NASA Daily News Summary For Release: August 26, 1999 Media Advisory m99-175 Summary: NASA UNVEILS FIRST IMAGES FROM CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY Video File for August 26, 1999 Item 1 - Chandra X-Ray Telescope First Images (begins at 3:00 pm) Item 2 - Russian Mir Space Station Program to End Soon Item 3 - Mars Polar Lander Landing Site (replay) Item 4 - Northern California Fires Images (depending on when we acquire the video, this will begin running with the 3pm feed or the 6pm feed) Item 5 - Tropical Storms Emily & Cindy in 3D (depending on when we acquire the video, this will begin running with the 3pm feed or the 6pm feed) NOTE: Live Television Event Today 1:00 pm EDT - Chandra X-ray Telescope First Image Briefing - NASA Headquarters 4:30 - 8:30 pm EDT - Chandra Live News Interviews First Image Briefing will replay at 10:00 pm, EDT, today. Live Television Events Tomorrow 6:00 am - Chandra X-Ray Telescope Live News Interviews - NASA Headquarters 10:00 - 11:55 am EDT - Mux Demux Test - JSC 2:00 - 2:20 pm - Mir 27 Crew Departure Ceremony - JSC 5:05 - 5:30 pm - Mir 27 Crew Undocking (Actual undocking 5:14 pm) - JSC  For information see: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/breaking.html ********** NASA UNVEILS FIRST IMAGES FROM CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY Extraordinary first images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory trace the aftermath of a gigantic stellar explosion in such stunning detail that scientists can see evidence of what may be a neutron star or black hole near the center. Another image shows a powerful X-ray jet blasting 200,000 light years into intergalactic space from a distant quasar. Released today, both images confirm that NASA's newest Great Observatory is in excellent health and its instruments and optics are performing up to expectations. Chandra, the world's largest and most sensitive X-ray telescope, is still in its orbital check-out and calibration phase. Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Donald Savage 202/358-1547. Contact at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville AL: Dave Drachlis 256/544-0034. Contact at Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, (SAO), Cambridge, MA: Dr. Wallace Tucker 617/496-7998. For full text, see: ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/1999/99-098.txt ---------- If NASA issues additional 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 ********** Video File for August 26, 1999 Item 1 - Chandra X-Ray Telescope First Images (begins at 3:00 pm) Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Donald Savage 202/358-1547. Contact at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville AL: Dave Drachlis 256/544-0034. NOTE: slates and running times to be updated later today Item 1a - Science Team Viewing First Chandra Images, The Images Themselves Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant Chandra X-ray Observatory ACIS Image (red image) This x-ray image of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant is the official first light image of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The 5,000-second image was made with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS). Two shock waves are visible: a fast outer shock and a slower inner shock. The inner shock wave is believed to be due to the collision of the ejecta from the supernova explosion with a circumstellar shell of material, heating it to a temperature of ten million degrees. The outer shock wave is analogous to an awesome sonic boom resulting from this collision. The bright object near the center may be the long-sought neutron star or black hole remnant of the explosion that produced Cassiopeia A. PKS 0637-752 - A Quasar with an X-Ray Jet Chandra X-ray Observatory ACIS Image (blue image) PKS 0637-72 is so distant that we see it as it was 6 billion years ago. It is a luminous quasar hat radiates the power of 10 trillion suns from a region smaller than our solar system. The source of this prodigious energy is believed to be a supermassive black hole. Radio observations of PKS 0637-752 show that it has an extended radio jet that stretches across several hundred thousand light years. Chandra's x-ray image reveals a powerful x- ray jet of similar size that is probably due to a beam of extremely high energy particles. Item 1b - STS-93 Launch Item 1c - Chandra Deployment B-roll Item 1d - Chandra Animation Item 1e - Chandra Assembly Item 1f - B-roll of Chandra in Clean Room Item 1g - Chandra Interview - Dr. Martin Weisskopf, Project Scientist NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL Item 1h - Chandra Interview - Dr. Harvey Tannanbaum, Director, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA Item 1i - Chandra Interview - Art Stephenson, Director, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL Item 2 - Russian Mir Space Station Program to End Soon The Mir 27 crew will depart the Russian space station on Friday, August 27 (early Saturday, Moscow time). This will be the first time that Mir (the Russian word for peace) will be unpopulated since April 27, 1989. Russian flight controllers will continue to operate Mir, unpiloted, from the Russian Mission Control Center. Mir 27 Commander Viktor Afanasayev and French researcher Jean- Pierre Haignere will return to Earth after spending 189 days in space. They were launched to Mir on February 20, 1999. Flight Engineer Sergei Avdeyev will return to Earth after spending 380 days in space since his launch with a previous Mir crew on August 13, 1998. When he lands, Avdeyev will have logged a total of 748 days in space on his three space flights, more than any other human in history. Contact at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX: Rob Navias or Kyle Herring 281/483-5111. Item 2a - Mir B-Roll TRT :1.43 IMAX footage of the Russian Mir space station as seen from the Space Shuttle. Item 2b - Interview with Frank Culbertson TRT 3:36 Culbertson, Manager for Operations, International Space Station Program, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, discusses the departure of the Mir 27 cosmonauts from the Russian space station and the significance of Mir in human space flight history. Item 3 - Mars Polar Lander Landing Site (replay) Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Doug Isbell 202/358-1753. Contact at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CAFrank O'Donnell 818/354-5011. Item 3a - Zoom Into Landing Site TRT :40 This animation begins with a global view of Mars viewed from above the equator. The globe tilts to reveal the South Pole of Mars and the landing site of the Mars Polar Lander. As we zoom in, the site is marked with a 360x exaggerated model of the Lander. Item 3b - Simulated Flight Over the Landing Site TRT :23 A 3-D map created from Viking images and MOLA data enables us to create a simulated flight over the Mars Polar Lander landing zone. The Colorado-sized region is located near the South Pole in the Martian layered terrain. Item 3c - Mars Polar Lander Ellipse TRT :15 A global view of Mars serves as the backdrop for the Mars Polar Lander landing ellipse, colored blue in this image. The ellipse is centered at 75 degrees south latitude, 195 degrees west longitude, and is approximately 3.1 miles (5 km) wide and 62.1 miles (100 km) long. Item 3d - Mars Pathfinder vs. Polar Lander Terrain TRT :15 On this screen we compare the terrain from two missions to Mars. The left half of the screen contains an image of the Mars Pathfinder landing site; the right half, the Mars Polar Lander landing site. The scale in both images is the same. Item 3e - Mars Polar Lander animation (replay) Animation of the Mars Polar Lander entry, descent, landing and surface operation Item 3f - Deep Space 2 animation (replay) Deep Space-2 Microbprobe Mission to Mars animation demonstrates the probe's deployment, impact on Mars, subsurface operation and data transmission. Item 4 - Northern California Fires Images (depending on when we acquire the video, this will begin running with the 3pm feed or the 6pm feed) SeaWiFS California Fire Images - These two sequences show fires raging in Northern California. The images were captured on August 25, 1999, by NASA's Sea Viewing Wide Field Spectrometer (SeaWiFS) sensor on the SeaStar satellite. Contact at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD: Deanna Corridon 301/286-0041. Item 5 - Tropical Storms Emily & Cindy in 3D (depending on when we acquire the video, this will begin running with the 3pm feed or the 6pm feed) This 3D image shows the precipitation rates and the height of the rain column in Tropical Storms Emily and Cindy. Red color indicates rain rates in excess of 2 inches per hour. This TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) animation sequence is of Tropical Storm Cindy (shown upper right) and Tropical Storm Emily (lower left) captured on August 25, 1999. TRMM is a joint U.S.- Japanese mission. These images were enhanced and rendered at the Scientific and Visualization Studio (SVS) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. Contact at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD: Deanna Corridon 301/286-0041. ----- ALL TIMES LISTED ARE EASTERN, unless otherwise noted. The NASA Video File normally 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 Elvia Thompson, 202/358-1696, elvia.thompson@hq.nasa.gov During Space Shuttle missions, you can access the full NASA TV schedule from: 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