Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Thu, 13 Dec 1990 02:55:06 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Thu, 13 Dec 1990 02:54:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #650 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 650 Today's Topics: HUT Status for 12/07/90 [1100 CST] (Forwarded) Re: ASTRO status at 4/16:00 MET Astro-1 Status for 12/06/90 [2030 CST] (Forwarded) Re: Good Bye (Quite possibly my last posting from this site) WUPPE Status for 12/07/90 [AM] (Forwarded) Astro-1 Status for 12/07/90 [0430 CST] (Forwarded) Astro-1 Status for 12/07/90 [0700 CST] (Forwarded) Astro-1 Status for 12/06/90 [2200 CST] (Forwarded) Administrivia: Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to space+@andrew.cmu.edu. Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices, should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Dec 90 05:17:43 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: HUT Status for 12/07/90 [1100 CST] (Forwarded) HUT Status Report 4 11 a.m. Dec. 7, 1990 Spacelab Mission Control Center Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL The Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope observed an extremely faint quasar and an important elliptical galaxy last night. HUT had three full night passes -- about 100 minutes -- to observe NGC1399, an elliptical galaxy in the constellation of Fornax about 50 million light-years away. The observation yielded the first detailed ultraviolet spectrum of light in an elliptical galaxy. Twenty years ago, astronomers discovered that much more ultraviolet light radiates from elliptical galaxies than anyone expected. Measurements since then have shown that the light is stronger in the shorter wavelengths approaching the far ultraviolet. But until last night, no detailed spectrum of any elliptical galaxy at any ultraviolet wavelength existed. "Now we should be able to solve this mystery," said Arthur Davidsen, principal investigator for the HUT team. "We should discover what kinds of stars are emitting this ultraviolet light -- if they are stars." "People have been writing papers and counter-papers, arguing back and forth, for years," he added. "The big question is whether these galaxies are filled with old, dying stars or whether hot young stars are being formed in these galaxies formerly believed to be old and quiescent." In addition, the team collected 51 minutes of data on Q1821+64, a quasar so faint that the HUT team couldn't see it on their video screens when the quasar came into the telescope's field of view. They used quide stars to lock onto the nearly invisible object. The quasar is located about 6 billion light-years from Earth. Quasars are the most powerful objects in the universe, generating 100 billion times as much energy as the sun from a region no bigger than our solar system. HUT is studying them to determine whether they are fueled by black holes as their core. According to theory, the disappearing material swirls above the black hole, forming a whirlpool, and releasing an enormous amount of energy just before it disappears forever as it falls into the black hole. The emission of light from this disk of material, mostly at far ultraviolet wavelengths, is what HUT hopes to detect. HUT astronomer Jerry Kriss said he was very excited with the results. Quasars are his particular interest, and he is eager to return to Baltimore and analyze this one. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 90 14:07:20 GMT From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!hpb@apple.com (Harry P Bloomberg) Subject: Re: ASTRO status at 4/16:00 MET To all those posting the inside story of the ASTRO mission, I give a hardy THANKS! The postings have provided an insight into what it's really like to work on one of these high-profile projects. This viewpoint is simply ignored by the general media. This is USENET at its best. Now get back to work and fix those *&(*&^% star trackers! :-) :-) :-) Harry Bloomberg hpb@hpb.cis.pitt.edu or hpb@vms.cis.pitt.edu ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 90 16:37:29 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Astro-1 Status for 12/06/90 [2030 CST] (Forwarded) Astro-1 Shift Summary Report #15 8:30 p.m. CST, Dec. 6, 1990 4/19:45 MET Spacelab Mission Operations Control Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL Implementation of a new plan of operation for the Astro-1 ultraviolet telescopes became the order of the day during the afternoon and early evening hours of Thursday. The change was necessary due to the failure earlier in the day of the second of two Spacelab data display units. These are the computer terminals on Columbia's aft flight deck which normally provide the crew with their primary means of controlling the Instrument Pointing System and the three ultraviolet telescopes. Following loss of the second data display unit, ground controllers at Spacelab Mission Operations Control in Huntsville and Mission Control in Houston prepared a plan for remotely