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Aviation History
1979
1979 - 2464.PDF
2362 FLIGHT International, 30 June 1979 Cosmonauts swap Soyuz craft SOVIET cosmonauts Vladimir Lyak hov and Valery Ryumin, currently orbiting the Earth in the Salyut 6 laboratory, have carried out a series of manoeuvres involving Soyuz craft. Soyuz 32—the craft which brought the cosmonauts to Salyut 6 in February—was separated from the laboratory's front docking port at 12.51hr Moscow time on June 13. Soyuz 32 made a successful un manned re-entry the same day, land ing nearly 300km north of Dzhezkaz- gan at 19.18hr Moscow time. This manoeuvre is thought to have been carried out because Soyuz 32 had reached the end of its useful life (believed to be about 80 days). The successful re-entry after 109 days in orbit may indicate that an extension of this is possible. Soyuz 32 also re turned films, materials, science cap sules and equipment to Earth. A further manoeuvre was made on June 14. Lyakhov and Ryumin— enclosed in Soyuz 34—separated from the aft docking port of Salyut 6 at 19.18hr Moscow time. The cosmo nauts backed the craft about 100m away from the laboratory and then waited for Salyut 6 to perform an end-over-end manoeuvre. This pre sented its front docking port to them. They re-docked with Salyut 6 shortly afterwards. The swap of Soyuz 34 to the front of Salyut 6 thus leaves the rear docking port ready to receive a further Progress supply ship. Progress craft are always docked with the rear of Salyut 6. The reason is because the laboratory's fuel tanks are located there. Lyakhov and Ryumin have success fully completed many biological and materials science experiments during their stay aboard Salyut 6. They have also been asked to try and observe India's latest Earth resources satellite, Bhaskara, which was launched by the Soviet Union earlier this month. It is believed that the cosmonauts will con tinue their stay in orbit until at least mid-July and probably beyond this time. Voyager 2 approaches Jupiter's moons NASA'S interplanetary probe, Voy ager 2, is set for a flypast of Jupiter and some of its moons on July 8, 9 and 10. The craft is almost identical to Voyager 1, which provided spec tacular views of Jovian moons and the planet during March. Voyager 2 will, however, perform a slightly different mission from Voyager 1. Voyager 2 will photograph the Jovian moons while they are near the Earth-facing side of Jupiter. This trajectory has been chosen to allow a view of the faces of the larger moons which were not visible to Voyager 1. Jupiter's satellites have rotational periods similar to those of the planet, this means that the same side of each one continually faces Jupiter—rather like the Moon. Voyager 2 will thus photograph the faces of Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io which were not visible to Voyager 1. One of the objectives of the flypast will be to provide more details of the ring revealed by Voyager 1. Voyager 2 will photograph the ring through different colour filters enabling scien tists to build up a better idea of its composition, as well as trying to establish the innermost extent of it. Voyager 2's trajectory is so arranged that it will spend about 8-1 Ohr at a distance of just over one million kilo metres from Io. During this time scientists will be trying to discover more about the active volcanoes on Io, which were discovered by the first probe. Voyager 2 is currently functioning on its back-up radio transmitter—the primary one having failed about a year ago—but no problems are anticipated. Voyager 2's fly-past of Jupiter makes use of the planet's gravity to "bend" its trajectory toward Saturn, which will be reached in August 1981. Voyager 2 will also fly past Saturn, continuing on a course that will take it to Uranus in January 1986. Voyager 1 is already heading for Saturn, which it will reach in November 1980. Skylab achieves stable re-entry attitude NASA'S disused orbiting laboratory, Skylab, was successfully placed in a new attitude on June 20. About 225kg of thruster gas was used to effect the change but engineers are confident that there is still sufficient left for attitude control. This new orientation is designed to allow engineers to re tain some control of Skylab to a later stage of re-entry than would other wise have been possible (Flight, June 2). Skylab is now travelling broadside- on to the direction of travel, with its long axis also parallel to the Earth's surface. The new attitude is such that the small thrusters and Control Moment Gyroscopes aboard Skylab are aided by gravity gradients in combating aerodynamic torques, which would otherwise cause the laboratory to tumble out of control. Skylab is cur rently scheduled to re-enter between July 7 and 17, according to the latest (June 18) North American Radar Defence predictions. Skylab's altitude was 266km on June 18. This date is particularly sensitive to Sunspot activity, which in recent months has declined. The re-entry debris will impact between 50-3°N and S. Spaceshots India's latest scientific satellite, Rhaskara, has been successfully launched into an orbit with an apogee of 557km and perigee of 512km. The craft is equipped with microwave sensors to study Earth resources. Soviet Cosmonauts Vladimir Kova- lyonok and Alexander Ivanchenko met US astronaut Thomas Stafford at the Paris Air Show. They re called the joint work with the Apollo-Soyuz link-up and expressed the desire for further co-operation. Intelsat has awarded the Univer sity of Alaska a $60,000 contract to investigate the effects of rain on circularly-polarised radio signals at frequencies of 4GHz. Nasa's Viking orbiter—currently circling Mars—has revealed two wet areas on the planet's surface in the Solis Lacus and Noachis- Hellespontus. The wet regions are roughly 640km and 1,160km in diameter respectively.
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