is November 7. Mapping has been suspended since October 26. Although no mapping is taking place, four regular mosaics of images and two special mosaics covering the north polar area were produced here at JPL during the past 24 hours using data collected earlier. The pace of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) processing is now being limited by the rate of production of new SAR EDRs (Experiment Data Records). During this superior conjunction period, flight controllers are developing modifications to the spacecraft software to prevent the unwanted back-and-forth motion of the solar arrays. Although the oscillation does not present an immediate threat to the spacecraft, stopping it will prevent any long term fatigue of the solar array mechanism by which it moves about its axis. Since mapping began on September 15th, Magellan has performed 40 days of radar mapping, producing 301 image strips covering 60 degrees of longitude around Venus, about one-sixth of the planet. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 90 18:08:12 GMT From: abvax!iccgcc!herrickd@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Subject: Re: Hiten Update In article <1343@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de>, p515dfi@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Daniel Fischer) writes: > Reply-To: p515dfi@mpirbn.UUCP (Daniel Fischer) > Organization: Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, Bonn > > In article <1990Oct24.155328.19036@zoo.toronto.edu> > henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >>In article <3664@syma.sussex.ac.uk> andy@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Andy Clews) writes: >>>please post some summary information about the mission objectives for >>>the Hiten craft? ... >> >>Mission objectives are to test Japanese navigation and control facilities >>for spacecraft operating beyond low Earth orbit. Period. It is an >>engineering mission with no attempt at science return. > > Wrong! There is one scientific instrument on-board, the MDC = Munich Dust > Detector from the Techn.Univ. of Munich. It's aperture can be seen on most You're saying the Japanese researchers sent a vacuum cleaner into space and didn't call it a Hoover? dan herrick ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 90 19:22:14 GMT From: usenet.ins.cwru.edu!abvax!iccgcc!herrickd@g.ms.uky.edu Subject: Re: Magellan Update - 10/29/90 In article <1990Oct29.174224.8067@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: > MAGELLAN STATUS REPORT > October 29, 1990 > > > Radar mapping was suspended on October 26, at 6:23 AM PDT, for Superior > Conjunction. This suspension will last for approximately 12 days until early > November, while Venus and the spacecraft pass behind the Sun as viewed from !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > Earth. Earliest mapping start-up date is November 7. !!!!!! > > The spacecraft will keep its High Gain Antenna pointed directly toward > Earth throughout the Superior Conjunction period, so as to permit the > transmission of engineering telemetry at 40 bps and the reception of commands > from Earth. It will turn away from Earth only to perform star scan maneuvers > in order to update its inertial reference sensors. This attitude will shade > the spacecraft's electronics from the Sun and keep the temperature cool. > Telemetry and commanding should be possible throughout Superior Conjunction. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW! sounds like ELF. dan herrick herrickd@astro.pc.ab.com ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 90 18:35:51 GMT From: eru!hagbard!sunic!news.funet.fi!tukki.jyu.fi!jyu.fi!otto@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Otto J. Makela) Subject: Re: "NAVY WITHHOLDING EVIDENCE" In article <272e0b8a-1ee.1sci.space.shuttle-1@vpnet.chi.il.us> cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us (Crash Gordon) writes: Excuse me. I thought I'd logged into sci.space.shuttle, but I made an obvious typo and ended up here in alt.mouth.foam. Don't worry. You DID end up in sci.space.shuttle... Here's a forwarded message from technical@cdp.uucp (followups to alt.flame): -- Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 13:01:12 -0800 From: cdp!technical@SGI.COM Message-Id: <9010302101.AA20425@SGI.COM> To: Otto.Makela@jyu.fi Subject: Re: "NAVY WITHHOLDING EVIDENCE" Apologies for the UFO postings from cdp.uucp, into various news groups. The posting has the title : "NAVY WITHOLDING EVIDENCE". One of our users is involved in a vocational training program with a veterans group. A veteran trainee was given the task of periodically posting material to our private news groups and to Usenet news groups. One day this week he sort of lost it, and posted this notice about the NAVY witholding evidence about UFO's to 18 different Usenet groups, and to about 25 of our own groups. Needless to say, this is an embarrasment. Suffice it to say, the user no longer has access to our system. Thanks all for your patience, Steve Fram Institute for Global Communications cdp!steve -- /* * * Otto J. Makela * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */ /* Phone: +358 41 613 847, BBS: +358 41 211 562 (CCITT, Bell 24/12/300) */ /* Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE */ /* * * Computers Rule 01001111 01001011 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */ ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 90 08:55:18 GMT From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma!andy@uunet.uu.net (Andy Clews) Subject: Re: Pioneer 11 Update - 10/30/90 From article <4259@lib.tmc.edu>, by jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu (Jay Maynard): >> The Pioneer 11 spacecraft emergency was terminated at 3:29PM (PST) >>yesterday. > > OK, I'll bite...how was it terminated? Did we get it back? Is it lost for > good? > Is some of it working, but not all? Inquiring minds want to know. Try READING Ron's posting this time. The man said that the EMERGENCY was terminated, NOT the spacecraft. Unless of course you want the emergency brought back to life and the problems to start all over again.... -- Andy Clews, Computing Service, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QN, England JANET: andy@syma.sussex.ac.uk BITNET: andy%syma.sussex.ac.uk@uk.ac ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 90 19:15:57 GMT From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!dietz@ucsd.edu (Paul Dietz) Subject: Re: Ulysses Update - 10/30/90 Does Ulysses have a gamma ray detector? I thought it was going to, to help pin down the position in the sky of gamma ray bursters falling near the ecliptic, but I don't recall reading about it in the updates that have been posted so far. