Headline News Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters Friday, December 13, 1991 Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788 This is NASA Headline News for Friday, December 13, 1991 . . . Discovery technicians rolled the orbiter to the Vehicle Assembly Building yesterday, slightly ahead of schedule. The orbiter is now soft- mated to its external tank/solid rocket booster stack. Kennedy Space Center launch team officials are anticipating a rollout of Discovery to the launch pad on Dec. 18. The terminal countdown demonstration test for the STS-42 International Microgravity Laboratory-1 flight is set for January 6 and 7 at KSC. The Office of Space Flight flight readiness review for the mission is set for Jan. 9, also at KSC. Space Flight officials are still looking towards a January 22, 1992, launch date, though the actual launch date will be set at the FRR. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The crew of the recently-completed STS-44 Department of Defense mission aboard Atlantis will hold a press briefing at 2:00 pm EST today to describe their flight, share their experiences, and narrate videotape and photographs they acquired during the mission. The briefing will be shown live on NASA Select TV. Earth observation photographs were a major secondary objective of the flight. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Galileo, now out nearly 200 million miles from the Sun, will be commanded to turn away from the Sun today as part of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's continuing efforts to correctly deploy the spacecraft's high-gain antenna. Galileo will be turned 165 degrees off the Sun and will stay in that configuration for 50 hours, thereby chilling the central tower associated with the high-gain antenna. JPL expects this will cause further shrinking of that tower and hopefully will enable what are deduced to be three physically-stuck deployable ribs to become unstuck. The antenna is comprised of gold-mesh supported by 18 deployable ribs connected to a central tower. This will be the third in JPL's series of thermal cycles designed to unstick the antenna. JPL also reports that Magellan, in Venus orbit, continues to perform nominally. To date, Magellan has performed more than 3,200 mapping orbits of Earth's twin planet and provided radar coverage of more than 93 percent of Venus's surface. This coverage is more extensive and at a higher resolution than coverage of any other planetJ--Jincluding Earth. Mapping cycle two ends Jan. 15, at which point Magellan will enter mapping cycle three and will concentrate on obtaining stereo photography data of the numerous fascinating features revealed thus far on the planet. In line with keeping NASA's shareholders apprised of the discoveries to date, JPL will hold another in its series of Magellan-at-Venus science seminars on Monday, December 16, at 1:00 pm EST. This seminar will feature Annette deCharon, from the JPL project office, who will discuss "The Twisted Tale at Tessera: New Views from Magellan." The program will be shown live on NASA Select TV. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Today, the Lewis Research Center hosts its annual Christmas play for inner city children in the Cleveland area. Lewis is expecting about 450 second and third grade school children from six Cleveland elementary schools. The Lewis thespian production is called "Christmas 2001" and is a drama about two aliens who invade Earth and then attempt to kidnap Santa Claus. The play was written by Lewis center staff and features Lewis staff in the various acting roles. Following the play, the school kids will meet Santa, and receive gifts provided by Lewis staff. This program marks the 28th year that Lewis has sponsored a children's Christmas party. It is an entirely volunteer project with about 150 Lewis employees contributing time, energy and money. 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. Friday, December 13, 1991 12:00 pm NASA Today news program. 12:15 pm Aeronautics & Space Report #240. 12:30 pm Interactive Educational Teleconference "Life Science Research" will replay, the original program aired on 12/11/91. 2:00 pm STS-44 post-flight crew press conference from Johnson Space Center. 3:30 pm Four Days of Gemini. 4:00 pm NASA Today and subsequent programming repeats. 8:00 pm NASA Today and subsequent programming repeats. 12:00 am NASA Today and subsequent programming repeats. Monday, December 16, 1991 1:00 pm Magellan Science Seminar featuring Annette deCharon from JPL. 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.