Apr 18 1983
From The Space Library
NASA announced a deal with Orbital Systems Corporation, a private company, to develop and market a $20-million propulsion system for launching satellites from the Space Shuttle. (NY Times, April 19/83, D-1)
GSFC said that signals radioed to the NOAA-E environment satellite had stabilized it, apparently solving the attitude-control problems it had developed after launch March 28 from Vandenberg Air Force Base. A team of experts from government and industry drew up instructions for the corrections that resulted in complete recovery, according to Gerald W. Longanecker, project manager. The satellite carried six environmental-monitoring devices and one search-and-rescue satellite-aided tracking (SARSAT) experiment, the latter for use in locating and rescuing victims of plane crashes and ships in distress.
Launched on a U.S. Air Force Atlas E, NOAA-E went into near-perfect or- bit but was found to be in the wrong attitude after reaching a 450-nautical-mile altitude; it was in a spin every 17 minutes instead of pointing its sensors and antennas toward Earth. The correcting signals stopped the tumble and allowed the control system to acquire Earth lock. (NASA Release 83-61)
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