commanding the IPS and the three telescopes -- the pointing system from Houston and the ultraviolet instruments from Huntsville. The plan came together more quickly than ground controllers had initially anticipated, and by shortly before 5 p.m. (CST), it was given its first test for a target acquisition. That opportunity came with a pass in which the Supernova 1987a was the desired subject. With Payload Specialist Sam Durrance guiding the ultraviolet telescopes by means of the manual pointing controller, or joystick, Alternate Payload Specialist Ken Nordsieck in Huntsville provided second-by-second pointing instructions over air-to-ground. The result was a good "lock" on the supernova by the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope and a successful exposure with the telescopes cameras. The Broad Band X-ray Telescope (BBXRT) was unable to acquire data of Supernova 1987A because of instrument alignment problems. BBXRT will have several upcoming opportunities to observe this brilliant target later in the mission. The plan to recover from loss of the second Spacelab computer terminal called for going step by step to successively more complex operations until, it is hoped, all three of the ultraviolet telescopes can be brought back into simultaneous observation through this coordinated air-ground approach. And, shortly before 8 p.m., the second step in the process appeared to have been achieved, when an acquisition of the white dwarf star HZ 43 was successful with the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope. Later, the plan calls for attempting the procedure with the most sensitive instrument, the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment. During this period of recovery with the ultraviolet instruments, science planners gave as much observation opportunity as possible to the x-ray telescope, and the BBXRT team acquired good data on several targets of special interest to them. Around 6 p.m., however, the x-ray telescope was plagued by a recurrence of the misalignment which has occurred previously. Ground controllers at the Goddard Space Flight Center and in Huntsville began efforts to correct the problem. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 90 18:25:00 GMT From: agate!stew.ssl.berkeley.edu!korpela@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Eric J. Korpela) Subject: Re: Good Bye (Quite possibly my last posting from this site) In article <1990Dec6.204318.9557@rice.edu> jsd@spotted.rice.edu (Shawn Joel Dube) writes: >|> >|> This brings up a question. How many people subscribe to this >|> newsgroup??? I'm curious to know. >|> >|> Just EMail a small letter and I'll post a total count in about a week. >|> > >Sorry I ask!!!! It's well over 70 so......Please, no more mail :-) > In case you didn't notice you posted your message to 6 (yes, count 'em) news groups. You're lucky your system wasn't swamped with mail messages. (It may yet happen as the network delay is on the order of days in some cases.) Many news groups have thousands of readers. Some have tens of thousands. You're lucky you picked six groups with moderate traffic. (If you had sent that message to rec.arts.startrek you would not be a happy person right now.) /\ korpela@sunspot.ssl.berkeley.edu Internet /__\ rioch BKYAST::KORPELA 42215::KORPELA DecNet / \ of Chaos korpela%bkyast@ucbjade Bitnet (_____________________ ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 90 05:19:10 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: WUPPE Status for 12/07/90 [AM] (Forwarded) WUPPE Status Report 11 AM, Friday, Dec. 7, 1990 Spacelab Mission Control Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL Last night the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment was able to make three observations. Eta Hor, a rapid rotator, was observed for just a few minutes at about 9:40 p.m. CST. The observation was used to test ground command capabilities of the Wisconsin telescope aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. The WUPPE telescope next co-observed with the Johns Hopkins telescope the HUT primary target Q1821, a quasar. The Wisconsin telescope was able to obtain excellent spectral data on this object which will complement the data obtained by HUT and can be used in separate scientific investigations. Beginning at 7:10 a.m., the WUPPE instrument began its second observation of Gamma Geminorum. "Gamme Gem" is a very important WUPPE calibration target. This very bright blue star is situated some 88 light years away from Earth in the constellation Gemini. It is of import to the WUPPE science team because it is known from ground-based observations to have essentially no polarization and can thus be used to determine to high precision the WUPPE signal that corresponds to zero polarization at the various ultraviolet wavelengths. The WUPPE instrument itself continues to perform well, exhibiting high sensitivity. