VOICE ONE:
This is Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Bob Doughty with the VOA Special English programEXPLORATIONS. Today, we tell about a spacecraft that left Earththirty years ago. We report about the successful repair of theHubble Space Telescope by the crew of the space shuttle Colombia.And we tell about the first scientific information sent to Earth bythe Mars Odyssey spacecraft.
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VOICE ONE:
Late last month, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft turned its manyscientific instruments toward the planet Mars for the first time.Almost immediately it began sending home useful scientificinformation.
Steve Saunders is the Odysseyproject scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,California. He says the first information sent by the spacecraft asit orbits Mars has made him and other scientists extremely happy. Hesays the information will be added to what has been learned from theMars Global Surveyor and other spacecraft. Most importantly, MisterSaunders says, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft may permit researchers tosee water on the surface of Mars rather than just guess where itmight be.
The first information received onEarth included photographs taken by the Mars Odyssey’s thermalemissions imaging system. This system shows the temperature of theMartian surface. Researchers say the photographs sent to Earth showthe temperature differences extremely clearly during the Martian dayand night.
VOICE TWO:
The camera system on the Mars Odyssey is studying the minerals onthe surface of Mars. The new photographs already show thirty timesmore detail than any other camera or image-recording device sent toMars.
Another device on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft is the gamma rayspectrometer. Researchers say it shows huge amounts of hydrogen inthe south polar area of Mars. The researchers say the large amountsof hydrogen are most likely the result of water ice.
The gamma ray spectrometer explored an area almostsix-hundred-fifty kilometers across. NASA’s researchers willcontinue making maps of the area for another month. They say thiswill give them the needed information to confirm the presence ofwater on Mars.
VOICE ONE:
NASA officials say one device on the Odyssey spacecraft failed inAugust, Two-Thousand-One. It is called the Martian RadiationEnvironment experiment. It measures the daily amount of radiationthat would be experienced by astronauts as they travel from Earth toMars.
The device did find that the area between Earth and Mars has morethan two times the amount of radiation experienced by thecrewmembers of the International Space Station. Investigators arestudying the radiation device to find why the instrument stoppedcommunicating and why it turned off last August.
VOICE TWO:
The Mars Odyssey spacecraft was launched April Seventh ofTwo-Thousand-One. It began to orbit Mars on October Twenty-Fourth,Two-Thousand-One. Its main task is to map the surface of Mars. Italso is examining the mineral and chemical elements on Mars, andsearching for water.
After Odyssey completes its science tasks, it will support otherflights in the Mars Exploration program. It will provide thecommunications between the Mars surface and Earth during futureexplorations. These tasks will include the next flights in NASA’sMars program, the Mars Exploration Rovers, to be launched inTwo-Thousand-Three.
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VOICE ONE:
The crew of the American Space Shuttle Colombia has justcompleted a ten-day flight to repair and rebuild the Hubble SpaceTelescope. The shuttle returned Tuesday to the Kennedy Space Centerin the southern state of Florida.
NASA officials say theseven-person crew of Colombia has made the Hubble into a much morevaluable space science instrument. It can now do ten times more workthan it could before.
VOICE TWO:
NASA scientists say the most valuable piece of equipment added tothe Hubble is a device called the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Itincreases by ten times Hubble’s ability to discover objects in theuniverse.
The astronauts also gave Hubble several other pieces of equipmentthat permit it to do better work. This equipment includes wing-likestructures called solar arrays that change sunlight intoelectricity. The new solar arrays are forty-five percent smallerthan the older ones, but they can produce twenty-five percent morepower.
VOICE ONE:
Colombia’s astronauts also replaced the Hubble’s power controldevice. The new Power Control Unit controls the electricity made bythe solar arrays. It provides electricity to the Hubble’s electricalstorage batteries. It also supplies electricity to any device thatneeds power.
NASA officials say it was extremely difficult to replace thePower Control Unit. The work also placed the telescope in dangerbecause Hubble had to be without power for the first time since itslaunch in Nineteen-Ninety.
The astronauts had a limited amount of time to complete thereplacement work and turn on Hubble’s power. If the work was notcompleted in time, the extreme cold temperatures of space wouldseverely damage the space telescope.
VOICE TWO:
Astronauts John Grunsfeld and Rick Linnehan worked outside thespace shuttle to replace the Power Control Unit on Hubble. They wereable to complete the work to replace the power unit in less thanfour hours.
Scientists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas werewatching the two astronauts on television. They cheered when the newpower unit was placed in the telescope and Hubble’s power returned.
VOICE ONE:
The crew of the Colombia also placed a new cooling device inHubble to replace an older one that had failed. The cooling deviceis needed to work with the Near Inferred Camera and Multi-ObjectSpectrometer, called NICMOS. NICMOS must be kept at extremely coldtemperatures so it can photograph infrared light.
NASA officials hope the new cooling device will permit NICMOS todo useful work again for at least a few more years.
VOICE TWO:
The space shuttle Colombia flew about six-hundred kilometersabove the Earth to reach the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope.The astronauts then had move the space shuttle near the Hubble andcapture the two-thousand kilogram telescope. The capture had to bedone as Hubble orbits the Earth at speeds faster thantwenty-seven-thousand kilometers an hour.
This is the fourth time NASA has sent a crew of astronauts torepair the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA officials say this repairwork was the most difficult and perhaps the most dangerous everattempted.
VOICE ONE:
NASA plans one more flight to provide service to the Hubble SpaceTelescope. That flight should take place in Two-Thousand-Four.During that flight, an astronaut crew will place the Cosmic OriginsSpectrograph in Hubble. The instrument will be able to see far intospace and take pictures of many different kinds of light that cannotbe seen by the human eye. It will be the most powerful and mostcomplex scientific device to measure light ever sent into space.
NASA plans to use the Hubble Space Telescope untilTwo-Thousand-Ten. At that time NASA officials will decide if it willreturn to Earth or be raised to a high orbit where it cannot fallback to Earth.
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VOICE TWO:
NASA officials have heard from an old friend. The Pioneer Tenspacecraft sent a message back to Earth from more thaneleven-thousand-million kilometers in space. The little spacecraftleft the gravity of Earth more than thirty years ago.
On Friday, March First, scientists sent a message to Pioneer Ten.They sent the message from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s DeepSpace Network communication center in Goldstone, California.Twenty-Two hours later researchers heard Pioneer’s answer. Pioneerreported that its systems were still working.
VOICE ONE:
Pioneer Ten was the first spacecraft to take close-up pictures ofJupiter. It also was the first human-made object to leave the solarsystem when it passed the orbit of the planet Pluto.
Pioneer Ten is traveling toward the group of stars called Taurus.It will pass the nearest star in that constellation in about twomillion years.
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VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Paul Thompson. It wasproduced by George Grow. This is Bob Doughty.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for anotherEXPLORATIONS program on the Voice of America.