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Aviation History
1968
1968 - 2675.PDF
fUGHT International, 21 November 1968 AUSTERE APPLICATIONS PROGRAMME The Apollo Applications Programme, a follow-on project to Apollo and employing similar equipment, has now been cut to five launches as a result of the severe cutbacks in NASA spending. According to Aviation Week there will now be only five launches in the AAP Earth-orbit flights. Three of these will be manned flights, and the other two will carry payloads to orbit Of the $600 million asked by NASA, and the $253 million agreed by Congress, only $150 million has been fully set aside in the fiscal year 1969. THE 1971 MARS ORBITER ... On November 14 NASA announced plans to fly two Mariner- type spacecraft to orbit Mars in 1971. The programme was assigned to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a project office has been set up in NASA. The 1971 Mariners will weigh some 2,0001b each, of which 1,100 will be placed in Mars orbit. The propellant weight will be about 9001b leaving 1251b for scientific instruments. Each Mariner will be launched by Atlas-Centaur, the "window" beginning in May 1971, and the flight time to Mars will be about six months. Each spacecraft will then orbit the planet for three months. The present plans call for the first Mariner to enter an orbit inclined at 60° to the Martian equator, which will permit an examination of about 70 per cent of the surface. The second Mariner would then be placed in an 80° orbit, allowing both examination of the polar caps and high-resolution coverage of selected areas. This orbit will also permit oblique coverage of large areas of the surface, together with, possibly, views of the two enigmatic satellites of Mars, Deimos and Phobos. The current NASA planetary exploration plans thus encom- pass two Mars flybys (Mariners 6 and 7, to be launched early next year), two Mars orbiters, and two (probably) Mars landers. There appear to be as yet no hard plans to fly probes to Venus, Mercury or Jupiter as advocated in the 76-pagep lanetary Exploration 1968-1975, the massively authoritative document prepared by the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Science last June as a guideline to future missions in the solar system. Among the recommendations put forward were that NASA should adopt a balanced programme of flights to the nearer planets (not just to Mars), using small IMP-type spacecraft; further, that duplicate missions should be flown only when there is clear scientific gain. It begins to look as if the Red Planet—the only body in the solar system apart from the Earth and Moon on which a manned landing appears feasible— is going to skim the brains and whatever money is available for t'lis particular aspect of spaceflight. ... AND THE 1973 MARS LANDER NASA is expected to issue requests for design studies to industry next month for initial proposals respecting the 1973 Mars lander. The spacecraft is a replacement for the now- defunct Voyager, which only two years ago was to be financed by a $2,400 million programme. A number of com- panies are already working on studies for the new programme, although the money available has been whittled down as a result of NASA's overall-retrenchment policy. The original concept for this Mars flight envisaged two space- craft, each carrying 8001b hard-lander payloads. These have since reduced in size owing to financial difficulties. The design authority for the flight was assigned to NASA's Langley Research Centre earlier this year. PIONEER 9, A SOLAR STORM DETECTOR The fourth in the present series of such interplanetary space- craft, the 1481b Pioneer 9 was launched by Thrust-Augmented Improved Delta from Cape Kennedy on November 8. The pur- pose of the flight is to improve the coverage of the Sun during the present period of solar activity which will reach a maxi- mum next summer. Known as Pioneer D before launch, the new spacecraft was built by TRW and will complement Pioneers 6, 7 and 8 (launched respectively on December 16, 1965, August 17, 1966 and December 13, 1967). Pioneer 9 will approach to within 70 million miles of the 823 Sun—closer than any of the other Pioneers. Its 39.51b pay- load includes eight experiments to record solar plasma, energetic particle flux, electric and magnetic fields and micro- meteoroid flux. One important application of the data returned will be to forecast major flares on the Sun, which give rise to biologically damaging bursts of high-energy protons, in support of the Apollo programme. PREDICTABLE DISCUSSIONS AT ESC While the 3rd European Space Conference at Bad Godesburg was still in full spate as we closed for press, Britain's predict- able stand respecting continued launcher development was being maintained by the Minister of Technology, Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn. The 20-strong British team did however submit two proposals to the Conference: that plans should be made for the development of a radio/TV satellite to provide a direct link between London and Paris by 1975; and that Europe should evolve a scheme for amalgamating ELDO, ESRO and CETS into a single body. During the ELDO Ministerial meeting on November 11, Britain is understood to have taken the position that she wanted to withdraw from launcher developments now, instead of 1971 as originally agreed; her £15 million outstanding to ELDO could then be channelled into a European satellite programme. But the other ELDO partners were insistent about the necessity for an independent European launch vehicle and a resolution to this effect was tabled by Germany and backed by France; Britain abstained. Mr Benn said that Blue Streak would be available to Europe until 1976 at cost, but that customers would have to finance any development found necessary to bring the vehicle up to operational standard. Zond 6 was launched from the Soviet Union towards the Moon on November 10 and passed behind it at 0250 GMT on November 14. According to Tass the unmanned spacecraft flew by the Moon at a distance of 1,400 miles; but no attempt was made, apparently, to place Zond 6 in a circumlunar orbit. Beregovoi Promoted Following his recent successful flight in Soyuz 3 last month, Col Beregovoi has now been promoted to the rank of major-general. The Kazakhstan village of Batpak where the spacecraft landed (about 40 miles from the previously named landing site of Karaganda) has been named Beregovoi. The astronaut has been appointed to the Order of Lenin by President Podgorny. Pioneer D, as it was called before launch, on test at TRW, was launched against the direction of the Earth's path round the Sun in order to allow it to enter on orbit 70 million miles from the Sun. The closest approach to the Sun will be made on April 5 next year, and the spacecraft "year" will be 297.6 days
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