The Space Digest is a free monthly newsletter edited by Jim Jenkins which 
contains all kinds of information concerning space and satellites: news, 
announcement of conferences, books, preprints, software, web sites, etc. If 
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In This Issue:

� NASA BUDGET GOES FOR SIGNATURE
� NO WATER/ICE DETECTED FROM LUNAR PROSPECTOR IMPACT 
� SEA LAUNCH SUCCESSFULL
� MARS CLIMATE ORBITER TEAM FINDS UNITS CAUSES ERROR 
� CHANDRA DISCOVERS X-RAY RING IN CRAB NEBULA 
� JIM's FAVORITE SPACE NEWS LINKS
� ATI ANNOUCES NEW WEB ADDRESS and TOLL-FREE NUMBER
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NASA BUDGET GOES FOR SIGNATURE

The Senate on Friday approved, 93 to 5, the bill containing NASA's budget, 
sending it to President Clinton for his signature early next week. The 
conference report  funds NASA at $13.653 billion--$74 million above the 
president's requested level--but transfers $120 million out of space science 
to transportation and other programs. The president is expected to sign the 
bill next week.

Did the budget uncertainty cause problems in your work? Was this just a 
political game? Let us know what you think. Certainly ATI saw a reduction in 
NASA people who registered for training during September and October. 
Hopefully we will see you in our courses scheduled in November / December. 
There is still time to register in Spacecraft Thermal Control (Oct 28-29) and 
the popular Spacecraft Systems Design and Engineering( Nov 30-Dec 3)
 

NO WATER/ICE DETECTED FROM LUNAR PROSPECTOR IMPACT 

The controlled crash of NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft into a crater on 
the Moon on July 31 produced no observable signature of water. Scientists 
digging through data from Earth-based observatories and spacecraft such as 
the Hubble Space Telescope made this announcement today. NASA worked with 
engineers and astronomers at the University of Texas to precisely crash the 
barrel-shaped spacecraft into a specific shadowed crater as a low-budget 
attempt to wring one last bit of scientific productivity from the low-cost 
Lunar Prospector mission. The question of whether there is hidden ice on the 
Moon, delivered by impacting comets, is still open. 



SEA LAUNCH SUCCESSFULLY DELIVERS DIRECTV 1-R SATELLITE TO ORBIT

Sea Launch, the multinational, ocean-based launch services company, 
officially began commercial operations today with a stellar launch of the new 
DIRECTV 1-R direct broadcast satellite. The Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket 
lifted off from the Odyssey launch platform.All systems performed nominally 
during flight and the 7,600-pound DIRECTV 1-R satellite, built by Hughes 
Space & Communications (HSC), was successfully delivered to geostationary 
transfer orbit approximately 62 minutes after lift-off.
 
"Today's successful launch culminates an outstanding year for everyone 
involved with the Sea Launch program," said Allen B. Ashby, Sea Launch 
president. "Having our first commercial launch go as successfully as our 
demonstration launch speaks volumes for the teamwork and dedication that have 
helped bring the Sea Launch system to fruition. We are now undisputedly in 
the launch services business."

DIRECTV 1-R is a Hughes HS 601HP satellite. It features more than 7.5 
kilowatts of total power, to operate 16 high-power Ku-band transponders for 
service to all 50 states. Besides building the satellite, Hughes arranged for 
the launch services in order to deliver the spacecraft in orbit. 
"This was a landmark mission - the 50th launch of an HS 601 satellite, and 
the fourth successful HSC launch this year," said Tig H. Krekel, President 
and CEO of HSC. "It provides our customer, DIRECTV, with much-needed extra 
capacity. And it establishes Sea Launch as a viable launch vehicle, one that 
we plan to use for at least 13 more satellites."

Once signal acquisition is complete and the DIRECTV 1-R satellite becomes 
operational at 101 degrees West Longitude, it will play a key role in 
expanding capacity and delivering local broadcast network channels to DIRECTV 
customers in major metropolitan markets across the country.
 
"Sea Launch is very proud to have been selected to launch the DIRECTV 1-R 
satellite by Hughes and DIRECTV," Ashby said.The Sea Launch concept provides 
commercial satellite customers such as DIRECTV, with the most direct and 
cost-effective route to geostationary transfer orbit without requiring a 
change in flight inclination. Launching from the equator also affords 
value-added operational benefits including increased performance, high launch 
availability and reduced launch infrastructure costs. From the ocean-based 
launch site, the robust Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket can lift a heavier 
spacecraft mass or place a payload into a higher perigee, helping satellite 
operators to attain a longer satellite service capability.

For Sea Launch, the successful launch of DIRECTV 1-R punctuates a tremendous 
year for the venture including a two-for-two launch success record heading 
into the millennium. Sea Launch milestones in 1999 included the completion of 
an extensive sea trial program involving both launch support vessels and the 
highly successful launch of a demonstration payload on March 27. Preparations 
are now underway at the Sea Launch Home Port in Long Beach Calif., for the 
company's next commercial satellite launch in the first quarter of 2000.
Building on proven performance and flight-tested hardware, Sea Launch 
combines the world's best aerospace and marine capabilities to provide 
satellite and end-user customers with superior value, performance and fully 
integrated commercial launch service capabilities. The Sea Launch global 
partnership includes Boeing Commercial Space Company, Kent, Wash., (provides 
spacecraft integration and the payload fairings); Kvaerner Maritime a.s., of 
Oslo, Norway (the vessel builder); RSC Energia of Moscow, Russia (provides 
the Block-DM upper stage and its integration with the launch vehicle); and KB 
Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash of Ukraine (provides the first two stages of the launch 
vehicle and launch support operations).With the successful launch of DIRECTV 
1-R, the Sea Launch manifest currently stands at 18 confirmed launches.


