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Aviation History
1967
1967 - 0065.PDF
65 FLIGHT International, 12 January 1967 Shis official Soviet photograph shows a model of the Luna 13 spacecraft, which landed on the Moon on December 24 jjmf has transmitted information on the properties of the surface. I, petal aerials; 2, pintle aerials; 3, extending mechani- kal arms; 4, "mechanical ground meter"; 5, radiation density meter (see also diagram below); 6, television camera Spaceflight SRO'S RE-APPRAISAL future programme of the European Space Research trganisation is to be decided at a ministerial meeting to be eld next July or September. Among the major decisions to taken at this meeting are those on the budget for ESRO's cond three-year period (1967-69), the organisation's plans «yond 1971, and the Large Astronomical Satellite project This follows a major budget exercise—a drastic attempt to keep programmes within financial ceilings—which the organi- ation has tackled over the past six months. Although no :risis in the 1966 ELDO sense appears likely, ESRO has been [forced to look closely at its planned programme because of he combination of rising costs and a fixed budget. At a meeting of the ESRO Council in Paris last month, a Jtotal of 240 million francs (approximately £17.4 million) was wted for the calendar year 1967. The organisation's programme planning is normally done on a three-year basis: the first such Iperiod ended on December 31, 1966, but the question of the •budget total for the second three-year period, 1967-69, was of the radiation density meter carried on one of the two wtitnding instrument-arms on Luna 13: A, positioning mecha- Iflism; B, shield; C, gas discharge meters; D, gamma radiation •source; £, surface of the Moon; F, dispersed gamma radiation Q doo held over by the Council until the forthcoming ministerial meeting. ESRO programmes had earlier been discussed at two meet- ings of the organisation's scientific and technical committee. At Kiruna in September the committee agreed that estimates for the 1967-69 period should be based on a maximum of 710 mil- lion francs (at June 1966 prices); the applied research pro- gramme should be reduced by 20-30 million francs; the budget of the European Space Research Institute (ESRIN) at Frascati should be cut by not more than 3.5 million francs; and cuts in the sounding-rocket programme should not exceed 5 million francs. (The Council's 240 million francs for 1967 is in line with the three-year total of 710 million francs.) In Paris in November the committee agreed that the highest priority should be accorded to the two Thor-Delta satellites, aimed at a launch date of mid-1970 for TD-2 and a launch date for TD-1 "such that the total cost of the project is kept to a minimum." (At the September meeting the committee had favoured an ESRO secretariat plan which envisaged 1969 as the launch date for TD-2 and 1970 for TD-1.) It agreed also that the 1967 budget should be examined in detail to discover possible economies which would make more funds available for the operational programme, and in particular for the two Thor-Delta craft. ESRO's first large-scale project, the Large Astronomical Satellite, is clearly vulnerable to slippage in the present financial climate. Tenders for the LAS spacecraft, based on the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Culham Laboratory design for the scientific payload, are about to be invited from industry. The resulting bids will be evaluated and used as a basis for the LAS discussion at the forthcoming ministerial meeting. A minimum of six years will be heeded to develop the LAS, so that its earliest possible launch date will be in the second half of 1973. ESRO's difficulties have been caused by two main factors. First, a general underestimation of the costs of developing the various spacecraft. (These estimates were made in 1962, when there was no previous experience of spacecraft develop- ment in Europe.) Secondly, extra costs caused by delays in starting major capital projects such as the facilities of the European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC) at Noordwijk.
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