January 1980:space activities report

ASTRONAUTS GIVE SPEECHES AT LAS VEGAS

Following celebrations sponsored by the National Space Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada a group of 600 persons including 150 astronauts and their families were entertained by former President Richard M. Nixon. In attendance were Al Worden, Walt Cunningham, Buzz Aldrin, Bill Anders,Ron Evans, Dick Gordon, Curt Michel, Jim Irwin, Jim Lovell,John Swigert, Stuart Roosa, and Charles Duke. The widows of astronauts Williams, See, Givens, and White were also in attendance.

The public questioning of the safety of the Space Transportation System brought a quick rebuttal from NASA and in the person of astronaut Bob Overmeyer,46,the deputy manager of Orbiter manufacturing. Overmeyer commented that “The astronaut office feels very strongly that we are building a safe vehicle.... We are not going to sacrifice quality,reliability and safety.”

The NASA vehicle manager at the Kennedy Space Center’s Orbiter Processing Facility Ken Kleinknecht: “All I can say is they know how to get headlines and maybe that’s why they are no longer in the programme.

“I’ll tell you one thing. I have never and will never allow myself to be compromised in safety, quality or reliability in order to keep a schedule.”

He elaborated on the Shuttle preparations and schedule:

“It will be a challenge to reach a March 1980 launch, but we will try as hard as we can to make that date.

“Testing is both ahead and behind schedule.”

Installation, according to Kleinknecht, of the thermal protection system tiles is proceeding at a good pace with some 478 tiles having been installed during the second week of July.

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GENERAL STAFFORD ON SPACE

Former astronaut Thomas P. Stafford and now Deputy Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the Pentagon for the U.S. Air Forcef recently addressed the Annual Reunion Banquet of the Missile, Space and Range Pioneers. The topic of Lt. Gen. Stafford’s address was “The US/USSR Space Programmes.” Stafford in his opening remarks to a banquet hall filled with such space programme notables as Walter J. Kapryahn and Lee Scherer, recalled his role in the Gemini and Apollo programmes, particularly “those many hours on the pad at night and early in the morning in the firing rooms.”

Since arriving at the Pentagon, a place he termed the five-sided Puzzle Palace, Stafford expounded his pride in representing the Air Force’s role in the Space Shuttle both as executive agent for the Department of Defense and before four congressional committees. Based on his experience in the preparations for the first flight of the Gemini and Apollo programmes, it takes 50% more time to complete the preparation procedures than under normal operational conditions. “And finally we find at the end that we achieved far more than we ever expected. It worked that way in Gemini and it worked in Apollo and all the rest. And I’m very confident that the Shuttle, once we get it going, which we’re going to do, is going to be better than we could even imagine today.”

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NASA CALLS FOR GROUP 9 ASTRONAUTS

Between 1 October and 1 December 1979, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will be accepting applications from men and women who want to become Shuttle astronauts in the 1980’s, writes David J. Shayler.

Positions for both Pilot and Mission Specialist Candidates are open and NASA is expected to give priority to US citizens although the applications are not confined to the American States. Both Civilian and Military applications will be accepted and following the usual screening successful candidates will report to the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, in mid-1980 for a initial 12 month training period following which NASA will select candidates from both categories for further training and eventual inclusion into the Shuttle flight crew rota.

Qualifications for the Pilot candidates are similar to those issued three years ago when NASA last put the call out for astronauts for the Shuttle programme. All candidates must have a degree in engineering, mathematics, the physical or biological sciences. In addition they must have accumulated at least 1,000 hr in command of high performance jet aircraft, be passed by a NASA medical examination and stand between 1.63 m and 1.93 m tall. Similar experience and qualifications apply to the 1979 applicants for Mission Specialist as those in 1976. Degree qualifications are the same for the Pilot applicants but three-years related experience at the minimum is also required, or equally a higher degree in their specialised area of study. Flight experience is not needed but all applicants must again pass the NASA medical and stand between 1.52 m and 1.93 m tall.

