NASA Daily News Summary For Release: April 30, 1999 Media Advisory m99-087 Summary: -- Video File for April 30, 1999 -- Upcoming Media Opportunity: Winning Students Take the Prize in Washington, May 1 -- Upcoming Live Event: STS-96 Preflight Briefings, May 4 ***** No news releases have been issued today. If NASA issues any news releases later today, we will e-mail summaries and Internet URLs to this list. Index of 1999 NASA News Releases: http://www.nasa.gov/releases/1999/index.html ***** ITEM 1 MARS MAGNETIC STRIPES (TRT 00:09:56) (REPLAY) ITEM 2 X-34 TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATOR (REPLAY) ITEM 3 FIDO MARS ROVER (TRT 00:09:51) (REPLAY) ITEM 4 SHUTTLE'S GLASS COCKPIT (TRT approx 00:08:00) (REPLAY) ***** Item 1 Magnetic Stripes Preserve Record Of Ancient Mars (replay) Based on observations by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor mission, more evidence has emerged that ancient Mars was a more dynamic, Earth-like planet than it is today. Scientists using the spacecraft's magnetometer instrument have discovered surprising evidence for past movement of the Martian crust in the form of banded patterns of magnetic fields on the Martian surface. Item 1A Magnetic Stripes on Mars The first sequence begins on the Martian surface where data from the Mars Global Surveyor has been overlaid. The alternating magnetic stripes can be seen in red and blue. The final image shows an interpolated view of the data. Item 1B Oldest Mars Crust The map identifies an area in the southern highlands near the Terra Cimmeria and Terra Sirenum regions as the oldest surviving unmodified crust on Mars. This area, centered around 180 degrees longitude from the equator to the pole, is where the magnetic stripes are most prominent. Item 1C Observing the Magnetic Stripes The observations were made with the spacecraft's magnetometer/electron reflectometer instrument. The magnetic fields in adjacent bands point in opposite directions, giving these invisible stripes a striking similarity to patterns seen in the crust of Earth's sea floors. Like a Martian tape recorder, the crust has preserved a fossil record of the magnetic field directions that prevailed at different times in the ancient past. Item 1D Evidence for Movement of the Martian Crust On the Earth, the sea floor slowly spreads apart at mid-oceanic ridges as new crust is extruded from Earth's hot interior. The resulting stripes carry a frozen record of the past few hundred million years of Earth's magnetic history, a finding that validated the once- controversial theory of plate tectonics. Item 1E Violent Impacts Erase the Magnetism The map reveals that the northern regions are largely free of magnetism, indicating the northern crust formed after the dynamo died. One possibility is that later asteroid impacts followed by volcanic activity heated and shocked large areas of the northern crust, obliterating any local magnetic fields and smoothing the terrain. Item 1F Magnetic Field Flip Creates "Stripes" The bands of magnetized crust apparently formed in the distant past when Mars had an active dynamo which generated a global magnetic field. Periodically, conditions in the Mars dynamo changed and the global magnetic field reversed direction. The oppositely directed magnetic field was then frozen into subsequent, freshly extruded crust. Item 1G Serendipity from Extended Aerobraking The observations of the so-called magnetic stripes were made possible because of Mars Global Surveyor's special aerobraking orbit, which was extended due to a problem with a solar panel on the spacecraft. The lowest point of each elliptically shaped orbit dipped below the planet's ionosphere, allowing the magnetometer to obtain better-than-planned regional views of Mars. Item 1H Interview Excerpts: Dr. Mario Acuno, Astrophysicist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland Item 1I Interview Excerpts: Dr. Jack Connerney, Astrophysicist, NASA Goddard Contact at NASA Headquarters: Douglas Isbell, 202/358-1547; Contact at NASA Goddard: Bill Steigerwald, 301/286-5017; Contact at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab: Mary Hardin, 818/354-5011 ***** Item 2 X-34 Technology Demonstrator (replay) NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin and Orbital Sciences Corp. President and CEO David Thompson will help unveil the X-34 technology demonstrator today at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA. The X-34 - a hypersonic, robotic technology testbed - will be the first in a series of experimental vehicles leading the way to a low- cost, fully reusable, commercially developed and operated space fleet after the turn of the century. Item 2A X-34 Animation Item 2B B-roll: X-34 and L-1011 mating shots Item 2C Interview: Mike Allen, X-34 Project Manager, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL Item 2D Interview: Bob Lindberg, Vice President and X-34 Program Manager, Orbital Sciences