Spaceport NewsAmerica’s gateway to the universe. Leading the world in preparing and launching missions to Earth and beyond.

March 13, 1998

John F. Kennedy Space Center

Vol. 37, No. 5

Mission UpdateMission Update

Shuttle-Mir

Smooth Sailing: U.S. astronautAndy Thomas and new Mir 25 crewmates Talgat Musabayev andNikolai Budarin are awaiting thearrival on March 17 of a Progressresupply vehicle. A spacewalk hadto be canceled when the twocosmonauts could not open asecondary latch on the airlockhatch. Another attempt won’t bemade until after the Progressarrives. Below, Thomas is shownon Mir during the STS-89 mission.

TRACE

TRACEPegasus XL, Vandenberg AFBMarch 19The Transition Region and CoronalExplorer (TRACE) will study theconnection between the sun’smagnetic fields and the heating ofits corona, complementing datafrom the orbiting Solar andHeliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Water found on Earth’s moon

AXAF completescritical tests

The Advanced X-rayAstrophysics Facility (AXAF)program got some good newsrecently when the spacecraftcompleted critical tests.

AXAF was originallyscheduled to arrive in Florida

(See AXAF, Page 6)

NASA’s SNOE launched Feb. 25

LUNAR Prospector (upper) is mated to theTrans Lunar Injection Module Dec. 18 lastyear at the Astrotech processing facility inTitusville. The Star 37 motor in the modulegave the spacecraft the needed additionalvelocity to complete the nearly five-dayjourney to the moon.

A student-developedspacecraft called the StudentNitric Oxide Explorer(SNOE) was launchedFeb. 25 aboard aPegasus rocket fromVandenberg Air ForceBase, Calif.

SNOE is one of along list of NASAspacecraft slated for liftoff thisyear aboard expendablelaunch vehicles from both theWest and East Coasts.

The Earth-orbiting satellitewas designed and built by a

team of students,faculty and engineersfrom the University ofColorado, Boulder. Itis being operatedaround the clock by ateam based at theBoulder campus.

SNOE carries instruments tomeasure nitric oxide in theEarth’s upper atmosphere, theintensity of X-rays from the

sun, and ultraviolet light fromthe Earth’s aurora. Themission is designed to last oneyear.

SNOE, shown here during preflightprocessing, weighs just 254 pounds.Morethan 100 students have participated in theproject to date.

ARTIST’Sconcept ofAXAF onorbit. AXAF’s33-foot longX-raytelescope isthe largestand mostpowerful everto be built.

(See MOON, Page 6)

There is a high probabilitythat water ice exists at boththe north and south poles ofthe moon, according to initialscientific data returned byNASA’s Lunar Prospector.

The Discovery Programmission also has produced thefirst operational gravity mapof the entire lunar surface,which should serve as afundamental reference for allfuture lunar explorationmissions, project scientistsannounced March 5 at NASA’sAmes Research Center.

Just two months after thelaunch of the cylindricalspacecraft, mission scientistshave solid evidence of theexistence of lunar water ice,including estimates of its

volume, location anddistribution. “We are elated atthe performance of thespacecraft and its scientificpayload, as well as theresulting quality andmagnitude of informationabout the moon that wealready have been able toextract,” said Dr. Alan Binder,Lunar Prospector principalinvestigator from the LunarResearch Institute, Gilroy,Calif.

The presence of water ice atboth lunar poles is stronglyindicated by data from thespacecraft’s neutronspectrometer instrument,according to mission scientists.

SPACEPORT NEWS March 13, 1998Page 2

ResignationsQuear, Anita L. OP 01/09/98Gordon, Kathleen B. LO-SOD-1 01/20/98Corne, Karen E. BD-C 01/23/98Moore, Gregory B. AA-A 01/30/98Rosato, Mark S. LO-DEP 01/30/98Woodcock, Wendolyn M. EI-F 01/30/98

RetirementsArmstrong, Cheryl A. MK-MIO 01/31/98Gibson, Gerald L. PZ-B2 01/31/98Lackie, Warren PK-D2 01/31/98McCalman, James R. FF-R-B 01/31/98Michel, Virginia K. GG-B4 01/31/98Stevens, Joyce A. FF-S2-D 01/31/98

Calling all Oklahomans!The Oklahoma Heritage

Association is gatheringmaterial about the state’scontribution to the spaceprogram. It will be featured ina book as part of theassociation’s popular HorizonsSeries, one in a series ofpublications on Oklahoma’shistory and heritage.

