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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0182.PDF
184 FLIGHT International, 1 February 1962 i. AUAS-AGENAB LAUNCHED AGENA 8 Flight mission planned for the orbital rendezvous tests for which NASA's two-man Gemini spacecraft will be used. The Gemini programme will follow Mercury and precede Apollo satellites were developed by the US Naval Research Laboratory. Responsibility for the actual launch, which took place at 4.30 a.m. EST (9.30 a.m. GMT), rested with the US Air Force. Approxi mately 25min after lift-off, an Air Force spokesman said "The second stage of the Thor AbleStar failed to build up thrust after ignition . . . First-stage burning and separation were normal. The missile impacted in the ocean area." Tracking and telemetry reception from the three scientific satel lites was to have been accomplished with the aid of NASA's world wide Minitrack network, and the Radio Research Station's Minitrack station at Winkfield, near Windsor, was among those alerted. It was expected that the satellites would have passed over Britain for the first time on their sixth orbit, but firm news of the failure came in a teletype message from Goddard Space Flight Center to Winkfield at 10.25 a.m. This stated simply "SATELLITE DID NOT ACHIEVE ORBIT. ALL STATIONS RELEASED FROM OPERATION. CONDITION BLUE. RESUME NORMAL OPERATIONS." A circular orbit at a height of approximately 500 miles was scheduled for Composite 1. Telemetry from SR-4, Injun 2 and Lofti 2 was to have been received on 108, 136 and 136Mc/s respectively. Missiles and Spaceflight MULTIPLE LAUNCH ATTEMPT FAILS AN attempt to launch five scientific and calibration satellites into orbit by a single Thor AbleStar rocket from Cape Canaveral on January 24 was unsuccessful because of a fault in the second stage of the launch vehicle. Designated Composite 1, or Buckshot, the launching represented a joint effort by the US Navy, Army, Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The 2191b payload included the following individual satellites:— (1) SR-4 solar-radiation satellite to study X-radiation from the Sun (2) Injun 2, to study the relationship between the outer Van Allen radiation and auroral phenomena (3) Lofti 2 (low-frequency trans-ionospheric), to study low- frequency propagation through the ionosphere (4) Secor (sequential collation of range), to test techniques for future geodetic satellites, and (5) Surcal (surveillancecalibration), to provide precise calibration of the Navy's Spasur satellite detection system. With the exception of Secor, which is an Army project, all these RAE DEVELOP SATELLITE-TRACKING CAMERA A new type of automatic camera for obtaining accurately timed observations of satellite orbits has been developed by the Instrumeri- tation and Ranges Department of the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Farnborough, and was exhibited for the first time at the Physical Society exhibition in London recently. A rocking action in the direction of motion of the satellite is fed into the equipment, with the amplitude and period chosen so that the maximum angular speed of the camera slightly exceeds the apparent angular speed of the satellite. The resulting record of the satellite track consists of a series of pairs of dots, and the satellite position—at the mid-point of each pair of dots, as the camera passes through its mean position— is measured relative to the mean position of known stars. The film is wound on to a fresh frame at 15sec intervals, and the times of each rock and of each change of film are recorded against radio time signals. Although the technique of using a reciprocating camera to increase exposure has been used before for satellite observations, the RAE camera features an improved accuracy in timing and the ability, when set up in advance, of operating unattended and recording automatically a predicted night-time transit of a satellite. Symposium on Space A two-day symposium devoted to aspects of space technology is to be held by Hatfield College of Technology on March 1 -2,1962. Speakers include Dr L. R. Shepherd, Mr W. G. Model of Composite I payload is studied by Martin Votaw (left), Naval Research Laboratory payload manager, and Sam Hubbard, bureau of Naval Weapons project officer for Composite I. Visible in the model are the SR-4 and Secor satellites (large spheres), and Injun 2 (rectangular box). Not completely visible are Lofti 2 and Surcal
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