yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) (11/10/90)
Headline News Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters Friday, November 9, 1990 Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788 This is NASA Headline News for Friday, November 9, 1990 At the Kennedy Space Center, preparations for STS-38 continue to go according to schedule. Atlantis close out activities are going well, with aft compartment closeout scheduled to be completed Sunday evening. Purging operations on Atlantis' three fuel cells were finished yesterday. Ordnance activities are set for early tomorrow morning, during which time Launch Pad 39-A will be closed to all non-essential personnel. The countdown process picks up at 10:30 pm EST, Sunday, Nov. 11. At Launch Pad 39-B, technicians are servicing the Astro-1 Broad Band X-ray Telescope with argon again. The film in the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope has been removed and will be replaced with fresh film just prior to launch of Columbia. Work to close out orbiter activities progresses with activities such as updating the mission data contained in the onboard mass memory unit. SLS astronauts were at the Operations & Checkout building yesterday for a series of integration activities. A Space Life Sciences-1 team photo was also taken. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Galileo spacecraft is now less than 15.4 million miles from Earth, approaching us at a velocity of more than 23,000 miles per hour. The first of the twin Earth Gravity Assists is now just one month away on Dec. 8. Galileo is in excellent condition, and the general level of spacecraft activity remains fairly low. Galileo will undergo a course correction maneuver next week to allow for additional fine tuning of its Earth flyby trajectory. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Magellan remains in good condition. Earth and Venus are still in superior conjunction with the Earth-Sun-Venus angle, still less than 2.5 degrees. The downlink from the spacecraft, on both X and S bands, is reasonably good, with few data transmission errors resulting from solar interference. However, the uplink from the Deep Space Network to Magellan is not nearly as good, and is accompanied by numerous data errors. Since the resumption of mapping activities requires a new mapping sequence to be transmitted to Magellan, Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight controllers have deferred the mapping activities until tomorrow. JPL has predicted that the uplink data integrity will be regained by later today, and will attempt to uplink the new mapping sequence at that time. Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select TV. All times are Eastern. **indicates a live program. NASA Select TV programming will resume Tuesday, 11 / 13 / 90 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.