SB SAREX @ AMSAT $STS-78.016
STS-78 SAREX Bulletin #16

Silver Spring, Maryland USA
June 27, 1996 @ 23:00 UTC

Life and Microgravity Spacelab experiments continued today as
Columbia's astronauts document how space flight is affecting
their minds and bodies.

The citizens of France have reason to celebrate the outstanding
success of the students of Saint Nizier du Moucherotte Elementary
School, located in the mountainous southeast part of the country near
Grenoble.  Their national media caught ten students drilling Mission
Specialist Dr. Jean-Jacques Favier on concerns ranging from health
to classroom experiments, with some light humor in between.

The STS-78 crew continue to make random SAREX contacts as their
schedules permit.  When busy with experiments, the crew is using the
packet radio metabeacon to broadcast a summary of their activities
and greetings.

Flight controllers in Mission Control are watching energy consumption
on what is expected to be the longest Shuttle flight in history.  A
decision by mission managers to extend the flight to 17 days for
additional science will likely be made over the weekend after
consultations with payload managers at the Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Alabama and a review of Shuttle systems.

Columbia again is orbiting with its tail to the Earth to minimize
disturbance to the microgravity experiments.  There are no problems
being tracked aboard the oldest orbiter in the Shuttle fleet.

Once again, Gil Carman WA5NOM offers the latest Columbia orbital
element set from the Mission Control Center in Houston:

STS-78
1 23931U 96036A   96179.72098478  .00082101  00000-0  13950-3 0  9105
2 23931  39.0147 322.3735 0007095 321.6787  38.3687 16.02034320  1157

Satellite: STS-78
Catalog number: 23931
Epoch time:      96179.72098478   =     yrday.fracday
Element set:     910
Inclination:       39.0147 deg
RA of node:       322.3735 deg
Eccentricity:     .0007095
Arg of perigee:   321.6787 deg
Mean anomaly:      38.3687 deg
Mean motion:   16.02034320 rev/day
Decay rate:    8.21010E-04 rev/day^2
Epoch rev:             115
Checksum:              307

Submitted by (Pat Kilroy, WD8LAQ for) Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO for the
SAREX Working Group

/EX