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Дата: 03 сентября 1998 (1998-09-03) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: WDC-A R&S Launch Announcement 12960: ASTRA 2A Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... COSPAR/ISES WORLD WARNING AGENCY FOR SATELLITES WORLD DATA CENTER-A FOR R & S, NASA/GSFC CODE 633, GREENBELT, MARYLAND, 20771. USA SPACEWARN 12960 COSPAR/WWAS USSPACECOM NUMBER SPACECRAFT INTERNATIONAL ID (CATALOG NUMBER) LAUNCH DATE,UT ASTRA 2A 1998-050A 25462 30 AUGUST 1998 DR. JOSEPH H. KING, DIRECTOR, WDC-A-R&S. [PH: (301) 286 7355. E-MAIL: KING@NSSDCA.GSFC.NASA.GOV 1 SEPTEMBER 1998, 11:45 UT] Further details will be in the next SPACEWARN Bulletin Dr. Edwin V. Bell, II _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ Mail Code 633 _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ NASA Goddard Space _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ Flight Center _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Greenbelt, MD 20771 _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ +1-301-286-1187 ed.bell@gsfc.nasa.gov SPACEWARN home page: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/ Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 03 сентября 1998 (1998-09-03) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Mars Global Surveyor Update - August 28, 1998 Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... Mars Global Surveyor Flight Status Report Friday, 28 August 1998 A major milestone was reached on August 18th as the flight team celebrated Surveyor's 500th orbit around Mars. As of today, the spacecraft has completed 520 orbits and continues to transmit nearly 500 megabits of science data per day back to the Earth. Since the beginning of the summer-long science collection period at the end of May, nearly 200 orbits worth of data have been collected by Surveyor's instruments. August's science activities were highlighted by the successful observation of the Martian moon Phobos on two separate attempts earlier in the month. This tiny satellite orbits the red planet once every 7.7 hours and is a potato-shaped rock about the size of Manhattan. During close approaches just after the low points on orbits #476 and #501, the spacecraft was commanded to slew its science instruments across the moon in order to obtain detailed images. Planning activities to ensure success of the operations were complicated by the fact that no observations of orbit determination quality had been made of Phobos for nearly a decade. This lack of current and precise position data significantly increased the difficulty of pointing Surveyor's instruments. However, once the images were successfully obtained, chief navigator Dr. Pat Esposito confirmed that Phobos was within one kilometer of its predicted position. Images and scientific commentary from the previous two attempts and from a third observation attempt scheduled for Monday, August 31th will be available in a press release on September 10th. Images will be posted to the project's web site that day. Currently, the flight team is busy preparing for the temporary suspension of science activities and the resumption of aerobraking. The first maneuver to lower the low point of the spacecraft's orbit into the upper fringes of the Martian atmosphere will occur early in the morning on September 14th. For the following five months, Surveyor will repeatedly fly through the upper Martian atmosphere and use air resistance to gradually shrink the size of the orbit. The goal is to reduce the period from its current value of 11.6 hours to just under two hours. Global mapping operations from this two-hour orbit are scheduled to begin in April of next year. After a mission elapsed time of 659 days from launch, Surveyor is 223.34 million miles (359.43 million kilometers) from the Earth and in an orbit around Mars with a high point of 11,098 miles (17,861km), a low point of 108.0 miles (173.8 km), and a period of 11.6 hours. The spacecraft is currently executing the P517 command sequence, and all systems continue to perform as expected. The next status report will be released in mid-September. Status report prepared by: Office of the Flight Operations Manager Mars Surveyor Operations Project NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 91109 Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 03 сентября 1998 (1998-09-03) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: STARDUST Update - August 28, 1998 Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... STARDUST Status Report August 28, 1998 Ken Atkins STARDUST Project Manager The ATLO team completed the electromagnetic (EM) testing, stray voltage testing, and solar array deployment shock tests. No radiated emissions problems were observed in the EM tests. That means the electrical system will be "quiet" without static causing problems with other things on board. The solar array test was to exercise the components that allow the arrays to unfold automatically in space. Everything worked fine! After the testing, the solar arrays were removed and the spacecraft moved to its handling fixture to start preparations for system thermal vacuum test (STV). That's the picture on the webcam at this writing. The flight system remains very healthy with no functional problems going into environmental test. Launch Vehicle: You may have seen on the news that the inaugural flight of the Delta III rocket failed on August 26. Boeing has initiated a failure investigation. STARDUST is not manifested to ride on the Delta III. We're slated for the Delta II, a rocket system with more than one hundred successful launchings. However, even though STARDUST is manifested on the Delta II launch vehicle, Boeing and NASA must consider and review everything about the Delta II in the context of this failure to ensure exoneration of all Delta II elements before allowing continuation of the Delta II launch schedule. Seven Delta II launches are