Corporation Item 2E Interview: Dave Bushman, X-34 Project Manager, Dryden Flight Research Center Contact at NASA Headquarters: Jim Cast, 202/358-1779; Contact at NASA Dryden: Leslie A. Mathews, 805/258-3893; Contact at NASA Marshall: Dom Amatore, 256/544-0031; Contact at Orbital Sciences: Barron Beneski, 703/406-5000. ***** Item 3 FIDO Mars Rover (replay) Item 3A Rover Testing in the Mojave Desert, CA Field Integrated Design and Operation(FIDO), the next generation Mars rover, is helping engineers figure out how to use the kinds of instruments the next Mars rovers will need to fetch and retrieve rocks. FIDO is designed to test the advanced technology of the Athena Flight Rover and science payload that will be launched as part of NASA's Mars Sample Return Missions in 2003 and 2005. Item 3B Interview: Dr. Raymond Arvidson, Geologist, Washington University, St. Louis, MO. Item 3C Interview: Dr. Eric Baumgartner, Robotics Engineer, Mission Engineer for Desert Field Tests, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Contact at the Jet Propulsion Lab: Mary Hardin, 818/354-5011. ***** Item 4 Shuttle's Glass Cockpit (replay) Item 4A Atlantis Headed for 21st Century Space Shuttle Atlantis is headed for the 21st century equipped with the Multifunction Electronic Display System (MEDS) or "glass cockpit." During a periodic major overhaul last year in Palmdale, CA, Atlantis underwent a host of modifications that make it the most modern orbiter in the fleet. Scores of outdated electromechanical screens, gauges and instruments gave way to 11 full-color, flat-panel screens. The new system reduces the cost of maintaining obsolete parts, provides greater back-up capabilities, weighs less and uses less energy than the original design. Item 4B Interview: Ken Cockrell, STS-98 Shuttle Commander Mission STS-98 Shuttle Commander, Ken Cockrell discusses the new and improved cockpit onboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. In 2000, Cockrell will command Shuttle Atlantis on a mission delivering the U.S. Laboratory to the International Space Station. Cockrell explains the need to enhance the Shuttle fleet, addresses the glass cockpit's user benefits and looks toward the Shuttle's bright future. Contact at NASA Kennedy: Joel Wells, 407-867-2468. ***** UPCOMING MEDIA OPPORTUNITY: WINNING STUDENTS TAKE THE PRIZE IN WASHINGTON, MAY 1 Forty high school students and their teachers from around the country have earned all-expense-paid trips to Washington, DC, this week for winning the NASA Student Involvement Program's academic competition. The students will present their winning projects on Saturday, May 1, at the Hotel Washington, 515 15th St. NW, Washington, DC. All events will be open to the press. From 10:15 a.m. to noon EDT and 1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. EDT, seven regional high school winners in each of the three categories -- "Designing a Mission to Mars," "Watching Earth Change" and "Aeronautics and Space Science Journalism" -- will present their proposals. Immediately afterward, there will be an informal poster session, allowing the press to have one-on-one discussions with the students. Contact at NASA Headquarters: Beth Schmid, 202/358-1760. ***** UPCOMING LIVE EVENT: STS-96 PREFLIGHT BRIEFINGS, MAY 4 NASA will brief reporters next week on upcoming Space Shuttle mission STS-96, which will bring visitors and supplies to the International Space Station. The briefings will begin at 9 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, May 4, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and will be carried live on NASA TV. Contact at NASA Headquarters: Dwayne Brown, 202/358-1726; Contact at NASA Johnson: Eileen Hawley, 281/483-5111; For a full schedule of the briefings: ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/note2edt/1999/n99-023.txt *********************************************************** The NASA Video File airs at noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m. and midnight Eastern Time. NASA Television is available on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0 megahertz, with audio on 6.8 megahertz. Refer general questions about the video file to NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Ray Castillo, 202/358-4555, or Pam Poe, 202/358-0373. During Space Shuttle missions, the full NASA TV schedule will continue to be posted at: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/schedule.html For general information about NASA TV see: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/ ***** Contract Awards Contract awards are posted to the NASA Acquisition Information Service Web site: http://procurement.nasa.gov/EPS/award.html ***** The NASA Daily News Summary is issued each business day at approximately 2 p.m. Eastern time. Members of the media who wish to subscribe or unsubscribe from this list, please send e-mail message to: Brian.Dunbar@hq.nasa.gov ***** end of daily news summary