Aerospace environmental technologyconference set for June 1-3 in Huntsville

The third AerospaceEnvironmental TechnologyConference will be held at theMarshall Space Flight Center,Huntsville, Ala., June 1 – 3.The three-day conference willprovide a forum for materialsand processes engineers,scientists and managers todescribe, review and assess

International Space StationAmazing fact

• By the time International Space Station(ISS) assembly gets under way,cumulative on-orbit time of the SpaceShuttle will be around the 800-day markand U.S. astronauts will have spent morethan 950 days working and living aboardthe Russian Space Station Mir.• Average altitude of the station will be

12 more NASA employeestake advantage of buyout

An additional 12 NASAcivil servants have departedthe space center under theFiscal 1998 separation incen-tive, or buyout, opportunity.

An additional opportunityrecently became available toNASA employees with atleast 30 years of federal ser-vice and who are at least 55years old. This latest OptionalRetirement election closesApril 3. April 3 also is thedeadline for resignations inconjunction with the separa-tion incentive. Employees

wishing to depart the agencyunder Early Out authoritymust retire by March 31, thedate the authority ends. Civilservants at least 50 years ofage with 20 years of service,or any age with 25 years ofservice, are eligible to departunder the Early Out offer.

A closing date of Sept. 30is still in effect for civil ser-vants in the Quality Assur-ance and OccupationalHealth Specialist fields to takeadvantage of the originalbuyout opportunity.

the field of evolvingreplacement and cleanpropulsion technologies.

For registrationinformation, contact RhondaChaney, tel. 205 890-6372, or1-800-448-4035. For exhibitinformation, contact BobCothran, tel. 205 890-6372, or1-800-448-4035.

220 miles. It will orbit the Earth 18 timeseach 24 hours and will have a view of85 percent of the Earth’s surface.• The International Space Station will be360 feet end-to-end and and 290 feet inlength. It will weigh 470 tons.

— NASA ISS Research Planand Boeing fact sheet

The association is askingthat any current or past NASAemployee who lived, attendedschool or was born inOklahoma to contact GiniMoore Campbell toll-free at 1-888-501-2059.

The book is scheduled to bereleased in the spring orsummer of 1999.

Disney offers discount to KSCKSC employees have until

April 5 to take advantage of adiscount for admission toDisney’s The Magic Kingdom,Epcot or Disney-MGM Studios.

Price of admission has beenreduced by more than $10 to$31.50 per person. The ticketscan be purchased at a KSCNASA Exchange Store,

Monday through Friday. Thetickets are not available at thefront gate of any of the threetheme parks.

Purchase of a ticket alsoentitles the employee topurchase a Pleasure Islandticket at 50 percent off theregular gate price, alsothrough April 5.

Credit union elects boardThe KSC Federal Credit

Union recently held anelection for the 1998 Board ofDirectors. Re-elected to theboard were Lonnie Blockerand Marilyn Cherubini. Newly

elected is Sandra Kennedy.Appointed to the credit

union’s SupervisoryCommittee were BarbaraLeDuke, John Styles andJoanne Wilson.

Employees of the Month

HONORED in March were (from left, sitting): Gisele Altman, Administration Office;Donald Carnes, Payload Carriers Program Office; Susan Wall, ProcurementOffice; Arthur Beller, Shuttle Processing Directorate; (from left, standing) AndyFinchum, Logistics Operations Directorate; Tim Lewis, Shuttle ProcessingDirectorate; David Barker, Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate; MariaLittlefield, Engineering Development Directorate; Anthony Killiri, PayloadProcessing Directorate; and Robert Cummings, Biomedical Operations Office.Not shown are Tom Nguyen, Checkout and Launch Control System; Lori Jones,Installation Operations; and Wanda Henderson, Chief Financial Officer’s Office.

SPACEPORT NEWSMarch 13, 1998 Page 3

Keep paper usage downIn the age of electronic mail, paper

usage at KSC continues. The KSCDuplicating Facility decreased paperproduction by 7 percent each year infiscal 1996 and 1997, equivalent to10,000 reams of paper.

Employees are encouraged to conintuekeeing paper usage down and use two-sided copying whenever possible. Thenew Lanier copier machines provideautomatic document duplexing. Printingon both sides of the paper reduces costsand also helps conserve natural re-sources.