The latest group of 35 astronaut selected in January 1978 are well advanced with their two-year training program, which is due to be completed in July 1980. Successful candidates from these 35 astronauts will then be assigned to Shuttle duties as fully qualified astronauts. A total of 26 astronauts remain from the first seven groups selected between 1959 and 1969 available for Shuttle flights, 11 of these being scientist astronauts. Seven of these astronauts are entering the final stages of preparations for the Shuttle Orbital Flight Test Program due to commence next year; two others are training for the first Spacelab mission in 1981.

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STEPPING STONE TO MARS?

For some time now the Russians have been carrying out experiments and tests with both manned and automatic space flight in near-Earth orbits, writes Julian Popescu. But Academician Roald Sagdeyev, Director of the Institute of Space Research in Moscow’s Profsoyuznays Ulitsa was quoted by< Radio Moscow on 23 July 1979 as saying that the USSR would continue the exploration of the planets.

He referred first to the use of automatic spacecraft for the exploration of the Moon, Venus and Mars. Dealing then with manned space travel, Sagdeyev hinted that the Russians had in mind the creation of permanent spacelabs with “interchangeable crews.” He envisaged large spacelabs with crews of more than four, perhaps ten or even 20 cosmonauts. The spacelabs would stay in orbit for up to ten years. The aim was to study the effects of weightlessness on humans, preparatory to a mission to Mars.

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74°, 95 MIN COSMOS SATELLITES

The Soviet Union has been launching Cosmos satellites into near-circular orbits of 95 min period at 74° inclination since 1967. It has been suggested that these satellites perform electronic intelligence gathering (ELINT) or “ferret” missions, writes G. E. Perry of the Kettering Group.

When new satellites are placed in the same orbital planes as their predecessors, it is not unreasonable to presume that this occurs near the end of the operational life of the elder satellite and that the new satellite is a direct replacement.Thus, Cosmos 330 replaced Cosmos 250 and was in turn replaced by Cosmos 436.

It can be seen that there is another type of replacement in which the new satellite is placed into a plane 180° away from the ailing satellite, such as the replacement of Cosmos 315 by Cosmos 425.

In the first four years, the operational system consisted of four satellites at any one time. The launches of Cosmos 425, 460, 479 and 536 suggested that this was being extended to an operational system of eight satellites. However this implies an operational life in excess of four years for Cosmos 500 and the failure to replace Cosmos 749, 781, 787 and 790 within a period of more than three years now suggests that there has never been more than four operational satellites at any one time and that Cosmos 812 and its early replacement Cosmos 845,and Cosmos 870, 899 and 924 merely provided a transition to planes in the opposite hemisphere. An inclination of 74 degrees is close enough to a polar orbit for four satellites to suffice to give complete global coverage of populated areas by utilising both the northbound and southbound passes in each orbit. This hypothesis gains credibility from the launches of Cosmos 960, 1008, 1062 and 1114 as direct replacement for Cosmos 870, 845, 899 and 924 and the use of the opposite hemisphere for the missions of Cosmos 913, 930 and 965. Cosmos 930 remained attached to the final stage of its launch vehicle and the other two fragmented in orbit.

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INTERNATIONAL SOLAR POLAR MISSION

Two sister ships, one built by TRW for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the other provided by the European Space Agency, will fly mirror image orbits around Jupiter to get a gravity-assisted boost toward the Sun. Each will swing around the Sun,crossing over and under the poles, one spacecraft travelling from north to south and the other in the opposite direction.

The two craft are due to be launched towards Jupiter in early 1983. The strong gravitational pull of the giant planet will be used to accumulate them out of the ecliptic plane in which Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun,so that one will pass over the north and the other over the south pole of the Sun. This will be the first time that a space probe has been out of the plane of the ecliptic.

The mission is expected to improve understanding of the structure and dynamics of the solar corona, and solar wind particle flow from the Sun, magnetic fields and electromagnetic radiation of the Sun and of galactic sources.