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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0524.PDF
524 FLIGHT, 15 April 1%Q The first of 20 Project Mercury capsules was delivered by McDonnell Aircraft Corp to NASA at Wallops Island on April 2. This capsule has been specially instrumented for design tests of the vehicle's escape system Missiles and * f Spaceflight . . . END OF A SPUTNIK Launched on May 15, 1958, the 2,9251bSoviet satellite Sputnik 3 was believed to have re-entered the dense lower layers ofthe Earth's atmosphere during the morning of April 6, 1960, after completing approxi-mately 10,040 revolutions. The last obser- vation of the sputnik to be made by theRadio Research Station, Slough, was at 7.43 a.m. on April 6, when the satellite wason its 10,037th circuit at a height of 75-80 miles. NUCLEAR POWER IN SPACE Speaking before the Dayton-CincinnatiSection of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences last month, Richard E. Horner,associate administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,said that NASA was spending about $6 million per year on the development ofa fluid heat delivery system to be used in a nuclear booster. He referred specificallyto the Kiwi project in this connection, and declared that the schedule indicated thatthe USA was from three to six years away from a flight-weight reactor to be used asa booster. Nuclear reactors would be used asauxiliary power sources for space vehicles, however, within two to three years. MrHorner went on to indicate that nuclear auxiliary power sources were coming alongnicely, and the real problem in using them had more to do with obtaining sufficiently large boosters to putthem into orbit, than with the auxiliary power units themselves. NASA was not working on air-breathing boost systems to carryout the first-stage launching of space vehicles and missiles, the speaker said. (Such units, using turbojet engines, would carry themissile or space vehicle up through the denser layers of atmos- phere, whereupon a rocket engine would take over to power thevehicle for the rest of its flight, while the first-stage air-breathing booster would return safely to the ground to be used over andover again.) Air-breathing boost was a project in which the Department of Defense had an interest and so, if any work was tobe done on it, it must be done in that Department. The recovery of Saturn first-stage components by parachute was under con-sideration by the Administration. SHIPS FOR POLARIS A contract from the US Navy's Bureau of Ships has been receivedby the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics for plans and design services for a third generation of Polaris submarines.Numbered from SFB(N)616 onwards, the new series will incor- porate many components evolved from those of the second-generation 608 class. The first Polaris ship, George Washington, is number 598. In addition, a total of $5 2m has now been made available for theacceleration of the current Polaris fleet ballistic-missile pro- gramme. This step is considered justified owing to the fact that alltest objectives were achieved in nine out of the last ten firings. How the money will be spent has not been divulged, but aproportion of it will permit extra shifts to be worked on the seven submarines (598-604) currently under construction. MINUTEMAN BASE Now that the configuration and basic design parameters of theMinuteman silo have been determined, design work is progressing rapidly on the first fixed-site base for this new missile. Locatedat Malmstrom AFB, Great Falls, Montana, the complex will house three squadrons of SM-80 Minutemen, all in fully hardenedunderground bases, Each emplacement will require some two acres of ground, not counting the easements for communicationsEach squadron is likely to have more than the six or nine missile* which equip Atlas or. Titan squadrons, and its Strategic AirCommand personnel will total some 500. Construction contract, for some $20m per squadron will be signed next January, andMalmstrom will be completed between April and July 1962, Li time for delivery of the first operational SM-80 missiles.Studies of the final design of solid-propellant loading and supporting system are nearing completion and it has not previouslybeen revealed that the four nozzles of the first stage of the missile will be arranged to swivel, dispensing with the necessity of drag,inducing jetevators. Further Minuteman news includes repetition of the story that there are to be smaller and larger versions (fcrranges of 1,000 and 12,000 n.m. respectively) named Midgetmaa and Mightyman, and that owing to the sandy terrain at CapeCanaveral the Minuteman complex there has a silo in which the concrete wall is being fabricated above ground and allowed tosink beneath the surface while the interior is scooped out.1 According to Aviation Daily "Convair and de Havilland Aircraft Coare conducting negotiations on a top-secret missile project." In a written reply in the House of Commons, the Minister of Aviationhas given the cost of building the Rocket Test Establishment at Spade- adam as £19.4m. Running costs have so far been £1.2m. Martin have used war-surplus rocket motors to reduce the cost of theBullpup Trainer. This device, currently being test-fired from a B-57, has aerodynamic characteristics similar to those of the operationalBullpup, but is simpler, cheaper and one-fifth as heavy. Some 3,000 members of the National Brotherhood of ElectricalWorkers have ceased work at Vandenberg AFB, objecting to cheap-rate non-union labour. Construction is held up on soft and hard installationsfor Atlas and Titan. Rocketdyne's solid-propellant division at McGregor, Texas, is inproduction with a gas-generator to provide accessory power for the Tartar and Advanced Terrier. The fuel is a clean-burning ammoniumnitrate, and cemented to the starting end is a boost disc of fast-burning material to provide full hydraulic and electric power almost instantly. The ninth powered flight by an X-15 research aircraft was made onMarch 29, with North American Aviation test pilot Scott Crossfield at the controls. The flight was made in the second machine of this type,and began at 45,000ft after release from a B-52. The X-15 climbed a further 5,000ft and was subjected to rolls, turns and a brief dive duringa six-minute powered flight at a speed of 1,300 m.p.h., before landing at Rogers Dry Lake. At the Geneva disarmament conference on April 1, Frederick Eaton,leader of the US delegation, suggested immediate action to prevent the use of outer space for military purposes. An agreement not to fireweapons of mass destruction into space would be comparatively simple to operate, he said; small inspection teams at the launching sites, anda minor extension of the existing world network of tracking stations, were all that was required to make such an agreement effective. Unofficial disclosures in Rome recently suggest that the Jupiter IRBMswhich are to be based in Italy will actually be located near Puglia in south-east Italy. It is suggested that they will be deployed by a jointUSAF/Italian Army force, with support and training provided partly by the US Army. It is also learned that both Nike-Ajax and Nike-Hercules are located at some twelve emplacements in the area behind Venice. Marquardt announce that recent static firings at Edwards AFB have"demonstrated the highest performance ever achieved with storable liquids on a large scale." The original USAF-sponsored programmewas aimed at the achievement of a rocket-ramjet unit, the ramjet portion of which has already flown three times on Lockheed X-7s at over M4above 90,000ft. Static firings of the rocket portion have involved high- energy boron fuel and an unspecified oxidant, operating at some. 100,0001b thrust. As noted in a news-item on this page, the SM-80 Minuteman is designed for silo launching. This one-third-scale "boilerplate" model was used during the evolution of the silo configuration
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