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Aviation History
1970
1970 - 0090.PDF
298 have had perigees below 150km. Flights with three similar low perigees are also to be found in the 62° Cosmos pro gramme, in the case of the orbits actually attained by (but not those announced for) Cosmos 217, the Cosmos 249 rocket and Cosmos 291. The latter satellite was placed in a 153km- 574km orbit at 62.3° on August 6. Cosmos 316 was placed in an even more eccentric, 154km- 1,650km orbit at 49.5°, the first flight at this inclination with an apogee in excess of 350km since the two unannounced Cosmos FOBS precursors in 1966 (Flight, October 27, 1966, page 734, and November 24, 1966, page 925). It seems reasonable to assign the same launch vehicle, the SS-9, otherwise known by its NATO code-name Scarp, to both sub-sets, and the hypothesis of a military objective for the manceuverable 62° flights put forward in Flight, May 8, 1969, page 774 is strengthened. Moreover if both sub-sets of satellites have a common point of origin, intersection of the initial ground tracks of Cosmos 291 and Cosmos 298 place this at 46 °N 63 °E, in the Tyuratam-Baykonur Cosmodrome. G. E. PERRY NASA'S BIG CRAWLER HONOURED As briefly recorded in our issue of December 25, the Royal Automobile Club presented its Diamond Jubilee trophy for 1969 to NASA. This was in recognition of the crawler trans porter which carries the seven million-pound Saturn vehicles from their assembly building the three miles to the launching pad at Cape Kennedy. Lord Mountbatten presented the trophy, a previous recipient of which was Sir Christopher Cockerell of hovercraft fame, to Mr Donald D. Buchanan, chief of engineering at John F. Kennedy Space Centre. He accepted it on behalf of NASA and of the Marion Power Shovel Company who made it. Mr Buchanan said that, before deciding on the crawler method, they had looked at barges, rails and even hovercraft. Studies began early in 1962, the contract was signed in January 1963, and the first of two was ready two years later. The two cost a total of $15 million. All-up-weight of each was 18.5 mil lion lb and footprint pressure was 10,0001b/ft2. The machine travelled at 1 m.p.h. (someone said on the first trip, "this is crawling") and consumption of the two main-drive 2,750 h.p. diesels was 150 US gal/mile. According to Mr Buchanan the machine developed enough electric power to light a city of 25,000 people. "We were just going to do it the great American way—you know, push a button and watch it run. We pushed a button and it had a shutdown." Mr Buchanan leavened a fascinating technical presentation with other asides, including an admission that they had put the cab on the wrong end of the vehicle and, "would you believe, we did the same on the second?" He said that the crawlers were being adapted for NASA's forthcoming space shuttle programme. They would handle "any space programme planned in the foreseeable future." THE YEAR'S SPACEFLIGHT The US Space Agency plans to make 12 unmanned satellite launches this year, all but three of them for the purpose of expanding Earth communications and improving weather fore casting. The 1970 schedule represents a one-third reduction from the 18 unmanned launches which NASA made during 1969. In addition three manned launches to the Moon are planned: Apollo 13, scheduled for March, Apollo 14 for July and Apollo 15 in November. For half of its unmanned missions this year, NASA will merely be providing launch services for Comsat, Britain or NATO. The unmanned schedule begins on January 7 with the launch of Intelsat 3 F-6, to be placed in stationary orbit to reinforce the existing busy transatlantic traffic. Two more 68 FLIGHT International, 8 January 1970 Intelsat 3s are scheduled for launch in February and June, and these will complement existing communications satellites over the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Also in January will take place the launches of a new type of Tiros weather satellite and an Agena upper-stage containing an experimental electric thruster. The first of two communications satellites for NATO will be flown in March, the second one following a month later. Also for launch in March, in a polar orbit, is a new Nimbus weather satellite designed by NASA to develop new forecasting tech- ¥ niques for better long range weather prediction. , A second, improved Tiros meteorology satellite will be launched in April, and in June an orbiting astronomical ' observatory, similar to that flown on December 7 last year, will be placed in Earth orbit. ' Britain's Skynet 2 communications satellite will be launched > in June to take station alongside Skynet 1, which was launched on November 22 last year. The second and last scientific satellite of NASA's 1970 , schedule is IMP 5 (an interplanetary monitoring platform) to record radiation; this will be flown into Earth-orbit next i October. t NASA AWARD TO GPO The part played by the British Post Office in the Moon-landing flights was marked by awards, made by NASA last month, to Mr James Gill, Director of External Communications, and two members of his staff. They were made by Mr Philip French, , the London station manager for NASA. The task of the GPO was to provide and operate communica- ' tion circuits by land-line, submarine cable and communication satellite routes. The circuits carried speech, vision, high-speed data and telegraph signals to link the spacecraft with the • Manned Spacecraft Centre at Houston. « POWER FOR THE SPACE STATION One of the key aspects of America's manned space station will be the provision of electrical power, particularly in the later bases capable of maintaining up to 100 people for extended periods. McDonnell Douglas estimate that each station will need to generate between 25kW and lOOkW. The 12-man space station (the interim Earth-orbit base which will follow the three-man Apollo Applications Work shop, and which will precede the 50/100 man base) scheduled for the 1975-1978 period, would need 25kW. The most suitable sources of energy, the firm claims, are conventional solar panels and nuclear systems. It would be 33ft, 1.01m, diameter (identi cal with that of the first stage of Saturn V), would weigh 125,0001b, 58,000kg, and would have five decks. Several free- ' flying experiment modules and 12-man shuttle vehicles could be docked simultaneously. This station will be used by scientists , and engineers for astronomy, research in the fields of medi cine, Earth-resources and advanced technology. * The 50-man base, for the 1978-1985 period, would need two 50kW nuclear reactors, weighing between 50,0001b, 23,000kg, and 75,0001b, 34,000kg, to generate the lOOkW which will be needed. The activities of the base will be essentially an extension of those of the station, with more emphasis on orbital research. • ' The largest of the three stations—the 100/150-man space port, will need 200kW-300kW. The space port will come in the ' post-1985 period, and will serve as a platform for research, limited-production industrial programmes, and as a launch platform for operation between Earth and Moon. It will, in addition, function as a support base both for manned inter planetary launch operations, using a nuclear-propelled shuttle, and for the periodic maintenance of unmanned satellites. For all these applications the development of efficient, light- t weight, long-life, and safe power supplies ranks equal in importance with propulsion and other major aspects of the , manned spaceflight programme. r Black Brant 3B Operational Following the launches of two development rounds in February and May last year, the latest member of a series of highly successful sounding i rockets, Black Brant 3B, is now operational. In the two de- f velopment rounds, payloads of 1141b and 1121b, 52kg and 51kg, were lifted to 215.6km and 213.8km respectively.
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