scheduled ahead of STARDUST. A new STARDUST fact sheet was added to the Web Site at: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/welcome/factsheetnew.pdf University of Washington's Prof. Don Brownlee, the STARDUST Principal Investigator, completed "STARDUST: The Story", a background account of how the project came about. The story was added to the Captain Comet (Kids) page at: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/captaincomet/storyofstardust.html For more information on the STARDUST mission - the first ever comet sample return mission - please visit the STARDUST home page: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 03 сентября 1998 (1998-09-03) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Scientists Observe Tall Chimney Cloud In Hurricane Bonnie Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... David E. Steitz Headquarters, Washington, DC September 1, 1998 (Phone: 202/358-1730) Allen Kenitzer Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (Phone: 301/286-2806) RELEASE: 98-156 SCIENTISTS OBSERVE TALL CHIMNEY CLOUD IN HURRICANE BONNIE NASA researchers have obtained compelling images from Hurricane Bonnie showing a storm cloud towering like a mountain, 59,000 feet into the sky from the eye wall. These images were obtained on Saturday, Aug. 22, 1998, by the world's first spaceborne rain radar aboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), a joint U.S.-Japanese mission. Launched last fall, the TRMM spacecraft continues to provide exciting new insight into cloud systems over tropical oceans. By comparison, the highest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest, is 29,000 feet and the average commercial jet flies at barely one-half the height of Bonnie's cloud tops. "It looks like a skyscraper in the clouds," said Dr. Christian Kummerow, TRMM Project Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. "This is the first time that TRMM's precipitation radar has seen a structure of this type in a hurricane approaching the U.S. East coast." "Clouds this tall are rarely observed in the core of Atlantic hurricanes," said Dr. Bob Simpson, former Director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami and the National Hurricane Research Project. "This huge cloud probably happened because, at the time the data was collected, Bonnie was moving very slowly. The lack of movement kept funneling warm moist air into the upper atmosphere, thus raising the entire height of the tropopause, which is normally at around 45-52,000 feet. The tropopause marks the upper limits of Earth's densest layer of atmosphere. "The vast amount of warm, moist air being raised high into the atmosphere, and the subsequent release of latent energy as this tropical airmass condensed into rain drops, is thought to be the precursor of hurricane intensification, which was observed in Bonnie in the 24 to 48 hours after these data were collected," Simpson said. Many scientists believe that towering cloud structures, such as the one observed by TRMM, are probably a precursor to hurricane intensification. This was the situation with Hurricane Bonnie, whose central pressure dropped from 977 millibars to 957 millibars in the subsequent 24 hours. Lower air pressure is associated with higher wind speeds and overall storm strengthening. "TRMM has flown over 100 tropical cyclones since its launch in November of 1997," said Kummerow. "This enormously enhances our database of cloud structures within tropical storms during their growth and decay phases. It also greatly improves the more restricted observations we have obtained from aircraft radar and allows for the systematic study of this hurricane behavior which appears to precede their intensification." As the height of the hurricane season approaches, TRMM scientists are looking forward to the continuing analysis of Atlantic hurricanes. TRMM was launched November 27, 1997, from the Japanese Space Center, Tanegashima, Japan, and is a joint United States and Japanese mission, the first dedicated to measuring tropical and subtropical rainfall through microwave and visible infrared sensors, including the first spaceborne rain radar. The TRMM spacecraft fills an enormous void in the ability to measure world-wide precipitation because so little of the planet is covered by ground-based radars. Presently, only two percent of the area covered by TRMM is covered by ground-based radars or surface rain gauges. By studying rainfall regionally and globally, and the difference in ocean and land-based storms, TRMM is providing scientists the most detailed information to date on the processes of these powerful storms, leading to new insights on how they affect global climate patterns. The TRMM mission is part of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, a long-term, coordinated research effort to study the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. More information about the TRMM project is available at: http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov -end- * * * Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 03 сентября 1998 (1998-09-03) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Earth Microbes On The Moon Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... Earth Microbes On The Moon Marshall Space Flight Center Space Science News http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast01sep98_1.htm Three decades after Apollo 12, a remarkable colony of lunar survivors revisited September 1, 1998: For a human, unprotected space travel is a short trip measured in seconds. What could be worse for would-be space travelers than a catastrophic breach in their protective spacesuits, the high-tech, multilayered fabric blanket that balloons under the pressure of a life-saving flow of oxygen and insulates against the frozen harshness of deep-space vacuum? But for some kinds of microbes, the harshness of space travel is not unlike their everyday stressful existence, the