DEEP SPACE 1 ARRIVES AT KSC FOR LAUNCH PREPARATIONS

NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft, designed to validate 12 new technologies for scientific space missions of the next century, has arrived at the Kennedy Space Center to begin prelaunch processing. Deep Space 1 will be launched aboard Boeing's Delta 7326 rocket currently targeted to lift off Oct. 15, 1998. This is the first flight in NASA's New Millennium Program.

Among the experiments aboard Deep Space 1 is an ion propulsion engine strikingly similar to those described in futuristic science fiction works, and software that tracks celestial bodies so that the spacecraft can make its own navigation decisions without the intervention of ground controllers.

At launch, the diminutive Deep Space 1 weighs only 1,080 pounds fully fueled and is just 8.2 feet high, 6.9 feet deep and 5.6 feet wide, including such attached items as twin stowed solar arrays. However, when those arrays are deployed, the width will grow to 38.6 feet across. Deep Space 1 should complete most of its mission objectives during the first two months after launch. However, it will continue validating these instruments while doing a flyby of a near-Earth asteroid named 1992 KD in July 1999.

The spacecraft is being processed in NASA's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF) located in the KSC Industrial Area. Among the processing activities to be performed are the attachment to the spacecraft bus of the Plasma Experiment for Planetary Exploration (PEPE) instrument and the attachment of the solar arrays, each of which is among the dozen new technologies being tested on Deep Space 1.

There is to be a functional test of the advanced technology science instruments as well as of the basic spacecraft subsystems. Checks of Deep Space 1's communications system will be performed including a verification of the spacecraft's ability to send data to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory via the tracking stations of the Deep Space Network. Also, the last of the thermal blankets will be installed.

Finally, before the spacecraft leaves the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, it will be fueled with its hydrazine attitude control propellant. Then, on Sept. 22, it is to be transported to a spin test facility on Cape Canaveral Air Station. There it will be mated to a Star 37 solid propellant upper stage, and the combined elements will undergo a series of spin balance tests.

Meanwhile, at Complex 17, the Delta II rocket will be undergoing erection and prelaunch checkout by Boeing. The first stage is scheduled to be installed into the launcher on Sept. 10. Three solid rocket boosters will be attached around the base of the first stage the next day. The second stage will be mated atop the first stage on Sept. 15, and the dual-sector spacecraft fairing will be hoisted into the cleanroom of the pad's mobile service tower the following day.

Deep Space 1 will be transported to Complex 17 on Oct. 5 for hoisting aboard the Delta rocket on Pad A and mating to the second stage. After the spacecraft undergoes state of health checks, the fairing can be placed around it three days later. Launch, currently targeted for Thursday, Oct. 15 is at 8:42:44 a.m. EDT. The launch period ends Nov. 10.

If the spacecraft is healthy when the primary mission is completed on Sept. 18, 1999, NASA could choose to continue the spacecraft's voyage. Deep Space 1 may then be on a trajectory resulting in the flyby in January 2001 of the dormant comet Wilson-Harrington that is in the process of changing from a comet to an asteroid. Finally, in September 2001, as the spacecraft continues on this trajectory, it may also do a flyby of an active comet, Borrelly.