Apr 1 1991
From The Space Library
The media discussed the forthcoming launch of Atlantis and the Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO) it will set in orbit. Gamma rays have the highest of all forms of radiation and are born deep inside atomic nuclei. GRO was to canvass the entire sky over a two-year period, scanning the whole sky during the first year and concentrating on the most intriguing objects the second year. GRO was to be controlled by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Scientists from Germany's Max Planck Institute, which supplied GRO's imaging telescope, were to assist. GRO's Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment was to be the main instrument for examining the material enveloping supernovas to look for gamma rays. University of Washington astronomer George Lake believed GRO would find in the dark matter, strange particles called "wimps" (weakly interacting massive particles) in a Milky Way object called Geminga. The Soviet spacecraft Granat, carrying a French gamma-ray detector, found an object that accretes surrounding matter, generating antimatter that in time creates gamma rays. (P Inq, Apr 1/91; W Post, Apr 1/91; AP, Apr 1/91; UPI, Apr 1/91; NY Times, Apr 2/91; USA Today, Apr 2/91; W Times, Apr 2/91; UPI, Apr 2/91; CSM, Apr 3/91; W Post, Apr 3/91; USA Today, Apr 3/91; UPI, Apr 3/91; AP, Apr 3/91; C Trib, Apr 3/91; UPI, Apr 4/91; P IN, Apr 5/91)
A NASA crew hauled the Shuttle Discovery to its launch pad to prepare for takeoff approximately April 25. (UPI, Apr 1/91; AP, Apr 1/91; W Times, Apr 2/91)
An experimental rocket motor being tested for the Air Force Titan IV rocket exploded at Edwards Air Force Base in California. No one was injured in the explosion. The Titan IV, the largest unmanned rocket in the U.S. fleet, was scheduled to replace NASA's manned Shuttle in flying photo reconnaissance spy satellites and other heavy military payloads. (UPI, Apr 1/91; W Post, Apr 2/91; W Times, Apr 2/91; USA Today, Apr 2/91; NY Times, Apr 2/91; C Trin, Apr 3/91)
The Soviet Union launched a large new space satellite, Almaz-1, using a giant Proton booster rocket. Tass said Almaz-1 was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Central Asia. The radar satellite would survey the territory of the Soviet Union and other countries "in the interest of geology, cartography, ecology, and agriculture." The Almaz-1 was the first Soviet satellite to provide commercial services for the American market under long-term contracts. One of its principal customers was to be the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency; other enterprises include oil companies that need detailed images of the Earth. (UPI, Apr 1/91; AP, Apr 1/91; LA Times, Apr 2/91)
News editor Budd McLaughlin of the Huntsville News denied the blame placed on the media by Jack Lee, Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, for NASA's poor public image. (Huntsville News, Apr 1/91)
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center was testing a beta version of Com's newest OSI routing software. The software was comparable to that known as Open Shortest Path First, which allows intermediate systems to talk to each other and figure out the best way to send information on the network from point A to point B. (Government Computer News, Apr 1/91)
The newspaper summarized the controversy over the revised NASA plans for Space Station Freedom between NASA and the National Research Council, which maintained that the scaling back had gone too far to be valuable. (San Jose Mercury News, Apr 2/91)
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