KSC takes part in UCF expo

Community support

KSC TOOK PART in the student-produced1998 University of Central FloridaEngineering Expo on Feb. 19 in Orlando.Lisa Kestel (second from left) helped staffan exhibit on NASA. The NASA TechnologyTransfer Office had an adjacent exhibit inconjunction with the Southern TechnologyApplications Center (STAC, NASA’ssoutheast region technology transferpartner). The two exhibits earned highmarks at an awards ceremony later thesame day, with the NASA exhibit taking firstplace in the Professional Exhibit category.The NASA-STAC exhibit won third place inthe Educational Exhibit category.

REACHING OUT — USBI VicePresident and General ManagerDon Reed (second from right)presents a $5,000 donation to theUnited Way of Brevard County onMarch 2. With him are (from left)Bill Ellis, chairman of the UnitedWay of Brevard board of directors;Ernest Briel, vice chair; and (right)Rob Rains, president of the UnitedWay of Brevard.

Vanguard 1 marks 40th anniversary

Clinics offer packetson controlling anger

Area medical clinics have packetsavailable this month on the topic ofcontrolling feelings ofanger. While most of uscan control our anger,there are times when theemotion becomesunmanageable. Thepackets provideinformation on understanding anger, andtechniques for expressing itconstructively and redirecting it in apositive way.

LAUNCH Complex 18A on Cape Canaveral was the sitefor Vanguard launches. At left, the Vanguard SatelliteLaunching Vehicle (SLV) is shown undergoingprelaunch checkout. At right is the spherically shapedsatellite, which weighed less than five pounds.

It doesn’t get a lot of recognition, butthe Vanguard 1 satellite achieved anumber of successes that are stillnoteworthy today.

Vanguard 1 was launched 40 years agoon March 17, 1958, following Explorer Ias the second U.S. satellite. The launchtook place just months after the firstVanguard launch attempt failed inspectacular fashion, prompting critics todub the Naval Research Laboratory teamresponsible for Vanguard as “ProjectRearguard.”

In a pamplet honoring the 25thanniversary of the launch, teammembers recalled the launch and themilestones it achieved. The satellitecontinues to orbit the Earth today, theoldest man-made body in orbit. Itcontained a tiny minitrack transmitterthat was powered by the first solar cellsin space. Of all the satellites launched atthat time in honor of the International

Geophysical Year, Vanguard 1 providedthe most accurate determination of theEarth’s shape, including its equatorialbulge. The Vanguard team alsodeveloped the successor to the Vanguard1 launcher, the Thor-Vanguard launchvehicle, which became known as theDelta, one of the most reliableexpendable launch vehicles ever built.And last but not least, the Vanguardteam was transferred to NASA in 1958,with the team assigned to the newBeltsville Space Center — today knownas Goddard Space Flight Center inGreenbelt, Md.

SPACEPORT NEWS March 13, 1998Page 4

NASA Engineering DayFeb. 9, 1998

In conjunction with National Engineering WeekFeb. 22-28, the Equal

Opportunity Program Officeinvited about 100 local MiddleSchool students, mostly minorityand female, to KSC to partici-pate in NASA Engineering Dayactivities Feb. 9. The goal of theprogram is to heighten theawareness of the students tothe opportunities available inengineering sciences.

This year James MadisonMiddle School in

Titusville,Andrew JacksonMiddle School inTitusville, andSpace CoastMiddle School inPort St. Johnparticipated inthe day’s events.Activities beganat the U. S.SPACE CAMP,where instructorsled the studentsthrough amorning of engineering activi-ties, building and launching

model rockets; buildinga mock-up of the SpaceStation; and taking partin a Strange Scienceshow. Students werementored by KSCengineers who volun-teered their time to help thestudents. This year’s volunteerswere Nate Wright, HowardSterling, and Tim Lewis, all ofNASA.

From SPACE CAMP,the students were

transported to the KSC MissionBriefing Room where theywere served a box lunch.After lunch, Loren Shriver,the deputy director ofLaunch andPayload Opera-tions addressedthe students. Heencouraged themto reach high toachieve theirgoals anddreams. He alsoshared hisexperiences as an astro-

naut. Also, from the Universityof Central Florida, Jacqueline

Smith, the director of MinorityEngineering Programs, spoketo the students, sharing withthem the importance of takingcontrol of their educationalchoices and striving to take themore difficult classes to preparethemselves for their future.

One of thehighlights of the day

was the poster competition.Posters werecreated in advanceby the studentsusing the themeselected for theNational EngineersWeek: “Engineers:Turning Ideas intoReality.” The posterswere displayed in the

Mission Briefing Room whereJoAnn Morgan, associatedirector for Advanced Develop-

ment and Shuttle Upgrades; TipTalone, director, Space StationHardware Integration Office;and Dr. Irene Long, director,Biomedical Office, served asjudges.

