May 7 1985
From The Space Library
NASA and the National Science Teachers Association announced continuation for the sixth year of the Space Shuttle Student Involvement Program, which provided an opportunity for secondary school students (grades 9-12) to write proposals for space science experiments that would develop their awareness of space and stimulate interest in science and technology.
During the next year's competition, the association would select up to five students from each of eight geographic regions who, along with their teachers, would receive all-expense-paid trips to a Space Shuttle symposium at a NASA center. Later, one semifinalist selected from each region would attend a national Space Shuttle symposium at Kennedy Space Center, during which the association would award scholarships to the three students submitting the most outstanding proposals. (NASA Release 85-70)
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that the U.S. agreed to lend ESA its GOES-4 standby geostationary weather satellite as a temporary substitute for ESA's Meteosat-1 spacecraft. Meteosat-1, launched in 1977 with a planned 3-year lifetime, had run out of station-keeping fuel and would drift out of view of ESA's ground-station network in July.
NOAA would move GOES-4, which had been at 140° W longitude over the Pacific Ocean, westward by 4° a day to bring it by mid-June to its new position at 10° W longitude above the Atlantic Ocean. Because ESA group equipment was not compatible with the GOES-4 command system, NOAA would operate the satellite for ESA from its satellite guidance facilities at Suitland, Maryland, and Wallops Station, Virginia. ESNs Meteosat ground facilities in Darmstadt would receive data from the spacecraft.
When NOAAs Atlantic-area GOES-East Satellite lost its imaging capability in 1984, ESNs Meteosat-2 provided U.S. weather watchers with weather data, including information on the eastern Atlantic hurricane breeding grounds. (ESA Release, May 7/85)
The European Space Agency (ESA) launched at 9:15 p.m. EST today from Kourou an Ariane rocket that successfully deployed two telecommunications satellites including a U.S.-built G-Star 1, the Washington Post reported. A breakdown in timing between the rocket and the ESA's various earth-based satellite tracking stations delayed launch 79 minutes.
ESA officials described the launch as "another success" in the agency's competition with the U.S. Space Shuttle to capture the world market for satellite launches. The Ariane rocket was the 13th fired, including two aborted launches, since 1979. The previous launch February 9 also put two satellites into orbit. Officials said they had nearly 30 orders to launch commercial satellites, compared with about 60 orders for the Space Shuttle.
The Ariane rocket deployed the G-Star 1 satellite, owned by the GTE Spacenet Corp., and the French Telecome-1B 20 minutes after liftoff at about 22,000 miles above the equator. (W Post, May 8/85, A26)
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