Don Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC September 29, 1995 (Phone: 202/358-1547) Fred Brown Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (Phone: 301/286-7277) RELEASE: 95-164 SPARTAN 201 SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISHED MISSION NASA scientists reported today that Spartan 201 successfully completed its mission on a Space Shuttle flight earlier this month. Project Scientist Dick Fisher, at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, reported that the tapes retrieved from the Spartan 201 indicated that the free- flying spacecraft appears to have done its job properly and both instruments worked as planned through virtually all of the mission. Concern about whether the Spartan had operated correctly was raised when the spacecraft was to be retrieved during the STS-69 mission on Sept.10. At that time, the crew reported that Spartan was rotating slowly, and its batteries seemed to have been drained. Until the spacecraft could be examined following landing, it was not possible to know whether it had accomplished its mission of observing the Sun's northern polar regions. "The White Light Coronagraph instrument obtained spectacularly good data over 95 percent of the planned observing sequence," Fisher said. Data from the Spartan 201 Ultraviolet Coronagraph Sepctrometer instrument are being examined, and scientists say that preliminary findings show the data are excellent. Starting in the near future, scientists will begin an in-depth study of the data contained on the tapes from the two Spartan 201 instruments. Engineers will study "housekeeping data" from the spacecraft to determine why the Spartan behaved as it did. - end - NASA press releases and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to domo@hq.nasa.gov. In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type the words "subscribe press- release" (no quotes). The system will reply with a confirmation via E-mail of each subscription. A second automatic message will include additional information on the service. Questions should be directed to (202) 358-4043.