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Aviation History
1975
1975 - 0054.PDF
22 FLIGHT International, 2 January 1975 ALL'S WELL WITH SYMPHONIE . . . Europe's first communications satellite, Symphonie, was successfully launched into a 38,500km X 400km transfer orbit by a Thor Delta from Cape Canaveral at 9.39 p.m. local time on December 18. It had been postponed from December 17, the planned date, by a combination of bad weather and a fuel spill in the rocket's second stage. The health of the satellite, assembled by Aerospatiale, was being tested for half-a-dozen orbits before the next step, involving Earth acquisition, de-spin and erection of the spin axis to the vertical and deployment of the solar panels, was to take place. The satellite was due to be placed at 11 -5°W, over the equator and off the coast of Liberia. No decision has been taken on whether to launch the second, MBB-assembled satellite. Nasa has offered to sell a Thor Delta for launch next August and France and Germany have until February 28 to decide whether to accept the offer to fly on that date. Flight understands that the decision to fly Symphonie F2 will depend largely on progress with Fl. If the first satellite continues to operate satisfactorily, the two countries will probably postpone or even cancel the launch of the second craft. On the other hand if difficulties arise with Fl a suitably modified F2 will be flown to continue the programme. The second Symphonie would be placed at nominally the same position as Fl. Symphonie is now clearly accepted as an experimental programme. Negotiations between Europe and America have been concluded on the understanding that the satel lites will not form the foundation of a revenue-earning communication network which could conflict with Intelsat. . . . AND HELIOS Europe's first interplanetary space probe, Helios, launched on December 10 by Titan Centanr (see Flight for December 19, page 874), is now moving out towards the Sun. MBB, the industrial contractor, says that the trajectory is satis factory and that all ten experiments are functioning. Control of the spacecraft passed from Nasa to Germany on December 15. 0^tw>i«%siij*:^3W I Above, Ganymede, Jupiter's largest satellite, photographed, by Pioneer 11 from a range of 467,000 miles. This is the first picture to show surface detail on any of the natural satellites in the Solar System. Ganymede is considerably larger than the Moon and 10 per cent bigger than Mercury. The dark areas are regions of mare, probably similar to the dust plains of the Moon, and a number of large meteorite craters are visible on the original picture. Below, the coverage of the Franco- German Symphonie spans four continents SPANISH CONTRIBUTION TO ISEE-B Spanish specialist factory and ship design company Sener of Madrid has won a £200,000 contract from Esro to design, manufacture, test and integrate the 15m-long, 0-6kg wire boom aerial for the ISEE-B satellite. With other contracts from Esro for work in connection with Spacelab, Ariane and GOES, this brings Sener'sspace order book to 11 million accounting units, about £4 million. The latest order is the first for actual flight hardware, previous orders being for ground support and launch equipment. Sener, a private company founded in 1957, has been mainly known for its computer-aided ship designs and its work in the fields of nuclear engineering and petro-ehemical plant design. MONGOLIAN PORTABLE MOLNIYA TERMINAL A transportable Mars terminal was used recently in Ulan Bator, the capital of the Mongolian People's Bepublic, to relay television programmes from Moscow via Molniya 2 satellites in connection with celebrations marking the republic's 50th anniversary. The same terminal has pre viously relayed television to and from the Soviet capital through Delhi, Havana and Sofia. The Mars terminals have 7m dishes and are able to receive black-and-white and colour television from both geostationary and orbiting satellites; the latter implies the extra complexity of auto- tracking equipment. The station can be set up in two to three days and the quality of reception in Moscow is claimed to meet international standards. Oscar 7, the Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio launched last November as a pick-a-back satellite along with an Itos weather craft, is to take part in a nation-wide US science teaching experiment. Oscar 7 weighs 651b and was built for $60,000 by a Washington group known as the Badio Amateur Satellite Corporation; had it been built under commercial contract the cost would have been about $2 million.
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