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 90 18:03:23 GMT From: usc!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucsd.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station to be Cheap In article <6883@hub.ucsb.edu> 3001crad@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Charles Frank Radley) writes: >+One bad effect of this is that it hurts the domestic launch >+ industry. > >No, it does not. NASA is prohibited by Executive Order from >competing with the commercial ELV industry. The shuttle is not >used for launching commercial payloads, unless they require >manned presence. Ho ho. So how does, say, Geostar rate shuttle launches for its navsats? (Yes, it still has shuttle launch slots.) In *theory* the shuttle is not supposed to carry anything that could go up on a commercial expendable, but in practice there is a very long list of exceptions to that. >+This is an important question when you realize you can buy them >+off the shelf for under $10 million. > >Not in the West... The Soviets are perfectly happy to sell to the West. There is a difference between "not available" and "not available from a supplier we like". >Apollo took a great deal of effort to obtain meaningful failure >rate data which was used to reduce risk... Actually, for most purposes Apollo explicitly rejected the idea of trying to get statistical failure rates, because of the excessive testing involved. Reference: the NASA History Series book "Moonport". (Details and page numbers available on request.) -- "I don't *want* to be normal!" | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology "Not to worry." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 90 21:05:56 GMT From: mnemosyne.cs.du.edu!isis!scicom!wats@uunet.uu.net (Bruce Watson) Subject: Did they launch Almaz 2? I observed a` bright (1st mag) object travelling from the SW to the NW in a 72 degree inclined orbit. T(eq xing) = 90 303.0254 incl = 71.8 omega(cap) = 296.4 meanmo = 13.89 This would fit a Zenit rocket body (or payload) if it weren't so bright. The first Almaz was named Cosmos 1870 and weighed 18000-20000 kg and was in a similar orbit (but much lower). Anyone heard about this launch? Almaz 2 was to be launched on a Proton sometime in November 1990. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 90 13:05:45 GMT From: news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watserv1!ria!uwovax!17001_1511@rutgers.edu Subject: stereo images of planets Stereo images: Many images of the planets are available in stereo format. Some stereo pairs are fortuitous, others deliberately planned to aid in topographic mapping and geological analysis. The NASA Atlas of Mercury has many stereo pairs of Mercury made by combining first and second encounter Mariner 10 images. Mariner 9 and Viking made thousands of stereo pairs, now being used by USGS to create a new and very detailed topographic map series for Mars. The Defence Mapping Agency in the 1970s produced hundreds of Lunar Topographic Orthophotomaps from Apollo stereo pairs. Contour maps of parts of Miranda and Ariel, satellites of Uranus, have been made at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff by Sherman Wu, and he has also made a contour map of Phobos from Viking images. The plumes on Triton were discovered in stereo pairs, I believe. A stereo pair of Hyperion was published in the Voyager 2 Science special issue in 1982, and I have recently discovered that I can see very poor stereo in a pair of Voyager 1 images of Amalthea taken in 1979, as part of some shape modelling work I am doing on that body. I would anticipate HST FOC images of the larger asteroids (when the MIRRORS-R-US optics are sorted out) could be detailed enough to show some worthwhile stereo effects, if taken at suitable intervals. Very useful! Phil Stooke, Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2 ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 90 04:56:41 GMT From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utah.edu!thomson@ucsd.edu (Rich Thomson) Subject: Wanted: FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) code I recently FTP'd some images from NASA that were in FITS format, yet another image format from the astronomy community. I have to admit that the FITS format is pretty verbose in what it allows (and similar in some respects to the format for "fields" used by Stardent's AVS software). Hoping to not have to re-invent the wheel, I'd like pointers to some FITS code that I could use as a portion of or model for a program to read FITS files into AVS. I don't particularly care what language its in, but I'd prefer C or FORTRAN. If nothing presents itself, I will continue working on a reader that I've been creating (so far it just scans the file without really doing anything). Once that reader is done, I'll be glad to post the source to some appropriate place. -- Rich Rich Thomson thomson@cs.utah.edu {bellcore,hplabs,uunet}!utah-cs!thomson ``If everybody is thinking the same thing, is anybody thinking?'' --Bob Johnson ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #518 *******************