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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1013.PDF
FLIGHT, 27 July 1961 113 Missiles and Spaceflight Right, astronaut Virgil Grissom is assisted into Mercury spacecraft "Liberty Be// 7" on July 21 by colleague John Glenn. Far right, lift-off from Pad 5, Cape Canaveral, by Redstone booster. Below right, Grissom with medical personnel aboard the carrier "Ran- dolph" after he had been picked up by helicopter after his suborbital fight. The spacecraft sank and was not recovered LIMITED SUCCESS FOR MR-4 The second manned ballistic flight in NASA's Project Mercuryprogramme was made on Friday, July 21, with Capt Virgil Grissom, USAF, aboard the spacecraft Liberty Bell 7. A successful flight wasfollowed by a failure to recover the capsule from the sea, although the astronaut was picked up safely and in good health. Designated MR-4 (Mercury-Redstone 4), the launch took placefrom Pad 5 at Cape Canaveral at 1220 GMT on Friday July 21, after postponements caused by weather on July 18 and 19. Thegeneral purpose of the Mercury-Redstone programme is to advance the qualification of the spacecraft and train astronauts for orbitalflights, and the main details of the MR-4 mission were reported in last week's issue of Flight. A maximum height of 118 miles, a downrange distance of 303miles and a maximum speed of 5,310 m.p.h. were achieved in the 16-minute flight on July 21. The flight went according to plan, withGrissqm manually holding the autopilot-established 34° base- up attitude and firing the retro-rockets. After the capsule had descended into the sea, Capt Grissomremained inside to complete a number of checks of instruments and equipment while an HUS-1 Marines helicopter waited to pick upthe astronaut and spacecraft. He removed the safety pin from the escape hatch, and shortly afterwards the explosive bolts in the hatchfired (for a reason which had not been determined as this issue closed for press); the "door just went," and the astronaut had toswim before being picked up by another helicopter. The spacecraft filled with water, became too heavy for the helicopter which wastrying to winch it up, and sank when the winch cable was cut (the HUS-1 had one wheel in the water by this time). Capt Grissom wastaken aboard the carrier Randolph and was found to be fit, apart from having swallowed a lot of sea water and having an initiallyhigh pulse rate. Originally it had been intended to follow this sub-orbital flightwith an early attempt at orbit, with a capsule either empty or carrying a chimpanzee. A large amount of data was lost when theLiberty Bell 7 sank, however, and this may well have caused a post- ponement in the Project Mercury plans for orbital flight. Thereappears to be a case for using a larger helicopter, such as an HR2S. RANGER SHOT DUE The most ambitious United States space probe yet was due to belaunched by Atlas-Agena B from Cape Canaveral during this week. It is Ranger 1, forerunner of the spacecraft which the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration will use to rough-land instrumented payloads on the surface of the Moon. The primarypurpose of the test is to "develop and test basic elements of space- craft technology required for lunar and interplanetary missions,"including an attitude stabilization system based on celestial refer- ences, a high-gain directional antenna, an advanced communica-tion system, the development of components able to operate for long periods in the space environment, and calibration of solar cellsin a space environment. Eight scientific experiments are carried on the Ranger 1 space-craft, which has been developed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. The spacecraft has a hexagonalbase slightly more than 5ft in diameter, and is lift long. In its "cruise" configuration, with solar panels extended, it is 17ft in spanand is 13ft long. Ranger 1 weighs 6751b, of which 2431b represents electronics, 1441b the scientific experiments, 2381b the structureand 501b the solar panels. The spacecraft has no fewer than 19,520 working electronic parts. The Moon, Venus and Mars were the main "space neighbours of theEarth" discussed by Dr M. Bobrov, chief scientist of the Astronomical Society of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, in his lecture to the Astro-nautics and Guided Flight Section of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on July 14. Dr Bobrov indicated the main points of scientificinterest in the exploration of these bodies, and referred to the technique of launching space probes from a satellite in orbit around the Earth. This photograph of the Vostok spacecraft (including, apparently, the final stage of the launching rocket) is taken from the Soviet film "First Journey to the Stars," shown at the international film festival in Moscow earlier this month. It is the first published view of the actual craft in which Maj Gagarin achieved orbital flight on April 12
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