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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0151.PDF
104 RIGHT trnational, January 1964 The observatory of Ska/nate Pleso, located 5,8S0ft above sea level in the High Tatra mountains, is one of a number of Czechoslovak stations used for the optical tracking of Earth satellites. Right, Dr Ludmila Pajdusakova, director of the observatory, which recently completed 20 years of active astronomical studies Missiles and Spaceflight SOVIET SPACE PROSPECTS The often-mentioned but still anonymous "chief constructor of Soviet space vehicles" gave his forecast of the next five years in space in an article printed in Izvestia at the turn of the year. In this he expressed confidence that, within this period, near-terrestrial space would have been sufficiently studied and mastered technically, and would be used extensively for practical purposes. One can expect, he said, that permanent orbital systems consisting of artificial satellites for different purposes will be created. They will be used for studies of the Earth, the Sun, weather forecasting, control over radiation in space, and cosmic rays. A system of universal radio and television communications via space with the help of satellites revolving in synchronized movement around the Earth will be widely used. The chief constructor said that it seemed that several projects for using space would also be worked out during the five-year period, first of all for urgent mail and freight deliveries and later for passen- ger travel. In service the systems of satellites and to conduct scientific research, permanent stations would also be created in orbits near the Earth. Looking back on 1963, the chief constructor said that the launch- ing of new Vostoks, Cosmos satellites and Polyot in the USSR during the year had the task of accumulating experimental materials and data primarily about near-terrestrial space, the checking of methods and improvement of up-to-date equipment. All these systems were worked out in accordance with a co-ordinated plan for the scientific exploration of outer space. In the years to come, he said, it would most probably be possible to carry out direct explorations round the Moon and on its surface only with the help of small, automatic apparatus, with the trans- mission of information back to Earth by radio. In another year-end comment on Soviet space activity, Lt-Col Valery Bykovsky was quoted by Tass as saying that new and more complicated experiments were scheduled under the Soviet space exploration programme. Concerning Polyot I, the cosmonaut said: "Its ability to make various manoeuvres in space opens great possibilities for establishing new heavy stations in orbit, and for making flights to other planets." He added that Soviet designers and scientists "have developed powerful boosters and spaceships such as the United States does not have. In our ships, all systems worked faultlessly." Earlier last month, Red Star stated that the Soviet cosmonauts were in intensive training again for "more complicated tasks." It added that Yuri Gagarin had been promoted to full colonel, and was directing a new programme of training for other cosmonauts such as Herman Titov and Pavel Popovich. COMMUNICATIONS VIA THE MOON In addition to their use in connection with the West Ford project (involving the reflection of radio signals by an orbiting belt of copper dipoles) the two West Ford ground stations at Millstone Hill in Westford, Massachusetts and Camp Parks in Pleasanton, California, have made extensive measurements on reflections from the Moon. These measurements have been made at X-band frequencies (near 8,000Mc/s, wavelength 3.6cm). The surface of the Moon resembles an orbital belt of dipoles "as a reflector of radio waves in two important respects. First, it produces many multiple reflections from somewhat different distances, each reflected signal arriving at the receiving point at a slightly different time: thus a single transmitted pulse produces a smear of many overlapping pulses of various amplitudes at various arrival times, and the modulation-demodulation system must bring order out of this chaos without sacrificing precious power from the already feeble reflected signals. Second, because the reflecting elements are all moving at various different velocities with respect to the fixed transmitter and receiver, the received signals will no longer be at the same frequency as the transmitted signals; they will be smeared over a much wider range of frequencies, and the modulation- demodulation system must also cope with this kind of distortion. Using advanced techniques of modulation developed for the West Ford experiment, the West Ford ground stations have achieved digital data transmission rates, over the transcontinental lunar-relay circuit, of 50,000 bits per second, a capacity that would accom- modate hundreds of simultaneous teletype channels—considerably greater than the capacity of lunar relay circuits currently in oper- ational use. Good-quality voice communication over this circuit has also been achieved. In another experiment, in April 1962, the West Ford ground terminals achieved the first transmission of a television picture via a communications satellite, bouncing a picture from Camp Parks in California to Millstone Hill in Massachusetts, 2,700 miles away, by way of the orbiting Echo I space balloon. This was the first successful Earth-space-Earth television video transmission, and it is likely to remain the only such transmission by passive satellite until such time as another Echo-type satellite is placed in orbit. In April 1963, the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough announced successful reception of good teletype copy at 60 words per minute, transmitted by way of the Moon from Camp Parks in California, 5,333 miles away. This experiment was part of a con- tinuing co-operative programme between Britain and the USA. The success of the experiment was made possible by special modulation equipment developed for West Ford use.
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