Aug 25 1962
From The Space Library
Launch of NASA’s Mariner Venus probe, scheduled for August 26, postponed until August 27 because of technical difficulty encountered during prelaunch countdown on Atlas-Agena launch vehicle.
Astronomers released photographs of the Humason comet in recent collision with solar wind of magnetic particles. Jesse L. Greenstein of Mt. Wilson and Palomar observatories said: "When comets are close to the sun, the disintegrating effects of solar radiation can be observed on them. This is the first time such effects have been observed at anywhere near this distance from the sun." Humason comet was about 240 million miles from the sun, traveling in a solar orbit billions of miles long.
Congressman George P. Chairman of House Committee on Science and Astronautics, said in press interview that the greatest accomplishment of Soviet VOSTOK III and IV flight was putting two men in orbit and bringing them close together. "They're well ahead in that respect. But we can meet that in a couple of years. We'll be ahead when Titan 3 is ready." AEC announced two U.S.S.R. nuclear tests in the atmosphere had been detected, one with a yield of several megatons in the Novaya Zemlya area and the other test of low yield at the Semipalatinsk test site in central Siberia, the sixth and seventh Soviet tests reported by AEC in the current, series.
U.S.S.R. made unsuccessful attempt to launch Venus probe, the launch vehicle failing to achieve escape trajectory and remaining in parking orbit, NASA Administrator James E. Webb reported in Sept. 5, 1962, letter to Congress.
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