NASA Collects Solar Energy Data, but Struggles With Ozone Monitor

Discovery’s pilot twirled the shuttle high above Earth on Friday for solar energy measurements needed by scientists studying the withering ozone layer.

As those measurements streamed down to scientists, NASA struggled for the second day to fix a data relay problem involving an ozone monitor. Engineers traced the trouble to the channel on a shuttle antenna.

The ozone monitor, capable of measuring 30 to 40 atmospheric gases, cannot transmit those readings to Earth with chunks of information missing, and its on-board recorder has room for only another few days of data. The mission lasts until Friday.

The chief scientist for the experiment, Michael Gunson of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said his instrument was gathering all the data desired so far.

“The only difference is we don’t get that nice, warm, fuzzy feeling about seeing data down on the ground,” Gunson said.

Pilot Stephen Oswald spent most of his 12-hour shift putting Discovery through orbital pirouettes.

Oswald turned the cargo bay toward the sun each time the shuttle whizzed over the daylight side of Earth so four solar instruments could catch the first rays of dawn and remain bathed in sunlight. As the shuttle slipped into darkness on the night side of Earth, he flipped the spaceship to expose the instruments to deep space, cooling them, before they basked again in the sun.

“It’s really a pretty sight here to be in this attitude with the sun streaming in through the windows,” astronaut Ellen Ochoa said.