After a ten-month journey, the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft successfully entered orbit around Mars September 11, marking the beginning of an extended reconnaissance of the Red Planet and another success for NASA's Mars exploration efforts.
     "NASA is two for two in this year's Mars campaign," said JPL spokesman Frank O'Donnell in a press conference shortly after Global Surveyor's successful arrival.
     "We couldn't be more pleased," said Glenn Cunningham, manager of the Mars Global Surveyor mission at JPL. "Everything looks really great."
     The spacecraft's engine fired as scheduled at 9:31pm EDT (0131 UT September 12) and burned for 22 minutes, enough to slow the spacecraft down and place it into a highly elliptical orbit around the planet.
     Over the next several months, the spacecraft will circularize its orbit by repeated aerobraking passes through the upper Martian atmosphere. The technique, first tried with the Magellan spacecraft around Venus in the early 1990s, will allow the spacecraft to go into a circular mapping orbit without expending large amounts of fuel that would otherwise be needed.
     Once its orbit is circularized, early next year, the spacecraft will start returning images and other data about the Martian surface and atmosphere. Some data will be returned as early as September 15, although the lighting geometry at that time will mean any images returned would be poorly lit.
     The spacecraft, another example of NASA's philosophy of "faster, cheaper, better" is a partial replacement for the Mars Observer mission, which was lost just a few days before arrival at Mars in August 1993. Many of the instruments flown on the mission are spares from Mars Observer.
     "A good number of us participated in the Mars Observer mission," said Cunningham, "so this is kind of a rebirth of the Mars Observer mission."

A six-hour spacewalk outside the Spektr module on the Mir space station September 6 by an American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut failed to turn up any evidence of a hole in the module which led its depressurization after a June collision with a cargo spacecraft.
     Anatoly Solovyov and Michael Foale made an extensive survey of the exterior of the module during their spacewalk, the second joint American-Russian spacewalk outside the space station, but failed to find anything that resembled a gash in the hull of the module.
     In an inspection of five of the seven areas on Spektr believed to be involved in the June 25 collision, Solovyov and Foale saw marks on the module and damage to one of the solar panels, but could not find any holes in the module. The two other areas on Spektr will be checked in a later spacewalk.
     This has led to speculation that the leak may be a loose joint in the solar panel damaged in the collision. The spacewalkers noted that the panel was bent irreparably out of shape, with at least one section broken.
     If the leak is related to the solar panel, it would be "technically the most difficult scenario for us," said Vladimir Solovyov, director at Russian mission control and no relation to the cosmonaut.
     The spacewalk began just after 9:00pm EDT September 5 (0100 UT September 6) and ended six hours later. Neither Foale not Solovyov reported any major problems working outside the station.
     The spacewalk was not a total failure. Solovyov and Foale were able to reorient the working solar panels on the Spektr solar panel to being them in better alignment with the Sun, increasing their energy output. A motor designed to do this automatically failed after power was restored from the panels last month.
     They also removed from the Mir hull an American experiment designed to measure the cosmic radiation environment outside the station. The experiment, attached to the station during a spacewalk on a shuttle docking mission nearly two years ago, will be returned on the shuttle next month.
     The three-person Mir crew continued to struggle with problems on the station, however. The main computer system on Mir shut down September 8 and was offline until repaired the next day. During the computer breakdown power was limited on the station to life support systems.
     It was the third time in as many months that Mir's main computer broke down.
     The spacewalk is likely to be the final highlight of Michael Foale's stay on Mir. The shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch on the seventh shuttle-Mir docking mission, STS-86. Foale will return to Earth on Atlantis and his plane on Mir will be taken by astronaut David Wolf.
     The launch of STS-86 has been set for September 25. Launch of the shuttle Atlantis is scheduled for 10:34pm EDT (0234 UT September 26), on a 10-day mission.

