Astro payload specialists selected

ments of large- and small-scale events occurring in the comet’s nucleus and tail. The last appearance of Halley was spectacular and widely viewed in 1910 when the comet appeared in the northern hemispheres evening sky. The 1985-1986 appearance, however, is not expected to be as spectacular because the comet will appear in the southern hemisphere before dawn and will be farther from the earth than during its last return. Astro photography may be the best way to view Halley. The least understood members of the solar system family, comets, are thought to be primitive collections of ices and dust. An intensive study of their composition could offer valuable insights not only into the nature of comets themselves but also into the nature of the primordial mixture from which our solar system may have formed some 4.5 billion years ago. Astro missions will use a pair of Spacelab pallets and the Spacelab instrument pointing system. Spacelab subsystems will be carried in a pressurized container called an igloo, and the crew will operate the instruments from the aft flight deck of the Shuttle orbiter. Spacelab is a modular, reusable Shuttle-based laboratory system developed for NASA by the European Space Agency.

3.9. ASTRO PAYLOAD SPECIALISTS SELECTED’6’

NASA today announced the selection of three scientists to train as payload specialists for a series of astronomy missions scheduled for the Space Shuttle beginning in March 1986. The mission series, called Astro, will utilize major elements of Spacelab, a Shuttle-based research facility. The scientists are Dr. Samuel T. Durrance of The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md, Dr. Kenneth H. Nordsieck of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Dr. Ronald A. Parise of Computer Sciences Corporation, Silver Spring, Md. Dr. Durrance has considerable experience with ultraviolet studies of solar system objects both from satellites and with sounding rockets. Dr. Nordsieck is an expert on polarimetry and has conducted ground-based polarization studies of stars, the interstellar medium and extragalactic objects. Dr. Parise has been involved in flight instrument operations development and has research interests in the properties of binary star systems. Each payload specialist is a member of the three prime Astro instrument research teams. Astro consists of three specially designed ultraviolet telescopes that will be used to study stars and galaxies in ultraviolet light. A pair of visible-light cameras have been added to the payload to study Halley’s Comet during the first flight. The astronaut mission specialists for the first flight of Astro (Astro 1) have been announced previously and are: Dr. Robert Parker, who flew on Spacelab 1; Dr. Jeff Hoffman, assigned to STS 41-F later this year; and Lt. Cdr. David (“)NASA News Release 84-80

of 20 June 1984.

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Leestma. Parker and Hoffman are astronomers and will be closely involved in the operations of the Astro payload. The commander and pilot have not been named yet. The Astro programme is being managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., for NASA’s Office of Space Science and Applications. The Astro payload specialists were designated by the Astro Investigators Working Group, which is made up of members of the science instrument teams. “Each of the payload specialists should have the opportunity to fly on two of the three scheduled astro flights,” mission manager Leon B. Allen of Marshall said. “We are planning to fly two payload specialists on each mission? Recommendations for flight assignments will be made by the Investigators Working Group later, while the payload specialists are in training. “They will be the on-orbit experts for the inst~ments they have helped develop these past several years. The astronomical observations will be a team effort on orbit between the payload specialists, who know the instruments well, and the astronaut mission specialists, who know the shuttle operations. The payload specialists will also co-ordinate closely with the instrument teams on the ground at a payload operations control centre,” added Astro mission scientist Dr. Ted Gull of the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

3.10.FOUR NASA CENTRES ASSIGNED SPACE STATION STUDIE!V

NASA announced today that four of its centres will participate in definition and preliminary design studies of the Space Station which President Reagan directed NASA to develop in his State of the Union message in January. NASA is considering a number of alternative Space Station design concepts and the purpose of the devotion and preliminary design activity is to narrow to a single concept. The Johnson Space Center, Houston, was named earlier this year as the lead centre for the Space Station programme. The lead centre is responsible for overall systems engineering for the programme, the selection of a configuration and the integration of all elements into an operating system which is responsive to customer needs. Johnson, in addition to its lead centre role, will be responsible for the definition of the structural framework to which the various elements of the Space Station will be attached and for the integration and ~stallation of systems on to this structure. The centre will also be responsible for the interfaces between the Space Station and the Space Shuttle and for mechanisms such as the Remote Manipulator Systems, which will be required during assembly of the station in orbit. Johnson will also manage the attitude control, thermal control, com(“NASA News Release 84-85

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of 28 June 1984. See also item 3.28 below.