| Path: decwrl!decvax!mcnc!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn
Subject: STS-41G Orbital Elements (more)
Posted: Mon Oct 1 16:34:49 1984
Relayed from the ARRL:
STS-41G Keplerian Element Sets for GAS 007 Planning
Launch: October 5, 1984 at 11:03 UTC.
I.D. Planning Set # 1-B (First Downlink)
Epoch 84/280.85347222
Drag 7.6E-02
Inclination 57.2007
R.A.A.N. 73.8280
Eccentricity .0010544
Arg. of Perigee 346.2766
Mean Anomaly 14.1415
Mean Motion 15.97849766
Orbit # 23
I.D. Planning Set # 2-B (Second Downlink)
Epoch 84/281.84930555
Drag 8.4E-02
Inclination 57.1942
R.A.A.N. 69.1449
Eccentricity .0007995
Arg. of Perigee 345.4320
Mean Anomaly 17.6465
Mean Motion 16.16455877
Orbit # 39
I.D. Planning Set # 3-B (Third Downlink)
Epoch 84/282.83678240
Drag 8.0E-02
Inclination 57.1865
R.A.A.N. 64.3691
Eccentricity .0008229
Arg. of Perigee 359.4947
Mean Anomaly 0.5436
Mean Motion 16.15978125
Orbit # 55
Note: These sets have been adjusted to match the design flight profile
to within approximately 10 seconds for each downlink period. An
error of several minutes can accumulate for propagation beyond these regions.
73 Bernie, W9KDR.
Path: decwrl!decvax!mcnc!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Subject: More on 41-G
Posted: Tue Oct 2 10:03:08 1984
Challenger is set to lift off from Kennedy Space Center at 7:03 a.m. EDT
Friday, October 5, 1984 and land there about 12:25 p.m. Saturday, October
13. This will be the shortest interval between shuttle flights, beginning
just one month since Discovery touched down after mission 41-D. This is
less than half the previous shortest interval, which was between missions
41-B and 41-C in February and April of this year. This mission will retain
the designation 41-G even though it will be launched in fiscal year 1985,
rather than 1984.
Some of the other "firsts" of this mission:
the first crew of seven on a shuttle
the first astronaut to make four shuttle flights, Bob Crippen
(commander of this mission)
the first flight of a Canadian astronaut, payload specialist
Marc Garneau
the first demonstration of a satellite refueling technique in space
The other crew members on the mission are pilot Jon McBride,
mission specialist Sally Ride, making her second shuttle flight,
mission specialists David Leetsma and Kathryn Sulllivan, and
payload specialist Paul Scully-Power, an Australian-born oceanographer
who is now an American citizen working for the Navy.
Around 3:30 p.m. EDT this Friday, Ride will use the shuttle's remote
manipulator system to deploy a satellite called ERBS, for Earth Radiation
Budget Satellite. ERBS will study how the Earth interacts with the solar
wind. Also aboard is a mapping camera to chart the globe; radar to
provide high-resolution imagery of terrain around the world, and air
pollution sensors. Garneau will run five Canadian experiments, including
a photometer that he'll point at the sun. Scully-Power will concentrate
on the oceans.
On the fifth day, Sullivan and Leetsma will perform extravehicular activity
to practice techniques for refueling orbiting satellites. In the three-hour
spacewalk, Sullivan and Leetsma will connect a hose to two tanks, and later,
hydrazine fuel will be transferred between the tanks through the hose.
--
Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Path: decwrl!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!houxm!ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Subject: Countdown begins
Posted: Wed Oct 3 07:17:14 1984
The countdown for Friday's launch of the shuttle Challenger began at
1 a.m. EDT Wednesday morning. A backlog of paperwork from the short
interval since the previous launch temporarily threatened to delay the
launch but NASA appears confident that all can be cleared up in time.
--
Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Path: decwrl!amd!qumix!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!zehntel!ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Subject: Challenger lifts off
Posted: Fri Oct 5 06:52:48 1984
Space shuttle mission 41-G began on time at 7:03 a.m. EDT today, October
5, when Challenger and its crew of seven lifted off in a flawless launch
into the predawn sky over Kennedy Space Center. The mission was proceeding
according to or ahead of schedule. The ERBS (Earth Radiation Budget Satellite)
is scheduled to be deployed from Challenger's cargo bay later today.
--
Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Path: decwrl!amd!dual!zehntel!ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Subject: TDRS malfunction
Posted: Mon Oct 8 13:44:43 1984
Apparently there has been a malfunction of TDRS-A, the Tracking and Data
Relay Satellite deployed from Challenger in April, 1983. This may be due
to a solar flare. Details are very sketchy at the moment. The problem
this presents to the current mission is it makes transmission of data
gathered by instruments aboard Challenger very difficult. A limited amount
of tape remains on board, but if they cannot reestablish communications with
TDRS, much Earth observation data will be lost. The fuel transfer EVA (space
walk) is still planned for 11:00 a.m. EDT Thursday.
