FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1967
1967 - 0037.PDF
UGHiT international. 5 January 1967 IMASKS HL-IO lifting body is hereseen landing at Edwards AFB on itsvestigial skids, following its suc-cessful first flight on December 22 of the SV-5D flight of December 21 was to test the design and systems; the three further tests of unmanned SV-5 models will involve manoeuvring the vehicle and checking its reaction to ground control. DOUBLE BLACK BRANT FIRING A Black Brant 3 single-stage rocket and a Black Brant 4 two- stage rocket were launched within 7sec of each other in a recent scientific experiment from the Churchill Research Range, Manitoba. Designed and produced by Bristol Aerospace Ltd of Winnipeg, the two vehicles carried identical 761b payloads each with two experiments to study the structure of the aurora. The Mk 3 reached a peak altitude of 71 miles while the Mk 4 reached 491 miles—the highest altitude reached to date by any Canadian rocket. The double firing represented the seventh consecutive suc- cessful operational firing of Black Brant 3 in 1966, and the first occasion on which Black Brant 4 had been used for scien- tific research. Installation of identical payloads was made easier by the fact that the second stage of Black Brant 4 con- sists of a Black Brant 3 (minus fins). ASTRONOMY SATELLITE STUDY The Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, has selected Avco Space Systems Division to study an orbiting vehicle for space-based astronomical observation of the planets and brighter stars. The six-month contract will involve scien- tific payloads to be proposed by the observatory. This initial study is intended to provide design information to establish the level of support that would be required and requested by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) in the immediate future. The observatory is a basic astronomical research centre sponsored by the National Science Foundation and is operated by AURA. The spacecraft would be launched by a Scout vehicle into circular orbit selected for long-term visibility of the planets and stars under investigation. It will be designed to accommodate a variety of astronomical payloads with space-stabilised aper- tures up to 24in in diameter with lifetimes of 100 days, while pointed at objects as faint as thiid-magnitude stars to 20 arc seconds accuracy. Ground command and on-board attitude control systems will be developed to enable a variety of celestial objects to be acquired and tracked. Initially, the satellite will be designed to house telescopes intended to measure ultra-violet radiation reflected by the planets Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, and to provide data on their atmospheres. Other experiments are concurrently under consideration. CENTAUR TO REPLACE AGENA AT THE CAPE The Atlas-Centaur has been chosen by NASA to launch the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory series of satellites and the Applications Technology Satellites D and E, beginning in 1968. These spacecraft were to have been launched by Atlas-Agena, but the more powerful Atlas-Centaur was substituted because of the requirements for greater performance. Adoption of the Centaur vehicle will mean that the Atlas- Agena will be phased-out at Cape Kennedy in 1968, after 26 flights with this vehicle. So far, of the 19 Agenas which NASA has launched on lunar, planetary and Earth satellite missions, 14 have been successful. The first NASA Atlas-Agena mission was to launch Ranger 1 in August 1961, and these vehicles were used for Ranger and Lunar Orbiter flights to the Moon, for Mariner flights to Venus and Mars, for Orbiting Geo- physical Observatories and for the first Applications Tech- nology Satellite. Modified Agenas were launched by Atlas as target vehicles for the Gemini programme. The Centaur, the first vehicle to use liquid hydrogen fuel, can launch about 40 per cent more payload than the Agena into near-Earth orbit, and about three times the payload on a lunar trajectory. It succesfully launched the first two Surveyor lunar-landing spacecraft, and is being considered as an upper stage for more advanced launch vehicles.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
