Apr 12 1969
From The Space Library
NASA's OAO II orbiting astronomical observatory (launched Dec. 7, 1968) refused to accept commands from NASA'S Santiago, Chile, tracking station. Satellite began tumbling out of control and its solar cells were unable to receive energy from sun to charge its batteries. While project officials tried to determine exact nature of anomaly, satellite recovered, accepting command from Australian station within few hours of battery depletion. OAO II was placed in sunbathing mode while batteries recharged. (Memo, NASA Asst Director for Projects; NASA Release 69-55)
USAF launched unidentified satellite from ETR by Atlas-Agena booster into near polar orbit with 24,391-mi (39,245.1-km) apogee, 20,302-mi (32,665.9-km) perigee, 1,436.0-min period, and 10.2° inclination. (GSFC, SSR, 4/15/69; Pres Rpt 70 [69] ; W Post, 1/13/69, A14)
President Nixon announced he would submit to Congress April 15 proposed anti-inflation revisions in FY 1970 budget including $4-billion reduction in Federal spending, to $192.9 billion; $5.5-billion reduction in appropriations requests and other budget authority, and $5.8-billion budget surplus-largest since 1951. (PD, 4/21/69, 553-4)
Unpublished DOD estimate put Federal funding for C-5A transport at $5,202,400,000, Bernard D. Nossiter wrote in Washington Post. Figure was $77,2-million increase over quotation by USAF in January and total $2,1 billion (66%) increase since original 1964 estimate. (W Post, 4/12/69, A2)
April 12-14: NASA successfully launched series of three Nike-Apache sounding rockets from Churchill Research Range carrying GSFC pay loads to study energy spectra and relative abundances of various charge species of solar cosmic radiation during period of solar maximum. Each rocket carried three nuclear emulsion stocks and solid-state detector sensitive to protons above 30 mev. Rockets reached 98.4-mi (158.4-km), 96.4-mi (155.2-km), and 100.0-mi (161.0-km) altitudes and instruments performed satisfactorily. Payloads were recovered in good condition. (NASA Rpts SRL)
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