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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #021

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 13 : Issue 21

Today's Topics:
         NASA Headline News for 01/02/91 (Forwarded)
                 ESA Bulletin
        Re: Recent Newsstand Magazine Articles
        Could weather sat snap umbra 11-7-91?
           NASA press releases and how to get them
              Adam Brody, where are you?

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  [e-mail].  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription requests,
  should be sent to [e-mail], or, if urgent, to
             [e-mail]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 2 Jan 91 19:35:29 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 01/02/91 (Forwarded)


             Headline News
Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters

  Wednesday, January 2, 1991    Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, January 2, 1991

The chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space
Program, Norman Augustine, is scheduled to testify before the House
Committee on Science, Space and Technology tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.  The
testimony will be carried by NASA Select television.  Also testifying
will be the panel's vice chairman, Laurel L. Wilkening.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Over 52 million miles from Earth and traveling 73,000 miles per hour,
the Ulysses spacecraft has begun a series of radio science experiments,
as Earth passes directly between the spacecraft and the sun.  The
series of special tracking passes to obtain radio science data began
last week, in preparation for the December 30 solar opposition, and
controllers say the bulk of the radio science passes will continue
through Friday.

Ulysses' wobble has been eliminated at this point in its orbital
trajectory, and contingency plans are being worked out to fly the
spacecraft should the wobble return in February or March of this year.

A spurious event of unknown origin temporarily affected science
experiments aboard Ulysses, December 19th.  The glitch, which corrupted
the spin rate measurement of the spacecraft, affected three, and
possibly four of the spacecraft's nine active experiments.  Controllers
returned experiments to nominal operation on December 20th, and the
cause of the anomaly remains under investigation.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Over the holidays, Kennedy Space Center technical crews performed
annual ground system checks to support Space Shuttle operations.  Work
continues to replace the launch facility's uninterruptable power system
and is expected to be completed within two weeks.

The Space Shuttle Discovery will be powered up this afternoon to
continue its preparation for launch of the DOD STS-39 mission in
March.  Discovery's payload bay doors will be opened, and later this
week, installation of the Forward Reaction Control System will
continue.  A high pressure main propulsion test is also scheduled for
this week.  Meanwhile, Atlantis is scheduled to be powered up Friday
and installation of the remote manipulator system "arm" to be used in
deploying the Gamma Ray Observatory is scheduled to begin.  The mission
is scheduled for April.




Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA
Select TV.  All times are Eastern.  **indicates a live program.

Thursday, 1/3/91


  9:30 am   **Testimony of Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Future of
          the U.S. Space Program before the House Committee on Science,
          Space, and Technology,

    followed by:

          NASA Update -- The Year In Review, Part 2

  6:00 pm     NASA Update -- The Year In Review, Part 2,

    followed by:

          Testimony of Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Future of
          the U.S. Space Program before the House Committee on Science,
          Space, and Technology (repetition of earlier coverage)



All events and times may change without notice.  This report is
filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12:00 pm, EST.  It is a
service of Internal Communications Branch at NASA
Headquarters.  Contact:  CREDMOND on NASAmail or at
202/453-8425.


NASA Select TV:  Satcom F2R, Transponder 13, C-Band, 72
degrees West Longitude, Audio 6.8, Frequency 3960 MHz.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jan 91 10:26:47 GMT
From: mcsun!hp4nl!phigate!philtis![e-mail]  (Harm Munk)
Subject: ESA Bulletin

A  summary of the articles in the November issue of the ESA  bul-
letin.

Space-Vehicle Aerothermodynamics [W. Berry, J. Haeuser]

Discusses ESA's past,  present and future activities in the field
of aerothermodynamics, a technical discipline embracing classical
aerodynamics, thermodynamics and thermochemistry. The aerothermo-
dynamics  of  a number of projects are discussed  followed  by  a
discussion  of  necessary tools and engineering  facilities.  The
article concludes with a summing up of activities designed to get
ESA's aerothermodynamics technology ready for the future.

Definition  des  Formes  Aerodynamiques  d'Hermes  [C.  Dujarric]
(French)
The  article  discusses the shape of Hermes and why it  will  get
that shape. It contains a set of nice windtunnel photographs.

