Daily News Tuesday, October 6, 1992 24-hour audio service at 202/755-1788 % NASA & Russians sign astronaut-cosmonaut and Mars agreements; % STS-52 Flight Readiness Review underway at Kennedy Space Center; % 2-mile wide asteroid to pass near Earth on December 8 as Galileo flys by; % Hubble, EUVE astronomers to present latest findings this Thursday. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NASA and the Russian Space Agency signed yesterday in Moscow two cooperative agreements in the areas of human space flight and Mars exploration. NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin said "signing these agreements is the next crucial step in expanding cooperative activities with our Russian partners. We are very anxious to begin working on these important programs." One agreement calls for the flight of two NASA scientific instruments on the Russian Mars '94 lander mission. The other agreement calls for an experienced cosmonaut to fly aboard the STS-60 space shuttle mission, now set for fall 1993, and for a NASA astronaut to fly on a long-duration Mir Space Station flight. That flight will coincide with a shuttle-Mir docking flight in 1995. The NASA astronaut will fly to Mir aboard a Soyuz while the shuttle flies two cosmonauts to the Russian space station. Joint life sciences experiments will be conducted while the shuttle and Mir are docked together. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Work on Columbia to prepare for the STS-52 mission continues at the Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-B. Replacement of Columbia's main engine #3 is complete, with engine leak testing currently underway. The standard helium signature leak test of all three main engines and the main propulsion system will be conducted tomorrow. Elsewhere at KSC, space flight management officials today are holding the STS-52 Flight Readiness Review. At the review's conclusion later this afternoon, management will issue a launch target date for Columbia, tentatively set for Thursday, October 22. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * On December 8 one of the largest near-Earth objects P a two-mile-diameter (3.5 kilometer) asteroid called Toutatis 4179 P will pass by the Earth at a distance of only 2.2 million miles (3.6 million km). Donald Yeomans, Jet Propulsion Laboratory chief of the Near Earth Object Center, said the asteroid passes less than one degree above Earth's orbital plane every four years, which makes it an ideal object for Earth-based studies. Viewing conditions for the upcoming asteroid passage will be excellent for infrared and radar observations before, during and after the flyby. This happens also to be the date for the second Earth flyby of Galileo, which will gain the final angular momentum change it needs to get to Jupiter. Galileo will pass within 200 miles of Earth on this last flyby. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NASA and university astronomers will present another in the Space Astronomy Update series Thursday, Oct. 8, at 1:00 pm EDT in the NASA Headquarters auditorium. The briefing, which will present a striking Hubble Space Telescope picture of cosmic mirror images and an Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer image of a powerful object two billion light years from the Milky Way, will be shown live on NASA Select television. The Hubble observations provide new information on distant galaxies and on the distribution of mysterious dark matter, whose nature remains unknown. The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer data provides new information about objects visible in that wavelength of light. Briefers will include Richard Ellis, University of Durham, U.K.; Bruce Margon, University of Washington, Seattle; Daniel Weedman, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; and Steve Maran, Goddard Space Flight Center. Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer principal scientist Stuart Bowyer, University of California at Berkeley, will present his team's findings via videotape. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select TV. Note that all events and times may change without notice, and that all times listed are Eastern. Live indicates a program is transmitted live. Tuesday, October 6, 1992 Live 10:00 am STS-53 mission overview briefing with lead flight director Rob Kelso from Johnson Space Center. Live 11:00 am Department of Defense payload briefing with Lt. Col. James McLeroy; Glow experiment briefing with Charles Pike; Cryogenic Heat Pipe Experiment briefing with Mike Morgan; Space Tissue Loss briefing with Bill Wiesmann; Battlefield Laser Acquisition Sensor Test briefing with Lt. Col. Jan Drabczuk; and Microcapsules in Space briefing with Tom Tice all from JSC. Live 12:30 pm Orbital Debris Radar Calibration Spheres briefing with Eugene Stansbery from JSC. Live 2:00 pm STS-53 flight crew briefing with mission commander Dave Walker, mission pilot Bob Cabana, and mission specialists Guy Bluford, Jim Voss, and Rich Clifford from JSC. 4:00 pm 8:00 pm & 12:00 midnight programming repeats. Wednesday, October 7, 1992 1:30 pm through 4:30 pm Validation testing for STS-52 mission (no programming). Thursday, October 8, 1992 Live 1:00 pm Space Astronomy Update presenting new Hubble Space Telescope and Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer images and featuring Richard Ellis, University of Durham, U.K.; Bruce Margon, University of Washington, Seattle; Daniel Weedman, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; and Steve Maran, Goddard Space Flight Center. Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer principal scientist Stuart Bowyer, University of California at Berkeley, will present his team's findings via videotape. 2:00 pm Total Quality Management Colloquium with Edward Stone, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on the topic of "Restructuring Cassini." 4:00 pm 8:00 pm & 12:00 midnight programming repeats. This report is filed daily at noon, Monday through Friday. It is a service of NASA's Office of Public Affairs. The editor is Charles Redmond, 202/453-8425 or CREDMOND on NASAmail. NASA Select TV is carried on GE Satcom F2R, transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees West Longitude, transponder frequency is 3960 MegaHertz, audio subcarrier is 6.8 MHz, polarization is vertical.