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Sept. 29, 1994                          Contact: Monte Basgall
                                        (919) 681-8057
                                        basgallm@
                                             mail01.adm.duke.edu


MEDIA ADVISORY

DELAYED SHUTTLE RADAR MISSION SET TO BEGIN FRIDAY


     The space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled for launch from
Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 7:16 a.m. EDT Friday. Duke University
scientists and local high school students are again poised to
assist Endeavour astronauts as they repeats their environmental
mapping of Earth with radar.

     Last April 9-20, Endeavour aimed three different kinds of
radar at university-owned Duke Forest, with its forests,
clearings and bogs, as part of a multifaceted global study. The
second flight, in part intended to document seasonal changes in
leaf and soil conditions since the first mission, was set to
launch on Aug. 18 but was postponed at the last second by
mechanical problems.

     While the astronauts are in orbit, Duke researchers and
students from Durham's Riverside High School will observe and
measure some of the plants and soils being targeted in North
Carolina's piedmont by the radar units. The information they
collect will then be matched with the radar images in what are
called "ground truthing" exercises.

     Most of the ground activities will be in Duke Forest, a
7,700-acre research reserve overseen by Duke's School of the
Environment.
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