FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0506.PDF
20 February 1959 247 U.S. SATELLITE EFFORT Three separate Earth-satellite programmes under the heading"major unclassified military space activities" were described by President Eisenhower earlier this month in his first annual reportto Congress on U.S. activities in aeronautics and space. In addition to the Discoverer launchings from the Pacific missile range, helisted Defense Department projects directed towards navigation and communications satellites. During the first half of 1959 the President said, several testswere planned for a navigation satellite project aimed at develop- ing a "precise all-weather system for determining sea or airposition anywhere on Earth." The first satellite in this programme would be a battery-powered package weighing 150 1b and expectedto orbit for about three months, and later versions would be larger and of longer life. Several experimental communications satellites were to belaunched this spring and summer, as a follow-up to the Score (Atlas) launching last December. So-called "fixed" satellites(remaining in a fixed position over a given point at about 26,000 miles from the Earth's centre) were planned for 1960 or 1961. Civilian NASA work included Project Mercury (mannedsatellite), the X-15 programme, and the development of a single- chamber rocket engine of 1.5 million pounds' thrust and of a"clustered booster" of similar power. During 1959 NASA would launch some 40 sounding rockets; and twelve complete satellitesystems were on order (some to be launched this year) and would employ Jupiter, Thor-Able and Atlas vehicles. Reviewing the year 1958, the President listed 17 launchingattempts with satellites (13), lunar probes (3) and space probes (1). Nine of these, he said, achieved "a measure of success."These were: (1) Explorer 1, January 31, still in orbit; (2) Van- guard 1, March 17, still in orbit; (3) Explorer 3, March 26, inorbit to June 27-29; (4) Explorer 4, July 26, still in orbit; (5) Thor-Able 1 lunar probe, August 17, altitude 40-70,000ft; (6)Pioneer 1 lunar probe, October 11, altitude 71,300 miles; (7) Pioneer 2 lunar probe, November 8, altitude 1,000 miles; (8)Pioneer 3 space probe, December 6, altitude 63,580 miles; and (9) Project Score (Atlas), December 18, in orbit to aboutJanuary 22. EXOTIC PROPELLANTS The British Interplanetary Society continued its lecture serieson Saturday, February 7, with a talk by Mr. F. Fitzgerald (of the Department of Chemistry of Birmingham College ofTechnology), on High-Energy Propellants for Rockets. Mr. Fitzgerald first dealt with the chemical elements, from thepoint of view of obtaining the high heats of reaction and low molecular weights of the combustion products so necessary for thethermodynamic propulsion of rockets. The fuels giving the highest performance are, of course, hydrogen and the lightmetals, beryllium, lithium, sodium, boron, magnesium and aluminium, used with oxygen or fluorine as oxidants. From theperformance aspect alone, hydrogen with either fluorine or oxygen was by far the best. The other light elements were mostly solid at room temperature,and, although lithium and sodium might be melted and pumped in a rocket, all the others would have to be used as slurries suspendedin kerosine. The metallic elements all produce oxides which are solid at room temperature, and some (such as aluminium) giveoxides which solidify at rocket temperatures and stick to the walls of the rocket chamber. Some of the hydrides of light elements are liquids or gases atroom temperature, notably the hydrides of boron (the boranes) and "of nitrogen (ammonia and hydrazine). The boranes, which arebeing developed as aircraft fuels in the U.S.A., give high perform- ance with both oxygen and fluorine, but, although boron (asborax) is readily available, the production of pentaborane and decaborane is very expensive. Apart from evaporation losses, liquid oxygen presentsfew difficulties that cannot be overcome, but liquid ozone is always liable to detonate, and cannot be used in more than a30 per cent concentration in liquid oxygen. Liquid fluorine is now obtainable in tank car loads, but it is extremely poisonous andhighly reactive with most substances. On free radical propellants Mr. Fitzgerald said that while atomichydrogen would give an exhaust jet with an extremely low mole- cular weight the production and storage of free radicals such asthis were at present impossible, even at very low temperatures. The only way it seemed likely that they could be used was in con-junction with electric propulsion, the energy coming from a fission or fusion reactor. . ASTRONAUTICS INTRODUCED BY R.Ae.S. The name of the Guided Flight Section of the Royal AeronauticalSociety has been changed to the Astronautics and Guided Flight Section. On March 3 the section is holding an informal discussiondevoted to Rocket Propulsion—Liquid and Solid at 4, Hamilton Place, at which attendance is restricted to section and graduatemembers. NO WEIGHTING U.S. investigations into the short-period effects of zero gravityon human performance and behaviour have recently included the use of a specially fitted Convair C-131B aircraft at Wright-Patterson A.F.B., Ohio. In a series of flight experiments carried out by the U.S.A.F. Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright AirDevelopment Center, men have floated freely in a padded cabin 25ft long, 6ft high and 10ft wide in this aircraft for periods upto 15 sec. Fighter-type aircraft have previously been used for similar experiments, but the large cabin of the C-131 permits awider variety of zero-g problems to be studied. In the photograph below Maj-Gen. Oliver K. Niess andCol. John P. Stapp are seen during a zero-g phase of a flight in the Convair. Maj-Gen. Niess is U.S.A.F. Surgeon General;Col. Stapp is chief of the Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright Air Development Center and is also president of the AmericanRocket Society. Frontal cloud formations over an Atlantic area of almost half a million square miles were photographed recently from this Project Hugo rocket, which was launched from Wallops Island, Virginiaf and attained a height of 86 miles Padded cabin and zero gravity: Maj-Gen. Oliver K. Niess (upper figure) and Col. John P. Stapp participating in a weightlessness experiment in a Convair C-131 B from the Wright Air Development Center (news item above)
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