A report by NASA's inspector general, requested by a leading member of Congress, states that conditions on the Russian space station Mir are far worse than what American or Russian officials have admitted in recent months or years.
     The report, dated August 29 by NASA Inspector General Roberta Gross but only publicly known September 12, states that American astronauts who have stayed on Mir have had to deal with poor living conditions, including high temperatures and high levels of carbon dioxide, fire hazards, and poor training for American astronauts scheduled to stay on Mir.
     The report, based on post-flight interviews with the four Americans who have returned from stays of up to six months on Mir, said the problems were exacerbated by poor communications between Russian and American officials about the status of Mir. "Without knowledge of the problems on Mir or its operating systems," Gross wrote, "NASA cannot fully prepare our astronauts for their mission."
     The report detailed several serious problems with Mir. Astronauts complained about high levels of carbon dioxide on the station that would build up due to problems with the oxygen generators and carbon dioxide scrubbers. "When the CO2 concentration was getting too high, it was a little harder to think," Shannon Lucid, who spent six months on Mir in 1996, was quoted as saying in the report. "It was easier to make mistakes."
     Problems with the cooling system on Mir were also cited. Jerry Linenger reported that the breakdown of the cooling system during his stay meant that temperatures soared to as high as 35 degrees Celsius (96 degrees Fahrenheit) for months. In addition, Linenger and his crewmates had to deal with the smell of garbage moved from another module for five weeks.
     Other problems noted in the report included fatigue and stress on the crew; fire hazards and the lack of properly labeled and accessible emergency equipment, which became an issue during a flash fire on the station in February; and a lack of training which left one astronaut feeling unqualified to fly the Soyuz capsule should an emergency arise.
     Gross's report did not reach a definitive conclusion about the status of the station, citing time restraints, but offered four possible courses of action NASA could undertake. It could choose to maintain the status quo by continuing the series of Mir missions into 1998; remove astronauts from Mir but continue to provide support for the Russian crew; remove astronauts from Mir and let the Russians work out the problems on Mir, with an option to return if conditions improve; and terminate the shuttle-Mir program entirely.
     NASA officials had no immediate response to the report, but Russian Space Agency officials lashed out at the report's findings. Russian mission control spokesman Valery Lyndin told the Associated Press that the astronauts' complaints likely arose from "stress and fatigue" they felt during their missions.
     "We take breakdowns in space a something which is going to happen and are psychologically ready for them, while Americans perceive them as grave trouble," he said.
     The report was requested by House Science Committee chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI). Sensenbrenner had spoken out in past months about continuing to leave astronauts on Mir while the condition of the station appeared to deteriorate.

Damage to part of the insulation on the Cassini spacecraft, caused by a malfunctioning air conditioner on the launch pad, has delayed the launch of the controversial Saturn-bound spacecraft by at least a week.
     A 5-cm (2-inch) rip in the insulation on the Huygens probe, part of the Cassini spacecraft, was reported September 3. The tear was caused by an air conditioner on the launch pad, which was blowing air over the probe several times faster than necessary.
     "It's very disappointing, but this is something we accept in this business," said Hamad Hassan, manager of the Huygens probe.
     To repair the insulation, the spacecraft was demated from the Titan 4B booster and returned to a clean room for repairs on September 7. On September 13 NASA reported the tear was fixed and set a launch date "no earlier than" October 13.
     Cassini was scheduled to launch on October 6. The primary launch window for Cassini runs though November 4. Launches can take place after the 4th through the 15th, although a launch in that time period would delay the arrival of Cassini at Saturn from six months up to two years.
     The spacecraft, which cost nearly $1.5 billion, will take nearly seven years to travel to Saturn, using gravity assists from flybys of Jupiter, the Earth, and two flybys of Venus to reach Saturn. Once there it will spend at least four years studying the planet and its moons.
     The Huygens probe attached to Cassini will be dropped into the dense atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The probe is designed to survive to the surface and can float if it lands in a pool of liquid hydrocarbons, as some scientists suggest covers Titan's surface. Huygens was built by the European Space Agency.
     The mission has been the subject of protests by some anti-nuclear activists, who claim the plutonium in the spacecraft's power generators could be released in a launch of flyby accident, poisoning millions. NASA and other experts counter the risk of any radioactive release is minute.

[Ed. Note: for more information on the Cassini mission and the RTG Debate, visit SpaceViews' Cassini Web site at http://www.seds.org/spaceviews/cassini/]