Each student received apacket of materials

representing the NationalEngineers Week theme, aNASA Engineering Day souvenirpencil pack, and a certificate ofparticipation.

Bus transportation wasprovided by NASA. Funds forthe SPACE CAMP activities, theluncheon and the souvenirswere provided by the KSCExchange Council.

By Ember Smith

STUDENTS began their day at the U.S. SPACE CAMP, wherethey built and then launched model rockets. Here, they preparethe rockets for liftoff.

A STUDENT looks at one of the displaysat U.S. SPACE CAMP, above. At left, oneof the students poses in front of the manyposters displayed in the Mission BriefingRoom of the Operations and CheckoutBuilding.

SPACEPORT NEWSMarch 13, 1998 Page 5

Collins tapped as first female Shuttlecommander

The first woman to serve aspilot on a Space Shuttlemission also will be the firstwoman to serve as a missioncommander.

Eileen Marie Collins earnedthe first distinction in 1995 onSTS-63. She’ll earn the secondlater this year on STS-93,which will carry the AdvancedX-ray Astrophysics Facility(AXAF) into orbit.

Collins became an astronautin July 1991 and has flown inspace twice. She is an AirForce lieutenant colonel whograduated in 1990 from the AirForce Test Pilot School atEdwards Air Force Base andhas logged more than 4,700hours in 30 different types of

KAY Hire, the first KSC employee to join the astronautcorps, recently returned to the space center to participatein a Crew Equipment Interface Test (CEIT). She is shownhere at the hatch of the orbiter Columbia in OrbiterProcessing Facility Bay 3.

A suit technician helps astronaut EileenCollins prepare for her second spaceflight.

VETERAN communications counselor Marilyn Waters, founder and head ofWatermark Strategic Communications & Public Relations in Melbourne, will bethe speaker at the Women’s History Month luncheon at 11:30 a.m., March 19 atthe KSC Visitor Complex Lunch Pad. Tickets are $8 each. In Headquarters,contact Jean Rhodes, 867-2307, room 2321B; Charlotte Becker, 867-7631, rm.3637, or Jane Eitel, 867-3473, rm. 3533. In the Space Station Processing Facility,contact Tracy Anderson, 867-6033, rm. 3054, or Kim Boatright, 867-6479, rm.M036Y. In the Operations Support Building, contact Angie Brewer, 861-3741,rm. 5403Q; in the Logistics Building, contact Connie Dobrin, 861-6408, rm. 3620I,or Sandy McCandless, 861-5381, rm. 3760.

Afamiliarfacereturnsto KSC

X-38 drop tests planned this month

aircraft. She served as pilot onher first two Shuttle flights,STS-63 and STS-84 last year.

Also assigned to the STS-93crew are Jeffrey Ashby, pilot;and Steven Hawley, CatherineColeman and Michel Tognini,mission specialists. Togninirepresents the French SpaceAgency, CNES.

COMPACT in size, the X-38 demonstrator arrived at Dryden Flight Research Centerlast year to begin flight tests.

The first free-flight tests ofthe X-38 technologydemonstrator were set to beginearlier this month at DrydenFlight Research Center inCalifornia. The X-38 is beingdeveloped as a crew returnvehicle for the InternationalSpace Station. It was designedat Johnson Space Center andwill be able to hold a seven-person crew.

The full-scale, unpilotedairframe shown aboveunderwent captive-carry testsattached to a B-52 aircraft atDryden last summer. Furthertests could include anunpiloted spaceflight test inearly 1999.

Total estimated costthrough the completion of twospace test vehicles could beless than $80 million. About100 people are currentlysupporting the effort at JSCand Dryden.

Tom Hanks seriesdebuts in April

The Tom Hanks-producedseries, From the Earth to theMoon, debuts on HBO inApril. The first episode airsApril 5 at 8 p.m. A wealth ofmaterial about the show,including an interview withHanks, is posted on HBO’sWeb site at www.hbo.com

John F. Kennedy Space Center

Managing editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bruce BuckinghamEditor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paula ShawaEditorial support provided by Sherikon Space Systems Inc. Writers Group.Photographic support primarily provided by The Bionetics Corp. and Public AffairsPhotographer George Shelton, also of Bionetics.

