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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 1113.PDF
FLIGHT, 22 July 1960 113 The Northrop SM-62 Snark (Pratt & Whitney J57-17 turbojet) cruises subsonically, but confers supersonic final delivery by separating from its warhead at altitude. The latter sprouts stabilizing fins before release, while the rest of the airframe pitches up violently (middle picture) and creates spurious returns on ground radars be transmitted back to Earth each week to furnish data on vehicleperformance. On November 17, 1964, the MIT spaceship would make a final mid-course correction before passing within thespecified miss-distance of the planet. Automatic navigation gear was subsequently to guide the vehicle back towards Earth. Threeminutes before re-entering the atmosphere, the camera and other instrumentation data were to be ejected from the larger space-ship. After a successful re-entry the capsule would be recovered from the Gulf of Mexico. TALKING ABOUT TRANSIT The operational Transit navigation-satellite system should beworking by the summer of 1962 and will involve four satellites, two of which will be in orbit at an inclination of 22° and two at67|°. These and other details of the system were given in London on July 11 by Capt Robert F. Freitag, USN, astronautics officer inthe research, development, test and evaluation group of the Bureau of Navy Weapons, Washington. Capt Freitag, who had presented a lecture to the Astronauticsand Guided Flight section of the Royal Aeronautical Society three days previously, emphasized that the feasibility of the system hadalready been established. In the April 13 launch of Transit IB, he said, a particularly important role was played by the Ministryof Aviation tracking station at Lasham Aerodrome, Hampshire, as the satellite had entered orbit over England. Further Transit tests would be made next autumn and winter,the captain continued. If these were successful the four operational satellites would be launched—by two launch vehicles only—earlyin 1962, or perhaps even late 1961. The satellites would have a lifetime of about five years and would enable any ship anywhere inthe world to obtain a position fix accurate to a quarter of a mile- provided the vessel were equipped with the appropriate receiverand computer unit, which could be expected to be generally available in 1963 if no snags were encountered. The four-satellitesystem based on the two quoted inclinations would give one fix every 90min at any point on earth, and one every hour over aconsiderable area. Apart from the worldwide coverage the main advantages con-ferred by the Transit system were those of accuracy and cheapness. Accuracy could be improved over the basic radio system bymounting a flashing light on the satellite and employing simul- taneous photography from a number of sites. Capt Freitag spoke also of the satellite-tracking "fence" whichstretched across the United States from Brown Field, near San Diego, to Ft Stewart on the east coast, with intermediate stationsat Gila River, Arizona; Elephant Butte, New Mexico; Silver Lake, Mississippi, and Jordan Lake, Alabama. Information from thesestations, which could be regarded as an initial detection system which might lead to an anti-satellite system, was fed into thecomputing centre at Dahlgren, near Washington. The most notable feature of each station was its 1,600ft antenna, mountedhorizontally at ground level. This space surveillance (Spasur) network was at present operat-ing in two sections, east and west, but with the addition of a new central station would form a single and complete beam, a quarterof a degree wide and extending to a height of 500 miles—later to be increased to 2,000 miles—from coast to coast. It was possiblerhat a north-south fence might be installed at some future date MINUTEMAN DEPLOYMENT On July 1 the US Air Force disclosed that the first Strategic AirCommand Squadron (and also probably the second and third) equipped with the SM-80 Minuteman ICBM will have 55 missilesdeployed in fully hardened silos spread over three counties in the state of Montana. This is an exceptional number of ICBMs for asingle squadron; as was noted in last week's issue the present Atlas squadrons have only nine to 12 missiles apiece. Base con-struction for the first squadron is calculated to take 15 to 18 months and to cost £7m; deployed cost of each missile is out at about£535,000. Further to our brief announcement on May 13 regardingexperimental tests of the railway-deployed Minuteman over the US railroad system, it can now be stated that this programmestarted on June 20. No less than 14 American railroad companies are involved, and the bases from which the trains operate areHill AFB, Utah (current), and Des Moines, Iowa. MINUTEMAN CONTRACT Boeing Airplane Co, prime assembly and test contractor for the Minuteman ICBM, were on July 12 awarded a $247m contract covering research and development of the fixed-date missile up to the end of calendar year 1961. In addition to these hardened and dispersed weapons, Minuteman will also be deployed aboard special trains, and a second R and D contract for the mobile ICBM will be drawn up during the coming weeks. MAULER CONTRACT Convair division of General Dynamics announced earlier thismonth the receipt of a further $8,176,000 contract from the US Army for continued development of the Mauler battlefield airdefence system. This brings total Mauler appropriations to $13.7m. Mauler is a compact system, involving solid-propellant,radar-guided missiles fired from standard tracked vehicles on the move. An all-party committee which will study space research has beenformed by Members of Parliament and peers. One of its objectives is to acquire reliable information on the subject in its widest sense, whilein Parliament the aim is to promote interest on space issues. Chairman of the committee is Airey Neave, MP. SEPR have successfully concluded a licence agreement with Rocket-dyne under the terms of which the French company acquire rights to certain of the American firm's smaller liquid-propellant engines through-out continental Europe, Turkey and Iran, while Rocketdyne obtain rights to certain SEPR rockets. Convair have confirmed that all current Atlas ICBMs being installedat Vandenberg, Warren, and other bases are of the 9,000-mile D model, identical to Adas 56D which flew over 9,040 miles on May 20. Thefirst Atlas E, with the more powerful Rocketdyne MA-3 engine, will fly this year. On July 2 the second Atlas D with Bosch Arma inertialguidance was successfully tested down the Atlantic Missile Range. The Australian Government has awarded Fairey Engineering thesales agency for the Malkara anti-tank missile for all countries except the USA. The Australian Department of Supply have also appointedFairey the authority to support Malkara's introduction to British Army service, and to design and manufacture modifications as may be neces-sary. As was the case with earlier Fairey guided weapons, design work will be handled at Heston and production at Stockport. It is clear from a statement by the Prime Minister, Mr HaroldMacmillan, in the Commons on July 14, that a strategic ballistic missile will, in a few years—he said five or six—supplement aircraft asNATO's principal first-line delivery system. Most of the discussion centred about the US Navy's Polaris, although both the US Army(with Pershing) and the US Air Force (with a new missile now in the advanced project stage) are anxious to be considered.
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