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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1651.PDF
FLIGHT, 755 16 November 1961 A record-speed fight by a North American X-15 research aircraft on Nov- ember 9 is reported over- leaf. These photographs show the aircraft about to land at Edwards AF& after an earlier flight; and the left-hand windscreen after the Oct II flight Missiles and Spaceflight MERCURY ORBIT DUE A chimpanzee was scheduled to be the passenger in a NASAMercury capsule due to be launched into orbit by Atlas booster in Mercury-Atlas shot MA-5 from Cape Canaveral in the nearfuture. The three-orbit attempt was to give a test of all Mercury systems, particularly the capsule's environmental control systemwhich will provide a "livable gaseous environment" for later manned flight. The selected orbital path was at an inclination of 32' to theequator and an altitude of 100-150 miles, and flight duration was estimated at about 4Jhr. Although the planned mission was forthree orbits, the capsule could be commanded down at the end of the first or second orbit without compromising many of the flightobjectives. Descent after one orbit would bring the spacecraft down a shortdistance to the east of Bermuda, while termination after two orbits would mean touchdown several hundred miles south of Bermuda.After three orbits, the spacecraft would begin to enter the atmo- sphere over southern Florida and encounter a maximum 89 de-celeration and 2,000°F re-entry heating at an altitude of about 37 miles, with touchdown occurring some 1,000 miles southeast ofCape Canaveral. B105 LAUNCH PLANNED The effect of radiation and weightlessness on living matter was dueto be investigated this week in a National Aeronautics and Space Administration launch of a recoverable capsule by means of afour-stage Argo D-8 rocket from Point Arguello, California. The flight was intended to pass through the inner Van Allen radi-ation belt to a height of about 1,165 miles, and to provide some 25min of zero-gravity conditions. Named Bios (Biological Investigations of Space), the programmehas as its scientific objectives "to discover the effect of radiation on a variety of small organisms, and to study how zero-gravityaffects the growth rate of amoeba cells, fertilization and cell division of sea urchin eggs and the production of microspheres." In addition,the spacecraft carries an experiment to chart radiation with respect to intensity, geographic location and magnetic fields, using a nuclearemulsion; and a micrometeroid experiment to record impacts of extra-terrestrial matter. WORLD WEATHER-SATELLITE DISCUSSION Synoptic meteorologists from 30 countries, including the SovietUnion, are attending the International Meteorological Satellite Workshop organized jointly by NASA and the US Department ofCommerce Weather Bureau in Washington during November 13-22. At the opening of the meeting last Monday, NASA AdministratorJames E. Webb said "This meeting demonstrates anew that America intends to apply to practical use and to share with all theworld the knowledge and skills we develop from our exploration of space. The countries attending here can now begin to equipthemselves for the eventual direct use of our satellite information in their daily weather forecasting." The Workshop programme includes lecture sessions on Tirossatellite engineering aspects, research results, data acquisition and future plans; practical laboratory sessions in which the participantsuse Tiros pictures to prepare weather analyses; and visits to the Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt (technical control centre,computing centre and satellite pre-flight testing) and at Annacostia (Tiros satellite and data displays, radiation experiment and Nimbusmock-up), Wallops Station (real-time Tiros data acquisition and meteorological sounding-rocket programme), and the WeatherBureau's meteorological satellite laboratory and national metero- logical centre at Suitland, Maryland (communications installationnational meteorological analysis centre, numerical weather- prediction unit and long-range forecast unit). ATLAS FAILURE The 100th Atlas booster to be launched was destroyed less than aminute after lift-off from Cape Canaveral on November 10 after it had deviated from its flight path, apparently out of control. Inits nose cone the rocket was carrying a 701b capsule, containing a l£lb squirrel monkey named Goliath and a number of biologicalspecimens, which was to have made a 5,000 mile flight down the Atlantic missile range in a test of the effects of weightlessness,high g forces and radiation. The monkey was not strapped in position in the capsule but wasable to move freely in a small container padded with nylon netting. A deceleration of up to 52g for lsec or more during re-entry hadbeen anticipated. The rocket was destroyed by a command signal from the range safety officer 30sec after becoming erratic in flight. Trailblazer is the name of one of the many types of multi-stage rocket launched in research programmes from the Wallops Island launch site of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Wallops Station, Virginia. An illustrated report of the work and facilities of Wallops Station, based on a recent "Flight" visit, appears on pages 768-771
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