January 1979

January 1: The International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) announced that this week it would complete taking over all of its own managerial and operational activities, performed by the U.S. Communications Satellite Corporation (ComSatCorp) since INTELSAT’s founding in 1964. ComSatCorp had been handing back responsibilities gradually since 1973 and would continue to provide technical and laboratory services under contract. Jobs done by ComSatCorp had included procuring spacecraft and launch services, operating and maintaining facilities, carrying out technical studies, and performing research and development. This would be the first time in INTELSAT history that it would incorporate all of its own executive functions, both administrative and technical. (INTELSAT Release 79-1-1)

January 2: Wire services reported that an explosion that damaged a Space Shuttle engine during test firing at Bay St. Louis, Miss., on December 27 might delay the first Shuttle launch, now scheduled for the end of September. Further tests would await determining the cause of the accident-apparently failure of a valve in a high-pressure pump feeding oxygen to a combustion chamber. The engine had completed 255 seconds of a 52-second test firing when the pump exploded, damaging the engine, and NASA would also need 3 to4weeks to repair damage to the test stand. Last September, when NASA announced delay of the first launch, originally scheduled for March, Associate Administrator John F. Yardley warned of further delays “if unforeseen problems arise or the tests are not entirely successful.” (NY Ernes, Jan 2/79 [UPI], A-13; W Post, Jan 4/79[AP], A-2)

January 3: George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) announced that the five “payload specialists” selected last July to operate experiments on the first Spacelab mission in 1981 would begin training January 9 at seven cities in the United States and two in Canada. Selection and training of non-NASA scientists to fly in space was a “famous first” for NASA; the scientists chosen by their colleagues having experiments aboard the Spacelab would be the first noncareer astronauts and would include the first Western Europeans and the first non-U.S. citizens to fly on a U.S. space mission. Three payload specialists were Europeans: Ulf Merbold of West Germany, representing Max-Planck Institute of Stuttgart; Claude Nicollier of Switzerland, representing Europe’s Space Technology Center (ESTEC); and Wubbo Ockels of the Netherlands, representing Groenigen University. U.S. selectees were Michael L. Lampton of the University of California at Berkeley and Byron Lichtenberg Lichtenberg of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Since October 1978, the five had been in Europe learning to operate experiments designed by European scientists. Two of the selectees would actually fly on Spacelab 1, and the other three would operate the experiment equipment on earth.

Spacelab 1 would carry 40 instruments, about equally divided between NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) experiments in terms of weight, volume, and power requirements; fields of investigation would include solar physics, space plasma physics, stratosphere and upper-atmosphere physics, biology, medicine, astronomy, earth observation, materials processing, and technology areas, such as thermodynamics and lubrication. After leaving MSFC, the trainees would visit Redondo Beach (Calif.), the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Philadelphia, Boston, and Montreal (Quebec) and Toronto (Ontario) in Canada; return to JSC in Houston; visit Palo Alto, Calif; and be back at MSFC in Huntsville on March 22. (MSFC Releases 79-1, 79-4)

MSFC reported that a delegation from the People‘s Republic of China (PRC) visiting the United States since November would arrive at MSFC January 5 to investigate peaceful uses of space technology. Following up a visit to the PRC last July by Presidential Science Advisor Dr. Frank Press, the Chinese delegation, accompanied by NASA representatives, had visited several NASA centers and U.S. aerospace industry establishments. Among items of interest to the visitors at MSFC would be the Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise, cur- rently undergoing tests.

The PRC representatives were to be in the United States until mid-January and had concluded an informal agreement on developing a civilian com- munications system for the PRC and on buying equipment to receive Earth resources data from Landsat remote-sensing satelllites. NASA Administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch headed the U.S. delegation, and Dr. Jen Xin-min, director of the PRC’s Academy of Space Technology, headed the PRC delegation. (MSFC Release 79-2)

Januaiy 7: The Nav York Ernes reported that a huge international scientific project supported by 147 nations would begin this week. The $500 million Global Weather Experiment (GWE), part of the Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP), would be a joint effort of the World Meteorological Organization and the International Council of Scientific Unions, financed by the meteorological group. It would expand the existing World Weather Watch, now generating more than 40,000 daily observations, by using 10 satellites, 50 research vessels, 110 aircraft, 300 high-altitude constant-level balloons, and 300 instrumented ocean buoys, in addition to other measuring devices.

January 16: NASA declared the launch of Comstar C on June 29, 1978, to be successful. Put into a transfer orbit by an Atlas Centaur at the Eastern Test Range (ETR), the spacecraft on July 1 successfully fired its apogee motor to go into the desired synchronous orbit.