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Aviation History
1974
1974 - 1816.PDF
wmBmaBKmKm Continued from page 634 WEST GERMANY'S SPACE FUTURE Germany's space policies for the coming years are directed towards co-operation, generally within Europe, on multi lateral programmes and the research and development work likely to prove of value to such projects, Dr Hermann Strub of the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology recently told journalists at a press conference organized in preparation for the launch on December il7 of the Franco-German Symphonie experimental communications satellite. The Aeros-B research satellite, launched last July and now transmitting data on the upper atmosphere, was the last major national space programme, and Symphonie and the German-American Helios solar probe to be launched on December 8 are the last purely bilateral projects. Special attention will be given in the immediate future to Spacelab, for which Germany is bearing 54 per cent of the costs, and sums ranging from DM13 million (about £2-1 million) in 1975, up to DM85 million (about £14 million) in 1978 have been earmarked for the development of payloads for Spacelab and related equipment. Other important projects include the German share in the Ariane launcher and in Esro satellites and the development of modular systems for future regional communications satellites for use either within the Intelsat organization or as national systems for the developing countries. Germany has already submitted a proposal for a direct-broadcasting television satellite to Esro and has also received offers from Nasa for participation in experiments for extraterrestrial expeditions. A total of DM690 million (about £115 million) is available for the period up to 1978 for the DFVLR aero space research establishment, the Gesellschaft fur Weltraumforschung (which acts as intermediary between the Ministry and industry) and for such work as experi ments with Nasa and Esro. Looking to the more distant future, the Ministry's aim is to strengthen the space industry to the point where it will be able to develop and sell applications satellites on a purely commercial basis and without further financial aid from the government. BALLOON TESTS FOR HEAO INSTRUMENTS Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Centre is conducting a num ber of balloon-borne tests of instruments under develop ment for the HEAO High Energy Astronomical Observatory series of radiation observatory spacecraft. The flights are being carried out to integrate instruments developed by HEAO- principal investigators; the balloons carry develop ment models of the instruments and are fitted with tele metry and data recording systems. They are launched and Mariner 10's second encounter with Mercury at the end of September provided glimpses of features and areas of the surface not seen during the first pass. Above left, this picture was taken two hours after close encounter when Mariner was 53,000 miles from Mercury and shows the South Pole, which is located within the large crater visible, top centre in the picture, on the planet's limb. The horizontal stripe at the bottom of the picture is the result of a fault during computer image- enhancement treatment of the television data transmitted by the space craft. Above right, the feature running from the top left of the picture and through two large craters at bottom right is a 185-miles-long scarp formed, it is believed, by compressive forces arising from shrinkage of Mercury's crust tracked by the US National Centre for Atmospheric Re search and the instrument gondolas are recovered when the balloons descend. A typical flight was launched on September 17 from Sioux City, Iowa, and used a balloon with a volume of 15 million cu ft to reach an altitude of 120,000ft, remaining airborne for 40hr. A previous test of the same instrument, a Franco-Danish experiment designed to study the isotopic composition of primary cosmic rays, employed a three- million-cu-ft balloon and reached 98,000ft. The most recent flight, carried out last month, carried instruments for a University of California/Massachusetts Institute of Tech nology investigation of hard X-rays and low-energy gamma rays. Another Molniya 1 communications satellite has been launched from the Soviet Union into a 683km X 40,617km, 62-8° orbit with a period of revolution of 12hr 16min. The launch of Cosmos 685 has been announced by the Soviet Union more than a month after it took place. The satellite is in a 208km X 303km orbit inclined at 65°. Japan talks to Nasa Representatives of the US and Japanese space organisations met recently to discuss their current and future programmes and the possibility of further collaboration between the two countries. The Japanese are particularly interested in setting up a ground station to permit participation in US Earth-resources programmes. Cosmos 690 biosatellite Cosmos 690, launched on October 22 into a 223km X 389km, 62-8° orbit, is carrying "labora tory animals and other biological objects" and is fitted with what are believed to be air, water and food-recycling life-support systems. The animal payload is likely to in clude a number of fruit flies, which reproduce particularly rapidly, permitting study of the genetic effects of cosmic radiation and spaceflight. Skylab 2 crew honoured The first Skylab flight crew, Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin and Paul Weitz, were pre sented with the Haley Astronautics Award at the Skylab Scientific Experiments Conference held in Huntsville, Ala, at the end of last month. The award was made in recog nition of the "courage and skill exhibited [by the crew] in surmounting the problems that had occurred during the launch of the Skylab space station."
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