successful execution of ingenious survival tricks learned over billions of years of Earth-bound evolution. Forthcoming anniversary Space historians will recall that the journey to the stars has more than one life form on its passenger list: the names of a dozen Apollo astronauts who walked on the moon and one inadvertent stowaway, a common bacteria, Streptococcus mitis, the only known survivor of unprotected space travel. As Marshall astronomers and biologists met recently to discuss biological limits to life on Earth, the question of how an Earth bacteria could survive in a vacuum without nutrients, water and radiation protection was less speculative than might first be imagined. A little more than a month before the forthcoming millennium celebration, NASA will mark without fanfare the thirty year anniversary of documenting a microbe's first successful journey from Earth. In 1991, as Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad reviewed the transcripts of his conversations relayed from the moon back to Earth, the significance of the only known microbial survivor of harsh interplanetary travel struck him as profound: "I always thought the most significant thing that we ever found on the whole...Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived and nobody ever said [anything] about it." Although the space-faring microbe was described in a 1970 Newsweek article, along with features in Sky and Telescope and Aviation Week and Space Technology, the significance of a living organism surviving for nearly three years in the harsh lunar environment may only now be placed in perspective, after three decades of the biological revolution in understanding life and its favored conditions. Three decades, the biological revolution To a biologist, freeze-drying microbes for harsh space travel conjures up rather mundane kitchen science, a simple reenactment of how a yeast packet taken from the freezer can make bread dough rise prior to baking. But to a new breed of biologist exploring the harshest conditions on Earth, how a delicate microbe manages to counteract vacuum, boiling temperatures, burning radiation, and crushing pressures deep in the frozen icecaps is the study of life itself. For example, only now after 30 years of biological progress can scientists begin to scan down the genetic script underlying the causes of malaria, syphilis, cholera and tuberculosis. Within a few years, it is estimated that 50 to 100 complete genomes of living organisms will be entirely deciphered, presenting the first opportunities for deep evolutionary comparisons and insights into exactly the remarkable means by which the common Strep. bacteria could revive itself after 2.6 years on the moon. The Deep Sleep The Surveyor probes were the first U.S. spacecraft to land safely on the Moon. In November, 1969, the Surveyor 3 spacecraft's microorganisms were recovered from inside its camera that was brought back to Earth under sterile conditions by the Apollo 12 crew. The 50-100 organisms survived launch, space vacuum, 3 years of radiation exposure, deep-freeze at an average temperature of only 20 degrees above absolute zero, and no nutrient, water or energy source. (The United States landed 5 Surveyors on the Moon; Surveyor 3 was the only one of the Surveyors visited by any of the six Apollo landings. No other life forms were found in soil samples retrieved by the Apollo missions or by two Soviet unmanned sampling missions, although amino acids - not necessarily of biological origin - were found in soil retrieved by the Apollo astronauts.) How this remarkable feat was accomplished only by Strep. bacteria remains speculative, but it does recall that even our present Earth does not always look as environmentally friendly as it might have 4 billion years ago when bacteria first appeared on this planet. Recent biological progress May 1995: Deciphering of the first complete gene of a living organism (1,749 genes of the Hemophilus influenzae bacteria). In the New York Times, Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, James Watson said: "I think it's a great moment in science." September 1995: Deciphering of the smallest known viable genome on the planet, Mycoplasma genitalium, giving the first genetic script of what separates life from non-life July 1996: Deciphering of the first genome from the third "super kingdom" of life, the Archea, and the organism Methanococcus jannaschii, a deep-sea hot vent microbe, separating bacteria and eukaryotes (such as plants and animals) 1997: Deciphering the genome of the human pathogen, Helicobacter pylori, the ulcer-causing bacteria that dwells in the stomachs of half of the people on Earth 1998: Deciphering the entire microbial genome of the cause of Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi 1998: Deciphering the entire microbial genome of the sulfur-metabolizing Archea, Archaeoglobus fulgidus, the industrial cause of "souring" oil wells 1998: Deciphering the microbial genome, Deinococcus radiodurans, having the remarkable capacity to withstand massive space-scale doses of over 1.5 million rads of radiation--3,000 times the dose that would kill a human in space Extremophiles: Life on the Edge When the first bacteria colonized the earth, there was no free oxygen to breathe and no ozone to block out the sun's damaging ultraviolet radiation. Oxygen was a poison gas. Nuclear radiation came from decaying uranium-235, which was about 50 times more abundant then than now. Appropriately referred to as the Hadean Eon (after the Greek underworld), the air was hot and full of noxious chemicals such as sulfurous gases released by volcanoes. However, there are bacteria which can live, even thrive, in a very wide variety of conditions that seem unfriendly to humans. Bacteria can survive unlikely changes of environment, including the growing list of space-hardiness conditions: Vacuum conditions, with bacteria taken down to near zero pressure and