Operating Europe's Future In-Orbit Infrastructure [U.  Christ, W.
Frank, N. Gargir, R. van Holtz]

The in-orbit infrastructure will consist of the Columbus Attached
Laboratory, the Columbus Free Flying Laboratory, the Hermes Space
Plane,  the  European Polar Platform and the European  Data-Relay
System.  The  article describes centralised functions and  decen-
tralised functions for operating this in-orbit infrastructure and
gives  a  short description of the tasks of each of  the  centres
responsible  for these functions,  how they will communicate  and
how planning activities are conducted.

The  Columbus  Free Flying Laboratory - A stepping Stone  Towards
European Autonomy [J. Collet]

The  Columbus  Free  Flying Laboratory will provide  Europe  with
facilities  for the support of men in space.  It will also be the
initial core element of the future manned space infrastructure.

The  New European Astronauts Centre [A.  Ripoll,  K.  Damian,  W.
Peeters, F. Rossitto]

The  article describes selection criteria and procedures as  well
as  training  of European astronauts.  The training  concept  and
facilities are then described, as well as the organisation of the
training.

[An  Antarctic  Crossing  as  an Analogue  for  Long-Term  Manned
Spaceflight [H. Ursin, J.-L. Etienne, J. Collet]

The  article describes an expedition by a  six-man  international
team  that crossed the Antarctic continent.  The results of  this
expedition where used to analyse psychological problems during an
international  expedition involving prolonged isolation in a hos-
tile environment.

Giotto's Reactivation and Earth Swingby [T.A. Morley]

The article describes the problems encountered during the reacti-
vation  from  hibernationm of Giotto,  the  Earth-gravity  assist
manoeuvre  to  swing Giotto en route to an encounter  with  comet
Grigg-Skjellerup  in 1992 and re-hibernation until the  encounter
in 1992.

The Hipparcos Mission - On the Road to Recovery [H.  Hassan,  K.
Clausen, M.A.C. Perryman, J. van der Ha, D. Heger]

The article describes the adaptation of the Hipparcos mission  to
the  new constraints imposed by the highly anomalous orbit caused
by the failure of the apogee boost motor.

Olympus  Manoeuvres  in  Transfer Orbit - An  ESA  First  [J.H.C.
Auburn, D. Suen]

This article describes the fifteen attitude manoeuvres  performed
by  the Olympus spacecraft to calibrate the four on-board  gyros-
copes  in order to achieve an accurate attitude during the apogee
engine firing.

The Olympus Utilisation Programme [C.D. Hughes]

The  article describes the payloads of the  Olympus-1  technology
satellite  (the  largest civil communications satellite) and  how
these payloads are and will be used by commercial and  scientific
institutions.

The 'PAX' Experiment on Olympus [D. Tunbridge]

This  article  gives a description of the PSDE Accelerometer  Ex-
periment.  The main objectives of this experiment are to  measure
the  in-orbit  behaviour of a typical  telecommunications  satel-
lite's  structure  in  order to obtain data for  the  Silex  PSDE
optical  payload which requires high pointing accuracy.  The sec-
ondary  purpose of PAX is to monitor the different mechanisms  on
board Olympus at intervals throughout their lifetime in order  to
detect trends in their performance.

Extensions of the ESTEC Test Centre [A. Classen]

The  article  decribes the new Test Preparation Area,  the  Large
European  Acoustic Facility and a Compact Payload Test  Range  at
ESTEC.  Together  with  the existing Large Space  Simulator,  the
electrodynamic Multi-Shaker System and the large test preparation
area they provide Europe with an integrated test centre.

