Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mordor.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!mordor!@S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC.ARPA:crash!usiiden!markf@Nosc From: markf%Nosc@usiiden.ARPA Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Spacelab News Conference Message-ID: <2969@mordor.UUCP> Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 02:46:03 EDT Article-I.D.: mordor.2969 Posted: Tue Aug 6 02:46:03 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 7-Aug-85 03:46:04 EDT Sender: daemon@mordor.UUCP Lines: 30 From:Spacelab News Conference 8/5/85Flight Director Al Pennington and Mission Manager RoyLuftkin (sp ?) - Another good day for the orbitter inspace, systems continue to perform flawlessly. We'resitting at about a 174 by 164 orbit and we've accomplishedour last waste dump and coming up on the last water dumpfor the supply later on today. We're headed towards anorbit 126 de-orbit, around 7 days, 21 hr 42 min and 40seconds. We're headed for a landing at Edwards AF Base.Currently targeted for runway 17 with a land i ng at 7 days22 hrs 45 min 24 seconds. The latest weather predictionsfor Edwards AF Basetoday are scattered clouds, very light winds ... allwithing in the limits prescribed on the vehicle and ofcourse we have the option to go in with a lot of runwaysthere at Edwards. All efforts will be made to keep the windon our normal, below the ten mile limit. There are noplanned cross wind EVO's this time.With the rough start we had on Spacelab, we've had somereally great science this time. To give you an idea, wesent some 12000 commands (Spacelab 1 was around 8000), sowe have far exceeded the commanding on Spacelab 1. Some1.25 trillion bits of data has been received, 45 hours ofvideo, 230 miles of tape. Even with the rough start that wehad at the beginning, we got in orbit with significantlyless fuel then we premission had planned to use for thepayload. We certainly met all the objectives of the PDP. Wegot at least half of the burns through dedicated effort ofthe of the ... people. We did get half of the burns for the p lasma depletion experiment, and with all the effort backat HOOC especially the IPS people ... especially the dataon the optical sensor package with all its difficulties. Wereally had two objectives on Spacelab 2, the first was theverification part of the flight, which was met 100%. Andthe Spacelab systems have performed flawlessly. We were abit concerned, lifting off without the redundant computer.Fortunately, there was not a single glitch. ... to me whatscience is all about is the kind of recovery that t o okplace on this mission. Going over the individualexperiments, plasma hole burns got some excellent data; thecosmic ray experiment is still running and will until powerdown; there were some 10 to 12 drop outs of the PDP but hequickly developed a procedure to recover in around 5 min.We'll work on the cause of the drop outs post mission. TheHRT since yesterday has been mainly monitoring theproduction of super fluid helium on orbit; the infa redtelescope i s still operating and will for the remainder ofthe mission, we hoped to get 25 hrs on that experiment andwe've at least doubled that. The super fluid heliumexperiment ran out of helium last night as was expected. Wehave one more blood draw for exp 1. Plan t growth wasobviously thrilled by the extra day. SOUP is getting reallyoutstanding data. That particular instrument has imagemotion compensation, he can compensate for disturbances onthe IPS. He's getting indications that he's stable within1/10 th of an a r c sec., 300 KM on the surface of the sun.He had to do a lot of calibrationsquickly to get to the point that he is now, takingscientific data. CHASE is still up and operating onoccassion still using their sun sensors. HRTS is down. Theyused all the film th ey had on board. PDP got well over 100%of expected data. The HRTS film is extremely sensitive totime and temperature, platforms will be built to remove thefilm and put them in the refrigerator. That should takeplace 24 to 48 hrs after landing. The major c h ange is goingin and getting the film out.