October 1981:news from KSC

MORE LAUNCHES

The Cape returned to more familiar business on 22 May with the launching of GOES-5, one of the newer generation of weather satellites, for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The spacecraft will operate in geosynchronous orbit above Colombia observing weather over eastern North and South America.

One day later, an Atlas Centaur launched Intelsat V-B, the second of nine satellites owned and operated by the 105 nation International Telecommunications Satellite Organization. The craft weighed 1,928 kg and will accommodate 12,000 voice circuits and two colour television channels. It became the prime Intelsat satellite for communications between the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Ford builds the Intelsat series using components developed by manufacturers in Japan, Italy, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

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SHUTTLE NEWS

Major changes in NASA’s way of doing business are predicted by informed observers as the result of Shuttle success and the Reagan administration’s choice of the new administrator and deputy administrator. The latter. German-bom Hans Mark, leaves the post of Air Force Secretary to take NASA’s No. 2 job “to assure utilization of the Shuttle by the military”.

Once head of a NASA research centre, Mark surprised agency executives at a top level conference several years ago when he asked what role the agency should play in the event of war. No one had a good answer then or now. But it is obvious that the military role in US space activities will increase as the Air Force begins to fly Shuttles out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for polar orbiting missions. Some defence payloads will also be carried into equatorial orbit by NASA-launched Shuttles from the Cape. Agency policy of full disclosure will probably give way to military secrecy concerning those payloads.

Giving the position to an aerospace executive, so the reasoning goes, means that Reagan believes industry should play a larger role in NASA’s future, perhaps taking over Shuttle operations when Columbia completes the four-mission test series. KSC Director Richard Smith earlier announced plans to install three major contractors by 1984: one responsible for cargo processing, a second for general support, and another for Shuttle launch functions. All of which underlines NASA’s determination to routinise Shuttle operations akin to those of commercial airlines.