Universe Today - December 20, 1999 |
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the U N I V E R S E T O D A Y Space Exploration News From Around the Internet, Updated Every Weekday. December 20th, 1999 - Issue #142 http://www.universetoday.com info@universetoday.com To unsubscribe from this newsletter, just reply with only the subject line "UNSUBSCRIBE NEWSLETTER". An HTML version of this Newsletter is available at: http://www.universetoday.com/html/misc/today.html ************************************** Want to know who is hiring in the space industry? ESA, Earthwatch and Storm Control Systems are three of the companies which posted new jobs last week on their web site. To find out who are the other ones, why don't you subscribe to the free Space Careers weekly newsletter. http://www.spacelinks.com/SpaceCareers/newsletter.html?ut ************************************** -- UNIVERSE TODAY STORY SUMMARY -- * Discovery Makes its Last Minute Launch * Terra Launches * Final Full Moon of the Century will Be Brighter than Normal * New Radio Telescope Nearing Completion * NASA's Investigation Into Mars Failures Begins Discovery Makes its Last Minute Launch ------------------------- After 9 delays, the Space Shuttle Discovery finally lifted off its pad on Sunday from Cape Canaveral on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. The crew will catch up with the telescope on Tuesday, repair the broken gyros, and then land the shuttle again on the 27th. If the shuttle hadn't launched Sunday, NASA would have waited until the New Year to avoid potential Y2K problems. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/shuttle991219_b.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_571000/571968.stm http://cnn.com/1999/TECH/space/12/19/shuttle.launch.hfr/index.html http://www.foxnews.com/science/122099/space_shuttle.sml http://www.msnbc.com/news/330873.asp http://www.chron.com/content/interactive/space/missions/sts-103/ http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/shuttle-99q.html http://www.spaceviews.com/1999/12/19c.html Terra Launches ------------------------- After a few of its own delays, the Terra earth observation satellite launched on board an Atlas 2 rocket on Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Terra will help measure how the Earth's oceans, air, land and people function together by sweeping over the planet every 100 minutes in a near-polar orbit. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_569000/569971.stm http://cnn.com/1999/TECH/space/12/18/terra.01/index.html http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/terra-eo-99d.html http://www.spaceviews.com/1999/12/18c.html Final Full Moon of the Century will Be Brighter than Normal ------------------------- The next full moon will occur on December 22nd; however, this will be a special event, as the moon will also be at its closest point to Earth, only 356,667 kms away - causing it to be visibly brighter. This is rare, happening approximately once every 10 years or so. http://cnn.com/1999/TECH/space/12/17/moon.show.ap/index.html http://www.discovery.com/news/briefs/brief5.html?ct=385e7afc http://www.foxnews.com/science/121799/moon.sml New Radio Telescope Nearing Completion ------------------------- After the 90-meter radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory collapsed over 10 years ago, congress approved funds to build a larger replacement. Nearly completed, the new 100-meter replacement at the facility in Green Bank, West Virginia will be the largest steerable radio telescope in the world. http://www.foxnews.com/science/popsci/telescope1.sml NASA's Investigation Into Mars Failures Begins ------------------------- Retired executive A. Thomas Young has been appointed to head up a team that will investigate NASA's entire approach to deep-space exploration. The appointment comes on the heels of two failed Mars missions under the "faster, cheaper, better" philosophy. Young was the mission director for the highly successful Viking landing missions before becoming an executive vice president with Lockheed Martin. http://www.msnbc.com/news/304520.asp http://www.spaceviews.com/1999/12/19a.html ************************************** Space News from SpaceDaily.com for today Mars Delayed, Not Lost http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/mars-polar99-99u.html To unsubscribe from this newsletter, just reply with only the subject line "UNSUBSCRIBE NEWSLETTER". All contents copyright (c) 1999 Universe Today |