Computer  Networking via High-Speed Satellite Links [C.  Garrido,
P. Viau, J. Stjernevi]

A  description is given of the connection of two Local Area  Net-
works  via a point-to-point link through the 20/30 GHz payload of
ESA's Olympus communications satellite,  using of-the-shelf hard-
and software.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
| Harm Munk                               |                     |
o Knowledge Base Systems Group            | Of course I only    o
|  Philips Centre for Software Technology | can speak for my-   |
o P.O. Box 218                            | self                o
| 5600 MD  EINDHOVEN                      |                     |
o The Netherlands                         |                     o
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jan 91 20:17:34 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!masscomp!ocpt!tsdiag![e-mail]  (Dave Tiller N2KAU)
Subject: Re: Recent Newsstand Magazine Articles

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Laura Hayes Burchard) writes:
-
-As for the "uh-oh"; that I'll believe, from the evidence of air crash
-investigators.
-

Is that kinda like the "fiddlesticks" in the official translation of the
Russian pilot's communications after firing a missle or two at Korean Airlines
flight 007?

--
David E. Tiller         [e-mail]  | Concurrent Computer Corp.
FAX:  [phone]      Ph: [phone] (w) | 2 Crescent Place, M/S 117
UUCP: ucbvax!rutgers!petsd!tsdiag!davet        | Oceanport NJ, 07757
ICBM: 40 16' 52" N      73 59' 00" W           | N2KAU @ NN2Z

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jan 91 16:21:16 GMT
From: pyramid!infmx![e-mail]  (David Cortesi)
Subject: Could weather sat snap umbra 11-7-91?

In Ottewell's 1991 Astronomical Calendar there are fine drawings
of the path of the umbra across the globe on 11 July.  Ottewell
remarks that he scaled the drawings to show the globe as it would
be seen from geostationary orbit -- which got me to thinking...

There are these fine weather satellites looking down on the west
coast and pacific.  Would it be possible for one of them to take
pictures of the umbra, a 300 kilometer oval of shadow, as it
sweeps over Baja or Mexico on that day?

Just one picture would be keen, while a "movie" sequence could be
really splendid -- if the shadow will have visible contrast, if the
weathersat has a fast enough exposure time and wide enough field of
view, etc etc.

Does anyone know?  How would one get this idea to the people who
can follow it up effectively? (and who are they?)

///////   /    David Cortesi           ////// [e-mail] //////
//////   //                            //                              //
////  / ///    Informix Software       //   Tough times never last,    //
///  / ////    4100 Bohannon Drive     //     but tough people do.     //
//  / /////    Menlo Park, CA  94025   //          -- Joe Morgan       //
/  ////////    [phone]          //// ...pyramid!infmx!cortesi ////

------------------------------

Date: 3 Jan 91 14:37:18 GMT
From: ubc-cs!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!sgl![e-mail]  (Pierre Mathieu)
Subject: NASA press releases and how to get them

I have heard that there is a way of getting NASA press releases
through the Internet. Is there an anonymous login site? Can I get
them through a mail server somewhere our through a UUCP site somehow?

Thanks for any help on this matter,



Pierre Mathieu
CRESS, York University, Ontario, Canada
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jan 91 21:39:32 GMT
From: eagle![e-mail]  (Ronald E. Graham)
Subject: Adam Brody, where are you?

The above headline describes my problem.  I have been trying to send
e-mail to Mr. Brody, looking for information about docking, and a local
sysop (named Shirin Tabibzadeh) sent the mail back, indicating Mr. Brody
as an unknown user.  So, just in case Mr. Brody is looking in, here are
my questions:

In article <[e-mail]>, you write...

>I have been researching the manual control aspects of docking operations
>(control modes, braking gates...) for about six years including 2 masters
>theses.  I know this info is not quite what you wanted but I thought
>I would offer.

It's plenty close enough.  Could I prevail upon you to e-mail some titles?

In article <[e-mail]>, you write...

[Soviet docking history deleted...]

After a brief review of the above history, I have come up with a couple
questions, which maybe you can help out with if you have time:

     o  can you give me a more detailed reference for each of the
        following:
        -  Sedej & Clarke, 1988
        -  Clark, 1988
        -  Hillyer, 1986
     o  what can be said about laser range-finders?  Is there an
        appropriate reference?

I have looked into definitions of terms for optical guidance (some
form of position measure, based on star position, as opposed to
inertial navigation) and range-finders (horizontal distance, needing
some reflective surface), and, using your article as a starting point,
I will try to use our own library to locate more information...I am
just interested in picking up whatever information you might have handy.

Thanks much.

RG

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V13 #021
*******************