temperature, provided suitable care is exercised in the experimental conditions. Pressure, with viable bacteria after exposure to pressures as high as 10 tonnes per square centimeter (71 tons/sq-in). Colonies of anaerobic bacteria have recently been recovered from depths of 7 km (4.2 mi) or more in the Earth's crust. Heat. Bacteria survive after flash heating under dry conditions at temperatures up to 600 deg. C (1,112 deg. F). Archaebacteria that can withstand extreme heat have been found thriving in deep-sea hydrothermal vents and in oil reservoirs a mile underground Radiation, including viable bacteria recovered from the interior of an operating nuclear reactor. In comparison to space, each square meter on Earth is protected by about 10 tons of shielding atmosphere. Long preservation, including bacteria revived and cultured after some 25 million years of encapsulation in the guts of a resin-trapped bee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "I should venture to assert, that if these worlds are habitable, they either are, have been, or will be inhabited." Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon, 1877. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hitchhiking across the solar system The streptococcus bacteria on Surveyor 3 might not be the only interplanetary microbial hitchhikers. In 1996, researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center announced that they had found evidence of microfossils in a Mars meteorite recovered from a field of blue ice in the Antarctic. The presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon [PAH] molecules in the Allan Hills meteorite was taken as one sign that objects in the rock are microfossils. Critics claim that the PAHs are contamination from the ice. The recent discovery of a 13th meteorite, apparently from Mars, might help is resolving the issue. "The fact that it was found in the Sahara means that it can't possibly be contaminated with PAHs from ice," said Richard Hoover, an X-ray astronomer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Hoover is part of two investigations that will develop tools and techniques to prepare and examine specimens that may have life forms. He also is planning a trip to Antarctica to look for samples of life thriving under extreme conditions. "We don't know how long this 13th rock has been in the Sahara," Hoover said, "but finding another SNC [Mars meteorite] is a very exciting result." While long associated with rocket propulsion, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center also is deeply involved in space science research. Recently, this has expanded to include astrobiology, the study of life outside the Earth. In addition to Hoover's work, Dr. David Noever, author of this article, is developing a "D'Arcy machine," a program to help computers recognize life forms in electron microscope and other images. As the lunar voyagers answered a similar question more than a century ago, in Jules Verne's classic, From the Earth to the Moon: "To those who maintain that the planets are not inhabited one may reply: You might be perfectly in the right, if you could only show that the earth is the best possible world." The remarkable lunar survivor from Apollo 12 thus gives scientific pause. Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 03 сентября 1998 (1998-09-03) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Ladwig, Heffernan and Garver Named to Key Nasa Roles Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... Ray Castillo Headquarters, Washington, DC September 1, 1998 (Phone: 202/358-4555) RELEASE: 98-157 LADWIG, HEFFERNAN AND GARVER NAMED TO KEY NASA ROLES NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin has named Alan Ladwig Senior Advisor to the NASA Administrator, Edward Heffernan Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs, and Lori Garver Acting Associate Administrator for Policy and Plans. Heffernan's appointment became official on Aug. 14, 1998, Ladwig's and Garver's on Aug. 28, 1998. As Senior Advisor, Ladwig will serve as the primary catalyst for planning and communication of long-range initiatives. He also will continue to represent the Agency for media activities and public presentations and to coordinate Agency planning to commemorate NASA's 40th anniversary. "I have asked Alan to apply innovative techniques and develop new initiatives to advance America as a leader of spacefaring nations," Goldin said. "He also will focus on new methods of communication to ensure that the American taxpayers continue to have easy access to information on the outcomes and value of their investment in NASA." Ladwig has served as the Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy and Plans, which oversees coordination of NASA policies and long-range plans, the NASA Strategic Management System, the NASA Advisory Council, and the History Division. Prior to his current appointment at NASA, Ladwig was Senior Policy Analyst for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). He first served at NASA from 1981 through 1989 in a variety of management positions. He was the Director of Special Projects for the Office of Exploration. In 1986, he served on the Administrator's Long Range Planning Task Force that produced the report LEADERSHIP AND AMERICA'S FUTURE IN SPACE . Ladwig was Manager of the Space Flight Participant Program, the Shuttle's Middeck Experiments Program, and the Shuttle Student Involvement Program. He also served as Executive Officer in the Office of Space Flight. He received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal and two NASA Exceptional Service Medals. Ladwig served in the US Army from 1972-1974 and was stationed in Athens, Greece. He attended Southern Illinois University where he received a MS in Higher Education and a BS in Speech. He and his wife Debra reside in Falls Church, Virginia. Edward Heffernan has served as Acting Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs sinc