NASA Daily News Summary
For Release:  Mar. 16, 2000
Media Advisory m00-52


SUMMARY

NEWS RELEASES:

NASA SPACECRAFT TO STUDY IMPACT OF MAGNETIC STORMS
YUKON METEORITE MAY PROVIDE "NEW WINDOW INTO THE UNIVERSE"



VIDEO:

VIDEO FILE:

ITEM 1 - YUKON METEORITE DISCOVERED - JSC
ITEM 2 - INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION REPAIR KIT -MSFC (REPLAY)


LIVE TELEVISION EVENTS THIS WEEK



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LIVE TELEVISION EVENTS THIS WEEK

March 16, Thursday
- 1:00 - 3:00 pm - FY2001 Budget Posture Hearing before the House
  Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on VA-HUD-Independent
  Agencies (recorded 3/15/00) - HQ
- 4:30 - 7:00 pm - KC-135 Student Campaign Live News Interviews
  - JSC

March 17, Friday
- 9:00 am - Noon - FY2001 Human Space Flight Budget Hearing before
  the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics (replay from
  3/16/00) - HQ
- 1:00 - 6:00 pm - Johnson Space Center Regional First Robotics
  Competition - Astro Arena, Houston, TX (direct uplink to NTV)

March 18, Saturday
- 8:00 am - 6:00 pm - Langley Research Center Eastern Regional
  First Robotics Competition - Virginia Commonwealth University,
  Richmond, VA (direct uplink to NTV)



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NEWS RELEASES:

NASA SPACECRAFT TO STUDY IMPACT OF MAGNETIC STORMS

     NASA is about to launch the first spacecraft dedicated to
imaging the Earth's magnetosphere -- an invisible magnetic field
surrounding the planet that is strongly influenced by the solar
wind.  A Delta II 7326 rocket is scheduled to launch the Imager
for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration, or IMAGE, satellite
into orbit March 25 from the Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force
Base, CA.  The eight-minute launch window for IMAGE opens at 3:35
p.m. EST (12:35 p.m. PST). IMAGE is the first of its kind,
designed to actually "see" most of the major charged-particle
systems in the space surrounding Earth.

Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC:  Dolores Beasley
(Phone 202/358-1753).
Contact at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD:  Susan
Hendrix (Phone: 301/286-7745).

For full text, see:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-040.txt



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YUKON METEORITE MAY PROVIDE "NEW WINDOW INTO THE UNIVERSE"

     A meteorite that exploded over a remote area of northwest
Canada in January may offer "a new window into the universe before
the solar system was created," said a NASA scientist who has begun
analyzing some of the meteorite fragments.  The very primitive
composition and pristine condition of the 4.5-billion-year-old
meteorite "offers us a snapshot of the original composition of the
entire solar system before the planets formed," said Dr. Michael
Zolensky, a cosmic mineralogist at NASA's Johnson Space Center
(JSC) in Houston.  "It tells us what the initial materials were
like that went into making up the Earth, the Moon and the Sun."
The age of the solar system is about 4.5 billion years.

Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC:  Donald Savage
(Phone 202/358-1547).
Contact at Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX ;  Ann Hutchison
(Phone:  281/483-5111).
Contact at Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, ON:  Jean-Claude
Paradis (Phone:  613/992-9426).

For full text, see:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-041.txt



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If NASA issues any news releases later today, we will e-
mail summaries and Internet URLs to this list.

Index of 2000 NASA News Releases:
http://www.nasa.gov/releases/2000/index.html

Index of 1999 NASA News Releases:
http://www.nasa.gov/releases/1999/index.html



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VIDEO:

Unless otherwise noted, ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN.

ANY CHANGES TO THE VIDEO LINE-UP WILL APPEAR ON THE NASA VIDEO
FILE ADVISORY ON THE WEB AT
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/tv-advisory/nasa-tv.txt
WE UPDATE THE ADVISORY THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

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 Fred Brown,
202/358-0713, fred.brown@hq.nasa.gov

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/



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Contract Awards

Contract awards are posted to the NASA Acquisition information
Service Web site: http://procurement.nasa.gov/EPS/award.html



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end of daily news summary