Dec 12 1980
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
NASA reported that GSFC scientists had developed a high precision radioastronomy system to study movements of Earth's crust. A technique known as Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) used ground antennas to observe fixed extragalactic sources, usually quasars. Arrival of the quasar signal at the different points at different times could serve to calculate geometrically the distance between the stations with a high degree of accuracy. The VLBI technique had been one means used by NASA with other federal agencies to study movement and deformation of Earth's crust, including how and why earthquakes occur. A team representing GSFC; the Haystack observatory at Westford, Mass.; MIT at Cambridge; and JPL, Pasadena, Calif., had refined the technique for ultraprecise geodesy using fixed or mobile radioastronomy antennas 4 to 64 meters (13 to 210 feet) in diameter to measure Earth and polar rotation with precision better than 10 centimeters (4 inches), and detect Earth movement preceding large earthquakes. Such movement might occur so slowly and over so wide a region as to be undetectable by conventional means. The project had used fixed stations in California and Massachusetts and at Green Bank, W.Va., and Ft. Davis, Tex., as well as in Sweden, West Germany, and England. JPL was also working the system into a mobile station to measure movement in the Western United States. (NASA Release 80-187)
NASA said that the Shuttle integrated flight system was in its second week of tests in the VAB at KSC. Electrical and mechanical interfaces between the elements and between the individual Shuttle systems were under extensive test the past week, including umbilical connections between launcher and orbiter, external-tank tumble system, and inertial-measurement unit. Interface tests began at 2:00 a.m. December 4 and had continued around the clock since that time. The integrated test began early December 10; flight simulations with prime and back-up crews would begin December 14. (NASA Release 80-190; KSC Release 261-80)
NASA announced signing of an agreement in Jakarta December 9 by Dr. Stanley I. Weiss, associate administrator for space transportation operations, and Drs Suryadi, Indonesia's director. general of posts and telecommunications, for NASA launch of two Indonesian communications satellites. Satellites Palapa B-1. and Palapa B-2 in geosynchronous orbit would offer voice, video, telephone, and high-speed data service to member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) including, besides Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. NASA would launch B-1 between January 1983 and January 1984, depending on Shuttle availability, and B-2 between January and March 1984; it had launched earlier versions of Palapa in 19T6-77. (NASA Release 80-183)
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