Jun 1 1978
From The Space Library
NASA announced it had appointed two U.S. scientists to an international group of five seeking to become payload specialists on the first Spacelab mission scheduled for late 1980. One American and one European would be selected to fly on the laboratory to operate the science instruments. The investigators, working group (IWG), composed of scientists representing all investigators, had selected Dr. Michael Lampton of Berkeley, Calif., space physicist at the Univ. of Calif., and Byron Lichtenberg of Natrick, Mass., vestibular researcher at the Mass. Inst. of Technology. The three payload specialists not chosen to fly would be backup specialists and would participate in ground-based mission activities at Johnson Space Center.
In a similar screening program, ESA had selected its payload specialists from among thousands of applicants from its member states. The Spacelab 1 mission would investigate stratosphere and upper atmosphere physics, materials processing, space plasma physics, life sciences, astronomy, solar physics, earth observations, and space technology. Marshall Space Flight Center had been responsible for payload-specialists training as part of its overall management responsibility for the Spacelab mission; ESA's Spacelab Payload Integration and Coordination in Europe (SPICE) had managed training in Europe. (NASA Release 78-76; JSC Roundup, June 1/78, 4; DRFC X-Press, June 1/78, 3)
ESA announced it had organized a tour of several Mediterranean countries to demonstrate use of data from the Meteosat weather satellite. Tour objectives were to display Meteosat-system capabilities exhibited in the documents or images produced by the spacecraft; and to show potential users (meteorologists and others working on the study and management of earth's natural resources) how to use the system. The system included a secondary data-user's station (SDUS) mounted on a trailer towed by a vehicle containing a 2.5m-diameter receiving antenna and all equipment needed to receive analog signals in the WeFax (weather facsimile) format. Demonstrations had begun in Cairo and would continue in Athens, Tunis, and Algiers. ESA had planned similar demonstrations in other countries covered by Meteosat. (ESA Release June 1/78)
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