MISSION CONTROL CENTER 
STS-68 Status Report #14

Friday, October 7, 1994, 5 p.m. CDT 

Astronauts aboard Endeavour and Space Radar Laboratory-2 scientists on the
ground today began in earnest to test the new technique of
"interferometry" to produce even richer images of the Earth's surface. 

From an altitude of 111 nautical miles, the Spaceborne Imaging Radar and
Synthetic Aperture Radar recorded long swaths of interferometric data over
central North America, the Amazon forests of central Brazil, and the
volcanoes of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. 

This morning, Endeavour's orbit was lowered to support this new technique,
which is yielding topographic information of unprecedented clarity by
using slightly different shuttle positions to provide three-dimensional
images of the terrain below. 

The Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellite experiment also continues
to function well, and the crew's infrared film, used to provide
complementary still images of fires investigated by MAPS, has been
expended. Controlled "line fires" in Ontario, Canada, were set as planned
and observed by the crew in an effort to help calibrate the MAPS
measurements. 

Flight controllers are tracking no new problems with the orbiter or its
systems. 

With the STS-68 mission officially extended by one day, landing is now
scheduled for Tuesday about 10:36 a.m. Central at Kennedy Space Center in
Florida


*   *   *