MARS CLIMATE ORBITER TEAM FINDS UNITS CAUSES ERROR

A failure to recognize and correct an error in a transfer of information 
between the Locheed Martin Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in Colorado 
and the JPL mission navigation team in California led to the loss of the 
spacecraft last week, preliminary findings by NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory internal peer review indicate. 

"People sometimes make errors," said Dr. Edward Weiler, NASA's Associate 
Administrator for Space Science. "The problem here was not the error, it was 
the failure of NASA's systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our 
processes to detect the error. That's why we lost the spacecraft." The peer 
review preliminary findings indicate that one team used English units (e.g., 
inches, feet and pounds) while the other used metric units for a key 
spacecraft operation. This information was critical to the maneuvers required 
to place the spacecraft in the proper Mars orbit. "Our inability to recognize 
and correct this simple error has had major implications," said Dr. Edward 
Stone, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We have underway a 
thorough investigation to understand this issue." 


CHANDRA DISCOVERS X-RAY RING AROUND COSMIC POWERHOUSE IN CRAB NEBULA
 
After barely two months in space, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has taken 
a stunning image of the Crab Nebula, the spectacular remains of a stellar 
explosion, and has revealed something never seen before: a brilliant ring 
around the nebula's heart. Combined with observations from the Hubble Space 
Telescope, the image provides important clues to the puzzle of how the cosmic 
"generator," a pulsing neutron star, energizes the nebula, which still glows 
brightly almost 1,000 years after the explosion. 

"The inner ring is unique," said Professor Jeff Hester of Arizona State 
University, Tempe, AZ. "It has never been seen before, and it should tell us 
a lot about how the energy from the pulsar gets into the nebula. It's like 
finding the transmission lines between the power plant and the light bulb." 

Professor Mal Ruderman of Columbia University, New York, NY, agreed. "The 
X-rays Chandra sees are the best tracer of where the energy is. With images 
such as these, we can directly diagnose what is going on." 

What is going on, according to Dr. Martin Weisskopf, Chandra Project Scientist 
from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, is awesome. 

"The Crab pulsar is accelerating particles up to the speed of light and 
flinging them out into interstellar space at an incredible rate." 

The image shows tilted rings or waves of high-energy particles that appear 
to have been flung outward over the distance of a light year from the central 
star, and high-energy jets of particles blasting away from the neutron star 
in a direction perpendicular to the spiral. Hubble Space Telescope images 
have shown moving knots and wisps around the neutron star, and previous X-ray 
images have shown the outer parts of the jet and hinted at the ring structure. 
With Chandra's exceptional resolution, the jet can be traced all the way in 
to the neutron star, and the ring pattern clearly appears. The image was made 
with Chandra's Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer and High Energy Transmission 
Grating. 

The Crab Nebula, easily the most intensively studied object beyond our solar 
system, is the remnant of a star that was observed to explode in 1054 A.D. Chinese 
astronomers in that year reported a "guest star" that appeared suddenly and 
remained visible for weeks, even during daytime. From gamma-ray telescopes to 
radio telescopes, the Crab has been observed using virtually every 
astronomical instrument that could see that part of the sky. Unraveling the 
mysteries of the Crab has proven to be the door to insight after insight into 
the workings of the universe. The Crab convincingly tied the origin of 
enigmatic "pulsars" to the stellar cataclysms known as supernovae.
 
Observations of the expanding cloud of filaments in the Crab were 
instrumental in confirming the cosmic origin of the chemical elements from 
which planets (and people) are made. The nebula is located 6,000 light years 
from Earth in the constellation Taurus. The Crab pulsar, which was discovered 
by radio astronomers in 1968, is a neutron star rotating 30 times per second. 
Neutron stars are formed in the seconds before a supernova explosion when 
gravity crushes the central core of the star to densities 50 trillion times 
that of lead and a diameter of only 12 miles. Another consequence of the 
dramatic collapse is that neutron stars are rapidly rotating and highly 
magnetized. Like a gigantic cosmic generator, the rotating magnet generates 
10 quadrillion volts of electricity, 30 million times that of a typical 
lightning bolt.
 
The Chandra images are posted to the Internet at: http://chandra.nasa.gov and 
http://chandra.harvard.edu 


JIM's FAVORITE SPACE NEWS LINKS. These are some of my favorite links to stay 
up-to-date on Space-related news stories.

http://www.universetoday.com/   The Universe Today covers recent events in 
space exploration, policy, science, and politics. We gather the top space 
news from around the Internet and present it in an easy-to-read, daily 
updated newsletter. The site also includes links to other coverage (such as 
the press release and CNN and MSNBC coverage of the same story)

http://www.flatoday.com/space/today/  Florida Today News Paper with an 
emphasis on launches.

http://www.nasa.gov/releases/1999/index.html Good site for current NASA press 
releases plus a review of this years happenings in NASA space news. 

ATI announces new web site address and toll free number. Please save these 
for the future. 
1-888-501-2100
http://www.ATIcourses.com 

At our web site you will find our course schedule. The schedule lists the 
course title, date and location of all the courses that are currently 
scheduled.  You will also find links to a description of each of  ATI's 
courses. Call us if there are courses that you would like to see presented at 
your facility. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Applied Technology Institute ( ATI )
   12960 Linden Church Rd,  Clarksville MD 21029 
   1-888-501-2100/410-531-6034 Telephone or Fax 410-531-1013
   Email: ATIcourses@aol.com
   Internet:  www.ATIcourses.com 
 --Boost your technical skills with Applied Technology Institute training. -- 
ATI seminars help you stay current in your field and broaden your knowledge.  
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