May 15
A dinner at the National Space Club in Washington saluted about 200 former members of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency for their work on a modified Redstone rocket that made it possible for the United States to enter the space race in 1958. ("Von Braun's Team to Get Space Act Award," The Birmingham News, May 15, 1990)
May 15
The Marshall Center began hosting the fourth biennial conference on Advanced Earth-to-Orbit Propulsion Technology. (Marshall Star, May 2, 1990)
May 16
A 52-foot Starfire 1 rocket blasted off at 8:40 a.m. at white Sands, New Mexico, carrying the Consort 3 payload, sponsored by the University of Alabama Huntsville's Consortium for Commercial Development of Space. ("Consort 3, UAH Rocket Successfully Launched," Huntsville News, May 17, 1990.)
May 17
The Johnson-Marshall Redundant Transmission System was placed in service. The mission-support system combined all mission voice and data circuits between MSFC and Johnson Space Center from discrete circuits into a single multiplexed, 1.544 Mbphs (DS-1) channel. (MSFC Institutional and Program Support Directorate Inputs for MSFC 1990 Annual Chronology of Events)
May 20
At 10:12 a.m. CST the Hubble Space Telescope opened a shutter and recorded its "first light" images of the heavens, which astronomers said were twice as sharp as they had expected in the early stage of the telescope's mission. ("Hubble Space Telescope Records First Images," Washington Post, May 21, 1990)
May 21
The MSFC Mission Operations Laboratory's Mission Planning Division conducted a Space Station Freedom Mission Planning Workshop May 21-25. (See MSFC History Office Microfiche #2127 "Notable MSFC Events During 1990," May 29, 1990)
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