yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) (01/25/91)
Headline News Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters Thursday, January 24, 1991 Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788 This is NASA Headline News for Thursday, January 24, 1991 Kennedy Space Center processing crews continue on schedule with their refurbishment and preparatory work on Discovery, Atlantis and Columbia. Discovery's auxiliary power units have been leak tested and all functional checks have been completed. Work to be completed, through the remainder of the week, includes final payload bay door closure and preparations for the orbiter's roll over to the Vehicle Assembly Building. In the VAB, the right forward center segment of the solid rocket booster stack was mated yesterday. The right forward segment and frustum remain to be stacked. On Atlantis, work to install the remote manipulator system has been completed. Remaining tasks expected to be accomplished this week include water and waste system servicing, installation of windows 1 and 6 in the crew cabin, and main engine preparations in anticipation of the main engine flight readiness test, scheduled for this weekend. Work on Columbia continues to be limited to that which can be done while the vehicle remains in the VAB. This includes tile work, S-band antenna troubleshooting, and landing gear door thermal protection installation. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Magellan spacecraft and its imaging radar continue to perform well in orbit about Venus. Jet Propulsion Laboratory spacecraft controllers report that telemetry from Magellan's reaction wheels indicates brief periods of momentum buildup near the alarm limits. Corrective commands were to be sent up yesterday. There have been 118 days of radar mapping since the mapping mission began 131 days ago. Forty-seven percent of the surface of Venus has been mapped by Magellan's radar, to date. Ninety-eight percent of the data from those radar orbits has been successfully received at JPL and has been or is being processed. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Kennedy Space Center will host a science briefing and photo opportunity for the Gamma Ray Observatory on Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 10 a.m. EST. Participating in the briefing will be: Thomas P. Breakfield, KSC payload operations director; John R. Hraster, GRO project manager, and Dr. Donald A. Kniffen, GRO project scientist, both from the Goddard Space Flight Center. Members of the STS-37 flight crew will also participate. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NASA's Educational Affairs Division will present an educational video conference on Tuesday, Jan. 29, to announce and discuss the student results from the tomato- seeds-in-space experiment. Budding student scientists throughout the nation planted gardens last spring and summer to experiment with tomato seeds, which had been on board the Long Duration Exposure Facility for nearly six years as part of the Space Exposed Experiment Developed for Students (SEEDS). Dr. Jim Alston, Park Seed Company director of research, will review the SEEDS project and describe the results of his research. Park provided the seeds and managed the subsequent distribution of space-seeds and ground-control-seeds to the nation's schools. Ken Selee, a teacher from Turlock, Calif., will give a teacher's perspective on the SEEDS activity. Dr. Kenneth Wiggins, Director of the Aerospace Education Services Program, Oklahoma State University, will present the preliminary findings summarized from data submitted by the student participants. More than 30,000 educators in 50 states are expected to participate in this broadcast. These one-and-a-half-hour, interactive video conferences bring teachers up to date on NASA programs, demonstrate aerospace activities for the classroom, and announce new programs, products and activities available to classroom teachers. The Jan. 29 conference -- the third in a series of four -- will be transmitted on Westar IV, channel 19, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. EST. Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select TV. All times are Eastern. **indicates a live program. Thursday, 1/24/91 1:00 pm NASA Update will be transmitted. 1:30 pm "Living Well in Space" production. Tuesday, 1/29/91 10:00 am **Gamma Ray Observatory science briefing with Goddard project manager and scientist from Kennedy Space Center. 12:00 pm NASA Production will be transmitted. 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.