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Aviation History
1976
1976 - 0032.PDF
FLIGHT International, vv/e 3 January 1976 36-37 GE AND HUGHES COMPETE FOR DEFENCE SATELLITES The Defence Department on December 12 selected GE and Hughes (preferred to TRW and Aeronutronic Ford) to go forward into Phase III of the DSCS (Defence Satellite Communication System) programme, and awarded $6-8 million contracts to each company for a year's exploratory work beginning in February. At the end of that period a DSARC (Defence Systems Acquisition Review Council) meeting will be held to choose the winning company, which will then go forward into a 42-month development pro gramme. One qualification test model and two development satellites will be built for performance assessment during this period, after which another DSARC meeting is scheduled to authorise a go-ahead for the production of ten satellites. The first Phase III DSCS satellite will be launched during fiscal year 1981 (between October 1980 and September 1981, that is). Ultimately there will be four satellites in orbit at any given time: one each over the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, and one at each end of the Pacific. The satellites will probably weigh about 1,6001b apiece, an increase over the 1,2451b of the DSCS II craft, and will be launched in pairs by means of Titan IIIC rockets. The satellites will also have to be compatible with the Shuttle. The DoD has specified a ten-year operational lifetime as a desirable goal, but will accept a mean mission life of six years. DSCS III will have a considerably better performance than its predecessor, incorporating six travelling-wave tubes in place of two. and will be able to communicate with dishes as small as 8ft diameter (DSCS II operates in conjunction with 39 dishes, each of 60ft diameter). The new system will operate in the X-band and the data rate when DSCS III is used for non-voice transmissions may be greater than its predecessor's lOOMbit/sec. The current American military communication system is DSCS II, with two satellites at present in orbit. A further pair were destroyed in a launch-vehicle accident this year. Six more DSCS lis are on order from TRW, and these should maintain America's world-wide military links until the new satellites are introduced. FIFTH CHINESE SATELLITE LAUNCHED On December 16 China launched its fifth Earth satellite, though the designation China 5 had not been officially con firmed two days later. The launch site was probably Shuang Cheng Tzu, in Khansu province. It was placed in a 185km X 379km orbit with an inclination of 69° and a period of 90-7min. This is rather different from the 179km X 479km, 62-95° path of China 4 (which, launched on November 26, ejected a package from orbit), but is similar to that of China 3, launched on July 26. This craft entered a 184km X 461km orbit inclined at 69-02°. The two earlier satellites were China 1, launched on ADril 24, 1970, and China 2, which followed on March 3, 1971. The first of these had an estimated mass of 173kg and was placed in a 441km X 2,386km path at an inclination of 68-44°. The second probably weighed 221kg and its 69-9° orbit measured 268km X 1,830km. RCA TO BUILD CANADIAN COMSATS Telesat Canada, the organisation owned jointly by the Canadian Government and the communication carriers of that country, has awarded a $19 1 million contract to RCA for a new domestic comsat. Based on the configuration of RCA's Satcom satellite (the first of which was launched on December 12), the initial spacecraft will be delivered by February 1, 1978, and will join the existing network of three Anik satellites built by Hughes. Unlike Anik, how ever, the new craft will be three-axis stabilised. It will have 12 channels in the customary 4GHz-6GHz commercial- communication band and will be compatible with the Anik family. In addition, it will be able to relay traffic in the 12GHz-14GHz SHF (super-high-frequency) band, the tech nology for which will be investigated by Canada's CTS (Communications Technology Satellite), a joint Canadian- US craft to be launched shortly. The bus and most of the systems will be supplied by RCA's Astro-Electronic Division of Princeton, NJ, but the transponder and aerials will be made by RCA Limited (Canada) under a $5-6 million subcontract from the US firm. PIONEER 6 SETS ENDURANCE RECORD On December 16 Nasa's Pioneer 6 interplanetary space craft had been circling the Sun and returning good data for ten years. This is thought to be the longest operational life ever achieved by a deep-space probe. The little drum- shaped craft, some 35in high and 37in diameter and weighing 1401b, was built by TRW. One of four similar spacecraft, Pioneer 6 was designed to measure the charac teristics of deep space during a six-month programme beginning in 1965. It made the first detailed measurements of the interplanetary medium over a distance of 500 million miles. It has measured the Sun's corona, returned information on solar storms from the far side of the Sun, and investigated comet Kohoutek's tail. Its data have been used to predict the onset of solar storms for about a thousand primary users, including the FAA, commercial airlines, power companies, radio-communication organisa tions, military establishments and groups engaged in surveying and navigation. ERNST STUHLINGER RETIRES Dr Ernst Stuhlinger, a pioneer of astronautics and associate director for science at Nasa's Marshall Centre, retired on December 28 after 30 years of work with US Government agencies. A physicist, bujn and educated in Germany, Dr Stuhlinger became involved in space activities in 1943 when he joined the rocket development team at Peenemiinde in Germany. At the end of the war he went to America along with other engineers such as Dr Walter Dornberger and Dr Wernher von Braun, working initially for the US Army. He transferred to Nasa when the Marshall Centre was established in 1960. Some of the early plans for lunar exploration were made under Dr Stuhlinger's direction, but his name is perhaps more often associated with very advanced (some would say visionary) research into the application of electric propulsion for exploring the Sun's family of comets and asteroids. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has decided to install a standby transformer aboard its second space craft, an Earth-observation satellite due to be launched in 1978 (Flight, December 11). A failure in the Indian- designed transformer fitted to Aryabhata, Isro's first satel lite, resulted in a useful life of only a few days. India expects to launch its first communications satellites, at a project cost of about $430 million, before 1980. The configuration is now being defined and discussions as to which of the two major powers should be approached for launch services are now under way. Mr William Rock, manager of Nasa's Sciences, Appli cations and Apollo-Soyuz Test Programme Office and director of information systems at Kennedy Space Centre, has been appointed deputy director of the Flight Research Centre at Edwards AFB, Calif. Britain's new Post Office satellite Earth station, to be built on an 80-acre site near the village of Madley in Herefordshire, will ultimately support up to six aerials. To reduce the initial cost, however, the first phase of development will be limited to the construction of three single-storey buildings and one dish.
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