--
Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Path: decwrl!amd!qumix!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!zehntel!ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Subject: 41-G activities
Posted: Mon Oct 8 06:58:20 1984
Challenger suffered only minor damage from Friday's launch, apparently
limited to some thermal tiles. The Earth Radiation Budget Satellite was
deployed almost three hours later than planned Friday when its solar panels
at first failed to open because of the cold. Sally Ride used the Canadarm
to keep it in the sunlight awhile and it now appears healthy. It should
reach its final orbit in about a week. The Shuttle Imaging Radars (SIRs)
were activated and working properly but a Ku band antenna would not lock on
to a data relay satellite for transmitting the information to Earth. Data was
stored on high speed tape on board Challenger until the antenna was locked into
position. Data will now be transferred to the satellite by using the whole
orbiter to point the antenna. (Sounds to me a lot like 2001. This is the
13th shuttle flight, you know. Too bad it's not also Discovery.) There were
a couple smaller problems with antennae in the cargo bay which were solved
using the robot arm. Kathryn Sullivan and David Leestma (not Leetsma) have
remotely transferred some hydrazine fuel between tanks in the cargo bay but
their EVA will be delayed two days until Thursday. Landing is still scheduled
for Saturday afternoon at Cape Canaveral but tropical depression Josephine is
slowly moving toward Florida.
--
Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Path: decwrl!amd!dual!zehntel!ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Subject: TDRS restored; Challenger cabin warm
Posted: Tue Oct 9 07:02:28 1984
The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) did indeed suffer a heavy
barrage of cosmic radiation which wiped its memory. This has happened
before and been fixed. Engineers at the White Sands, N.M. earth station
reset the satellite's memory and the TDRS was ready to be used again
after being out of service for 14 hours. A ball of ice in the flash
evaporation system caused the cabin temperature in Challenger to rise
to 90 degrees F. but this has been reduced to a somewhat warmer than
normal 82 degrees. The astronauts will hold an in-flight news conference
just before noon (EDT) today, October 9, and mission specialists Leestma
and Sullivan will make their space walk from 11:00 a.m. to about 2:00 p.m.
EDT on Thursday, October 11. Tropical storm Josephine is not threatening
Saturday's landing at Kennedy Space Center very much, but NASA is prepared
to shift the landing site to California or New Mexico, if necessary.
--
Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
Path: decwrl!amd!dual!zehntel!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!wd9get
Subject: STS-41G Orbital Elements
Posted: Tue Oct 9 09:45:36 1984
Here are the latest set of orbital elements from Goddard Space Flight
Center for STS-41G. The epoch rev is an estimate, but should not make
any difference in the orbital calculations.
--Keith E. Brandt
pur-ee!wd9get
Satellite: sts-41g
Catalog number: 0
Epoch time: 84282.91736111
dtime(): GMT.....
Mon Oct 8 22:00:59.100 1984 GMT
Element set: 4
Inclination: 56.9810 deg
RA of node: 64.0750 deg
Eccentricity: 0.0007547
Arg of perigee: 301.5250 deg
Mean anomaly: 169.7580 deg
Mean motion: 16.21621622 rev/day
Decay rate: 0.08 rev/day^2
Epoch rev: 56
Semi major axis: 6592.929 km
Anom period: 88.800000 min
Apogee: 230.684 km
Perigee: 220.733 km
|
| From: DECWRL::"[email protected]" 5-FEB-1992
13:22:30.94
To: [email protected]
Subj: Lost City of Ubar Discovered
Forwarded from:
PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. (818) 354-5011
Contact: Mary A. Hardin
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 5, 1992
Lost City of Ubar Discovered
Shuttle Imaging Radar and other spaceborne images of the
Arabian desert, produced utilizing NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
technology and expertise, played a key role in the recent discovery of
a lost city on the edge of the Empty Quarter in southern Oman.
A team of scientists and archaeologists from the United
States, Britain and Oman have discovered the site of the legendary
lost city of Ubar, a major hub for trading frankincense which dates
back to the year 3000 B.C.
The location of the ancient city has been lost for centuries
in the drifting desert sand. The use of spaceborne radar, a device
that can penetrate the dry sand, and enhanced satellite images allowed
scientists to detect tracks of caravan routes leading to the city.
"I was surprised to find that we were able to readily detect
ancient tracks in the enhanced shuttle radar and satellite images,"
said Dr. Ronald Blom, a JPL geologist specializing in remote sensing.
"One can easily separate many modern and ancient tracks on
the computer enhanced images because older tracks often go directly
under very large sand dunes. We could never have surveyed the vast
area where Ubar may have been, nor could we be confident of its
location without the advantage of computer enhanced images from
space," Blom continued.
Analysis of the images was used to direct ground
reconnaissance expeditions throughout the region in the summer of 1990
and the fall of 1991. The result of this work led the expedition to
the site of a remote well on the edge of the Empty Quarter.
There, the explorers uncovered the remains of towers, rooms
and other artifacts that appear to date back to before 2000 B.C. The
great variety of artifacts discovered at the site demonstrates that it
was an important trading center linked by extensive trade routes to
Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.
