Tammy Jones							Jan. 18, 1996
Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Md.  20771
301-286-5566/8955
Tammy.Jones@ccmail.gsfc.nasa.gov

NOTE TO EDITORS:  96-002

GODDARD TO HOLD SHUTTLE PAYLOAD BRIEFING
	NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. will hold 
a briefing today at 11 a.m. on preliminary results of one of 
Goddard's STS-72 payloads.  Dr. Jim Garvin, lead scientist for the 
Shuttle Laser Altimeter (SLA), will discuss results from the SLA on 
measurements of the Earth's surface from the Space Shuttle. 
	The SLA has obtained unprecedented data.  The SLA's 
primary data is obtained on a laser pulse's time-of-flight and the 
spreading of the laser pulse by the Earth's surface.  Measurable 
backscatter is expected from land surfaces, vegetation, ocean 
surfaces and cloud-tops.  These data have wide applications in a 
variety of Earth-science disciplines ranging from topography studies 
to atmospheric remote sensing.  
-more-

-2-
	The SLA is a Shuttle Small Payloads Project (SSPP) Hitchhiker 
payload.  Three more SLA experiments will  fly in the future 
continuing Goddard's tradition 
of flying faster, better, cheaper payloads aboard the Space Shuttle.  
The SLA instrument is being developed by Goddard's Laboratory for 
Terrestrial Physics for NASA's Mission to Planet Earth Flight 
Systems Division.
	The media is invited to cover this briefing from Goddard's 
Visitor Center, located on Soil Conservation Road., or for a 
telephone interview, call Tammy Jones at 301-286-5566.   The SLA 
mission status report is available via the Internet at Http://SSPP. 
GSFC. NASA. Gov/SLA-01.HTML.
	NASA Television will carry the briefings live on Spacenet 2, 
Transponder 5, Channel 9 at 69 degrees West longitude.  The 
transponder frequency is 3880 MHz and the audio subcarrier is 6.8 
MHz.  The polarization is horizontal. 
-30-