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Date: Sun,  2 Dec 1990 02:22:01 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #608

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 12 : Issue 608

Today's Topics:
		   Jonathan's Space Report, Nov 26
Astro-1 and "Space Classroom" featured in education conference (Forwarded)

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Date: 26 Nov 90 18:55:51 GMT
From: frooz!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: Jonathan's Space Report, Nov 26

Jonathan's Space Report

Nov 26 1990 (no.60)
----------------------------------------------------
STS-38/Atlantis was launched on Nov 15 and reportedly deployed the
AFP-658 recon satellite into a 28 degree inclination orbit.  Atlantis
landed at the Kennedy Space Center on Nov 20. 

STS-35/Columbia is due for launch in early December.
Crew are Vance Brand, commander; Guy Gardner, pilot; 
Mike Lounge, Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman, Dr. Robert Parker, mission
specialists; Dr. Ron Parise and Dr. Sam Durrance, payload
specialists. This will be the last spaceflight by an Apollo astronaut;
Brand first flew on the last Apollo mission, the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz flight.

The EO-5 (5th long stay) crew, Gennadiy Manakov and Gennadiy Strekalov
continue in orbit aboard the Mir/Kvant/Kvant-2/Kristall/Soyuz TM-10/
Progress M-5 complex.  Soyuz TM-11 is due for launch on Dec 2, carrying
the replacement EO-6 crew, Viktor Afanas'ev of the Soviet Air Force and
Musa Manarov of NPO Energiya (the organization that operates the
civilian cosmonaut team).  The third seat will be filled by passenger
Toyohiro Akiyama of the Tokyo Broadcasting System, who will return with
the EO-5 crew on board Soyuz TM-7. 

Kosmos-2103 was launched on Nov 14 by a two-stage version of the
Tsiklon from Baykonur, It is a Soviet Naval Intelligence ferret
satellite which listens to the electronic emissions from ships;
it is in a 400 km circular orbit at 65 degrees to the equator.

Kosmos-2104 was launched on Nov 16 by Soyuz from Plesetsk. It is
a GRU (Soviet military intelligence) imaging recon satellite.

Kosmos-2105 was launched on Nov 20 by Molniya from Plesetsk.  It is a
PVO (Soviet Air Defence Command) missile early warning satellite in a
600x39300 km x 63 degree orbit. 

Two US comsats, Satcom C1 and GSTAR 4, were launched by Ariane 42P on
Nov 20.  Satcom C1 is a C-band (6/4 GHz) cable TV relay satellite
operated by GE American Communications (formerly RCA Americom).  GSTAR 4
is operated by GTE Spacenet as part of its Ku-band (14/12 GHz)
communications network. Both satellites were built by GE Astro Space.

--- Hubble Space Telescope update ----

At a workshop at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) on Nov
16, HST observers and STScI staff started to revise the telescope's
observing program.  The Orbital Verification period is now essentially
complete and Science Verification is beginning (lots of calibration
observations and test exposures).  Proper scheduled observing will begin
around July '91.  Contrary to initial expectations, it seems to me that
programs using the cameras are in better shape than the spectrographs. 
Because of the aberration, HST can't see extremely faint objects, or
moderately faint objects which are right next to rather bright ones
(they get lost in the fuzzed out image of the bright one, and if the
brightness of your faint object is comparable to the uncertainty in the
shape of the point spread function of the bright object, no amount of
deconvolution will help you).  But it can do very good imaging of groups
of bright objects very close to one another, like the R136 cluster, or,
with some extra observing time, of a point source on a diffuse
background (like the core of NGC 7457).  Deconvolution techniques seem
to work pretty well; relative to radio astronomy, you have a a much
better sampled point spread function, but it varies in shape from one
part of the detector to another in nasty ways, so it's not an easy task. 
FOC seems to be working really well and will get nice UV pictures.  The
spectrographs, however, have the problem that because of the fuzzed out
images, not all the light goes down the spectrograph slit.  If you can
open up the aperture to let more light in, that's no problem, but that
can lose spectral resolution or let in light from a nearby object.  If
that's a problem for you, you're stuck with integrating for 5 times as
long, and the time reallocation committee is going to take a lot of
convincing. The Faint Object Spectrograph itself seems to be working
fine except for substandard shielding against the Earth's magnetic field,
but that shouldn't be too bad for most programs. The telescope's
pointing software and the solar array jitter are still giving problems,
but in a few months things should improve enough for most purposes.
All in all my impression is that while the telescope is not what it
might have been, and some of the key projects (particularly the distance
scale) are dead in the water until the repair mission, most observer's
projects really can still be done without too much loss of science - I'm much
more optimistic than I was a month or so ago. 

___________________________________
|Current STS status:              |
|Orbiters                         |
|                                 |
|OV-102 Columbia        LC39B     |
|OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 1 |
|OV-104 Atlantis        OPF Bay 2 |
|                                 |
|ML/ET/SRB stacks                 |
|                                 |
|ML1                    VAB       |
|ML2/STS-39             VAB       |
|ML3/STS-35/ET/OV102    LC39B     |
-----------------------------------

(c) 1990 Jonathan McDowell

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

Date: 29 Nov 90 22:30:54 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Astro-1 and "Space Classroom" featured in education conference (Forwarded)

Terri Sindelar
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                  November 23, 1990
(Phone:  202/453-8400)


EDITORS NOTE N90-94

ASTRO-1 AND "SPACE CLASSROOM" FEATURED IN EDUCATION CONFERENCE


     NASA's Educational Affairs Division will transmit via 
satellite an educational video conference on Nov. 27 to discuss 
the Astro-1 mission and the first live lesson to be taught from 
space.  "Space Classroom, Assignment:  The Stars" will capitalize 
on the early-December flight of Astro-1, a Space Shuttle 
astronomy mission.

     Dr. Ted Gull, Astro Mission Scientist, Goddard Space Flight 
Center, Greenbelt, Md., will discuss the Astro-1 mission and 
science objectives from the Payload Operations Control Center, 
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.  Also, a 6-minute, 
pre-taped message by Mission Specialist Jeff Hoffman will be 
shown.

     In addition, Karen Widenhofer, an educator, and Pam Bacon, 
Education Programs Manager at NASA Headquarters, will discuss the 
various educational components of "Space Classroom" during the 
broadcast.

     "Space Classroom" is designed to use the excitement of space 
exploration to spark the interest of middle school students, 
encouraging them to pursue studies in math, science and 
technology.  It will offer educators an alternative approach to 
teaching about the electromagnetic spectrum - a fundamental 
aspect of physics that is required instruction in many classrooms 
in the United States.

     More than 30,000 educators in 50 states are expected to 
participate in this broadcast.  These 1-1/2 hour, interactive 
video conferences are designed to update teachers on NASA 
programs, demonstrate aerospace activities for the classroom and 
announce new programs, products and activities available to 
classroom teachers.  Participating school districts will receive 
transmissions from 2:30 to 4 p.m. EST.

     The Nov. 27 conference, which is the second in a series of 
four, will be transmitted on Westar IV, channel 19.  There is no 
charge for registration or participation in the video 
conference.

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

End of SPACE Digest V12 #608
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