JPL's involvement in the search for the lost city of Ubar
dates to 1981. Nicholas Clapp, a Los Angeles documentary film maker,
contacted the Laboratory with the idea of using the Shuttle Imaging
Radar to look beneath the sand of the southern Arabian desert.
In 1984, the shuttle Challenger made two passes over an
unmapped region of southern Oman and studied the area with Shuttle
Imaging Radar B (SIR-B).
Since then, Dr. Charles Elachi, JPL assistant laboratory
director of the Office of Space Science and Instruments, Dr. Robert
Crippen, a JPL research geologist, and Dr. Ronald Blom have continued
looking for Ubar from space using radar images taken from the shuttle
and other images taken from the U.S. Landsat 5, the French SPOT
satellite and the shuttle-borne large format camera.
Other members of the expedition include Nicholas Clapp, a
Los Angeles based documentary film producer; George R. Hedges, a Los
Angeles attorney; Dr. Juris Zarins, an archeologist with extensive
experience in Arabia; and Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the famed Arctic explorer.
___ _____ ___
/_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | [email protected]
| | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab |
___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Don't wait for your ship
/___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | to come in, paddle out to
|_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ | it.
|
| Article: 2357
From: [email protected] (AURELIO ROJAS)
Newsgroups: clari.tw.science
Subject: Lost City of Ubar unearthed
Date: 5 Feb 92 21:43:13 GMT
SAN MARINO, Calif. (UPI) -- Members of a team led by an
Emmy-award winning documentary maker described Wednesday how they used
radar scans from the Space Shuttle to unearth the lost city of Ubar --
called the ``the Atlantis of the sands'' by Lawrence of Arabia -- in
the nation of Oman.
Nicholas Clapp and his colleagues of adventurers,
archaeolgists and radar specialists held a news conference at the
Huntington Memorial Library, a day after they announced they had found
the fabled Middle East city six weeks ago.
Clapp began his 10-year search for the 5,000-year-old city --
celebrated in both the Koran and ``A Thousand and One Arabian Nights''
as the center of the ancient frankincense trade -- after stumbling on
a book written in 1932 by the British explorer Bertram Thomas.
Although Thomas gave coordinates of a road he believed led to
Ubar -- a city some believed was mythical -- previous teams of
explorers had been unable to locate it.
But then Clapp read in a magazine about a special radar system
that was flown on the last successful mission of the Space Shuttle
Challenger, and approached members of the imaging team at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Ronald Blom, one of the JPL scientists, said that after
determining Clapp and his team were serious, scientists scanned more
than 50 images of the area where Ubar was described by ancient maps
and books as being located.
``The key clues were the old caravan routes,'' Clapp said,
referring to the series of submerged desert roads carved out by teams
of hundreds of thousands of camels that converged on a single site.
``As little as six weeks ago, we were on the brink of total failure.
But then Clapp and his team began gingerly digging at the site
where the carvan routes converged -- and within days found walls of
the ancient city ``within a couple of feet'' below the surface.
The digging led to the remains of an eight-sided structure, a
fortress with 10 foot to 12 foot walls 2 feet thick and 60 feet long,
that is believed to have served as the home of the king at the center
of what was the tent city of Ubar.
Clapp said the digging is continuing, and his team has applied
for a five-year excavation permit from the nation of Oman. The bottom
of the city, he said, is believed to reach 30 feet below ground.
Clapp said the search team has identified the city through
pottery that has been unearthed, but he acknowleged archeologists will
not be ``100 percent sure'' it is Ubar until inscriptions are analyzed.
Remains of bodies, he said, would be at the bottom of the city.
Called ``the Atlantis of the sands,'' by T. E. Lawrence, better
known as Lawrence of Arabia, Ubar was a thriving trading capital for
frankincense, the highly valuable resin used in medicines, perfumes
and cremations that was second in value only to gold in ancient times.
Its rulers became wealthy, and -- according to Islamic legend
-- so wicked that God allowed the city to be swallowed up by the desert.
But the search team has determined the city was unwittingly
constructed over a large limestone cavern until its weight caused the
cavern to collapse in a massive sinkhole, destroying much of the city
and causing the rest to be abandoned.
Previous researchers attempted to locate Ubar, with Thomas,
apparently coming close about 60 years ago. At the time he observed
the ruins of a ``rude fort'' but judged it to be a few hundred, not
thousand, years old.
Clapp said Thomas actually stood on top of the city, not
knowing it was below his feet.
Previous search expeditions, Clapp surmised, were frustrated
because of the undistinguished typography of the area, known as the
Empty Quarter because it is so barren, and ambiguous descriptions in
ancient maps and books.
One book said the ``Clues are so diverse, pick a place in
Arabia and it's there,'' noted Clapp, who did much of his research at
the Huntington Memorial Library and expects his documentary on the
lost city to be completed by Christmas.
Pointing to a copy of ``The Book of Imaginary Places'' -- which
includes Ubar -- Clapp quipped, ``It's going to have to be revised.''
|