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 90 16:44:17 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Astro-1 Status for 12/07/90 [0430 CST] (Forwarded) Astro-1 Shift Summary Report #16 4:30 a.m. CST Dec. 7, 1990 5/03:38 MET Spacelab Mission Operations Control Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL Within the span of 22 hours, the crew aboard Columbia, and operators at the Johnson Space Center, Marshall and Goddard Space Flight Centers, have recycled what appeared to be a serious problem -- the loss of two dedicated display screens aboard the orbiter -- into routine commanding and observations. Operators worked through the night to refine time-intensive, ground-based setup commands, to make the commands easier and faster to uplink to the Shuttle-borne Astro ultraviolet telescopes. As reflection of the smoothing of observation setup procedures, during a 3:40 a.m. CST observation of Q1821, a radio-quiet quasar, operators uplinked setup commands minutes early. Just as the orbiter passed out of satellite communications, the Johns-Hopkins telescope locked onto the target. At acquisition of signal (AOS), all four telescopes were observing the target. By the time the star passed out of view, the telescopes had completed 106 percent of their scheduled observation time. Having the largest aperture, the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope was the prime telescope for most of the night. At 11:40 p.m., the UIT team began a short observation of target NGC 1633, the second of four acquisitions of this target during this shift. Immediately following the UIT acquisition, the Broad Band X-ray Telescope team at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, completed sending inertial alignment commands to their Two Axis Pointing System (TAPS). During the night, BBXRT made two successful observations of NGC 1399 in the southern constallation Fornax, or Furnace; Q1821+64, a radio-quiet quasar; and Abell 2256, a spiral-poor galaxy cluster. BBXRT and TAPS continue to operate without problems. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 90 05:14:10 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Astro-1 Status for 12/07/90 [0700 CST] (Forwarded) Astro-1 Shift Summary Report #17 7:00 a.m. CST, Dec. 7, 1990 4/07:10 MET Spacelab Mission Operations Control Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL During this period (4 a.m. to 7 a.m. CST), the Astro-1 crew continued its successful joint observations of ultraviolet and X-ray stellar sources by ground commands. Alternate Payload Specialist John-David Bartoe complimented Payload Specialist Ron Parise for an "excellent job" in obtaining the correct guide stars and locking on to the targets by use of the joy stick in the aft deck of the orbiter. At the conclusion of the flow of scientific data from Q1821 -- a quasi-stellar object (more popularly called a "quasar") -- Bartoe noted that 51 minutes of observation had been obtained when 48 had been scheduled, and he congratulated the crew. All four instruments had been observing this strong ultraviolet and X-ray source. About 45 minutes later the crew again proceeded to acquire Q1821, with all four instruments observing. The Broad Band X-Ray Telescope (BBXRT) was also able to study 0614, a binary X-ray star used for calibration, and the BBXRT science investigation team was also scheduling U Geminorum, a binary star in the constellation Gemini ("the twins"), shortly thereafter. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 90 16:39:37 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Astro-1 Status for 12/06/90 [2200 CST] (Forwarded) Astro 1 Mission Report #28 10:00 p.m. CST, December 6, 1990 4/00:00 MET Spacelab Mission Operations Control Marshall Space Flight Center It was "business as usual" for the Astro-1 observatory as it resumed science observations beginning with the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope as it successfully locked onto its target using a new ground based command technique to help coordinate observations. "Looks great!" noted Ken Nordsieck, Alternate Payload Specialist as he verbally guided Payload Specialist Sam Durrance to refine their achieved target, Supernova 1987A at 4:16:10 MET. Teams at the Johnson Space Center and at the Marshall Space Flight Center worked together in devising a system to control the Instrument Pointing System and Image Motion Compensation System from the ground. The UIT scientists were pleased as their instruments collected approximately six minutes of data from this acquisition. Supernova 1987A, located 170,000 light-years away from Earth, is an important target to scientists because it releases ultraviolet radiation through light "echoes." The Broad Band X-Ray telescope experienced a minor alignment problem during this observation and was unable to acquire science data from this target. Meanwhile, the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope and the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter are on "stand-by mode" as they await their turns for observation. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #650 *******************