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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1870.PDF
FLIGHT International, 18 June 1964 1039 Missiles and Spaceflight NASA's lunar landing vehicle simulator, expected to be completed this summer at Langley Research Center, will employ a steel-girder framework (left) 250ft high and 450ft long, from which a 20,0001b Apollo LEM research vehicle (right) will be suspended. The travelling crane will support five-sixths of the weight of the vehicle, thus simulating the effect of lunar gravity. The vehicle's propulsion system, to be developed and produced by the Walter Kidde Co, will have two clusters of five monopropellant hydrogen-peroxide motors producing 6,3001b thrust ZOND 1 EN ROUTE TO VENUS? The Soviet space probe Zond I, launched on April 2, is heading for an encounter with Venus about the middle of July, according to calculations by Flight International contributors Tony Devereux and J. A. Pilkington. There has so far been no official Russian confirmation of this. The probe has been described officially as an experimental test of apparatus for interplanetary flight. Several Tass corn- uniques have referred to the experiments being carried out with it, and have reported two trajectory corrections. Three of these com- muniques gave specific positions for the probe, in terms of right ascension, declination, and distance from the Earth, on April 4, April 15 and May 5, at 3 p.m. GMT in each case. When these positions are plotted graphically in relation to the orbit of Earth and Venus, Devereux reports, they are seen to approximate to a transfer ellipse to Venus. On close analysis the April 4 position turns out to be so close to the Earth that the probe has not entered on the ellipse proper, but the remaining two pos- itions can be used to determine the ellipse. Approximate para- meters are: semi-major axis, 125,250,000km; eccentricity, 0.1945; period, 280 days; inclination to ecliptic 3.3 ; maximum distance from Sun, 149,600,000km; minimum distance from the Sun, 100,900,000km. This ellipse intersects the orbit of Venus at a point at which Venus and Zond 1 will arrive approximately together. The calcu- lation is not sufficiently precise to establish the order of events with certainty, but it may be that Zond 1, moving rather faster than Venus, will cross the planet's orbit some fraction of a day behind it, and overhaul it on the inside. The closest fly-by—at about 100,000km or possibly very much closer—should occur on July 18. Venus and the probe are then about 5,000,000km below the ecliptic; Venus is just past its aphel- ion (furthest distance from the Sun), and is approaching 60,000,000 km from the Earth. Its position in the sky will have a right ascen- sion of about 5hr 23min and declination +17.9'% and it will be visible as a morning star. US/Soviet Agreements to publish information on space biology and medicine and to exchange cloud pictures obtained from weather satellites were signed in Geneva on June 6 by Dr Hugh L. Dryden of NASA and Academician Anatoly Blagonravov of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. A special communication line will be set up between Washington and Moscow to transmit the satellite cloud photographs in both directions. Signing of the agreements followed three weeks of private negotiations conducted outside the sessions of the technical subcommittee of the UN committee on the peace- ful uses of outer space, which also ended in Geneva on June 6. Details of the two new agreements are to be published after they have been reviewed by both governements. US/Soviet Comsat Talks The USA and the Soviet Union com- menced bilateral discussions in Geneva on June 15 on possible co- operation in an international communication satellite system. Representatives of the Communications Satellite Corporation, the State Department and the Federal Communications Commission were included in the US delegation. Cosmos 31 and 32 Launched On June 6 the launching of the 31st satellite in the Soviet Cosmos series was announced by Tass. Initial orbital elements were quoted as: period, 91.6min; apogee, 508km; perigee, 228km; inclination, 49°. This was followed on June 10 by the announcement of the launching of Cosmos 32 into a 15 17'orbit with an initial period of 89.78min, apogee. 333km and perigee 209km. The instrumentation aboard both satellites was said to be functioning normally, and the co-ordinating com- puting centre was said to be processing the incoming information. Cosmonaut Valentina Nikoiayeva-Tereshkova, wife of cos- monaut Andrian Nikolayev, gave birth to a daughter on June 8. This was announced in Moscow on June 10.
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