USGPO: 633-112/80001

Spaceport News

The Spaceport News is an official publication of the Kennedy Space Centerand is published on alternate Fridays by the Public Affairs Office in the interestof KSC civil service and contractor employees. Contributions are welcome and should be submitted two weeks beforepublication to the Media Services Branch, AB-A. E-mail submissions can besent to Paula.Shawa-1@ksc.nasa.gov

SPACEPORT NEWS March 13, 1998Page 6

this June to beginpreparations for a launchaboard the Space Shuttle inAugust. NASA announced latelast year that delivery wouldbe delayed. Launch on STS-93still is targeted for Aug. 26,but the date is under review.

An end-to-end test in earlyFebruary demonstrated asmooth communicationsnetwork between thespacecraft and a newlyconstructed OperationsControl Center in Cambridge,Mass. AXAF received andresponded properly to about10,000 instructions. The end-to-end test showed that AXAFcan receive, understand andrespond to the different typesof data that it will receive on-orbit.

The AXAF program ismanaged by Marshall Space

AXAF ...(Continued from Page 1)

NASA cancels Clark missionNASA announced Feb. 25

that it was partiallyterminating the Clark Earthscience mission, citingconcerns about mission costs,launch schedule delays andon-orbit capability.

The agency said it wouldretain launch vehicle servicesand expects to recover someassets of the mission, such assome spacecraft payloads,components and subsystems

which may be used on otherNASA projects.

Clark was to be part of aduo of spacecraft underNASA’s Small SatelliteTechnology Initiative (SSTI)program. The first spacecraftto be launched, Lewis, alsomet an ill fate when an errantthruster placed the spacecraftin an excessive spin modefollowing a flawless launchlast Aug. 22.

STS-91 payload

Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.The mirrors for AXAF are atHuntsville now, undergoingmapping and calibration tests.This involves shining X-raysthrough the mirrors and thenmeasuring, in great detail, theimages they project. Theresults will tell the exactshape and performance of themirrors, allowing scientists tobetter interpret the imagescaptured by the spacecraft.Next, the science instrumentswill be tested jointly with themirrors.

AXAF is part of NASA’sGreat Observatories program.Already on orbit are theCompton Gamma RayObservatory and the HubbleSpace Telescope. Eachobservatory will study adifferent portion of theelectromagnetic spectrum withunprecedented accuracy,yielding as a whole greaterinsight into the dynamics ofour solar system.

TEST RUN — An STS-91 payload,the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer(AMS), will get a test flight on theShuttle mission this May and Junebefore it begins a three-year stint asan attached payload on the Interna-tional Space Station.

The AMS is a particle detector andfeatures the first large magnet ever tobe placed in Earth orbit. Its job:search forcosmic antimat-ter originatingfrom outside thegalaxy.

It also maylead to thediscovery of so-called “darkmatter,” themysterious yetundiscoveredmaterial thatsome scientistssay makes up90 percent or more of the universe. In the photo above right, theAMS is shown undergoing preflight processing in the Multi PayloadProcessing Facility at KSC. The artist’s concept above shows howthe payload will fly on the space station.

Graphs of data ratios from theneutron spectrometer “revealdistinctive 3.4 percent and 2.2percent dips in the relevantcurves over the northern andsouthern polar regions,respectively,” Binder said.“This is the kind of data‘signature’ one would expect tofind if water ice is present.”

However, the moon’s waterice is not concentrated in polarice sheets, mission scientistscautioned. “While the evidenceof water ice is quite strong, thewater ‘signal’ itself isrelatively weak,” said Dr.William Feldman, co-investigator and spectrometerspecialist at the Department ofEnergy’s Los Alamos NationalLaboratory in New Mexico

“Our data are consistentwith the presence of water icein very low concentrationsacross a significant number ofcraters,” he added. Usingmodels based on other Lunar

Prospector data, Binder andFeldman predict that water iceis confined to the polar regionsand exists at only a 0.3 percentto 1 percent mixing ratio incombination with the moon’srocky soil, or regolith.

How much lunar water icehas been detected? Assuming awater ice depth of about a footand a half — the depth towhich the neutronspectrometer’s signal canpenetrate — Binder andFeldman estimate that thedata are equivalent to anoverall range of 11 million to330 million tons of lunar waterice, depending upon theassumptions of the modelused.

This quantity is dispersedover 3,600 to 18,000 squaremiles of water ice-bearingdeposits across the northernpole, and an additional 1,800to 7,200 square miles acrossthe southern polar region.Twice as much of the water icemixture was detected at themoon’s north pole as at thesouth.

Moon ...(Continued from Page 1)