Dec 10 1981
From The Space Library
ARC reported the first NASA-piloted test flight of its "flying research facility," a helicopter-type aircraft equipped with fixed wings and jet engines, over San Francisco Bay at speeds of up to 120 knots (138 mph) for 45 minutes. Warren Hall of ARC piloted the flight; copilot was Lt. Col. Bob Merrill, deputy director of U.S. Army flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base.
Designed for studying advanced rotor systems in actual flight, the craft had the highly reliable type of rotor used on presidential helicopters. The wings and engines provided the lift needed in studying rotors too small to support the research aircraft alone. A second rotor-systems research aircraft (RSRA) had been flown at ARC in the basic-helicopter configuration.
Located at ARC, the two aircraft constituted a national facility for in-flight verification of rotor-system technology; they could be flown as helicopters or 314 equipped with the fixed wings and auxiliary jet engines to enhance test capability. The two craft, built by the Sikorsky Division of United Technologies for LaRC and the Army's technology lab at Moffett Field, California, were transferred to ARC in 1979 for the joint NASA-Army research program. (ARC Release 81-67; NASA Release 81-194)
MSFC reported a milestone in the development of the Space Telescope. Perkin-Elmer Corporation, contractor for design and production of the optical assembly, finished putting an aluminum coating 3 millionths of an inch thick on the 94-inch primary mirror, an 1,800-pound polished glass blank. Engineers from the firm and from MSFC verified that the coating adhered to the mirror and exhibited the proper reflectivity. The telescope would use two mirrors to focus light from stellar objects onto a group of instruments at the rear of the telescope assembly. Launched from the Shuttle into Earth orbit in the mid-1980s, the Space Telescope should allow astronomers to sec seven times deeper into space than is now possible with ground-based telescopes. (MSFC Release 81-148)
NASA declared the mission of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 successful. Launched September 5 and August 20, 1977, each of the spacecraft had traveled more than 2.4 billion kilometers during the past four years and had conducted scientific investigations at seven major bodies of the solar system. They had made comparative studies of the Jupiter and Saturn systems, including their satellites, rings, and fields and particles environments. They had also measured characteristics of the interplanetary medium from Earth to Saturn. Achievements included: -acquiring more than 62,000 images from the outer solar system -discovering rings around Jupiter and unusual braiding, spokes, ringlets, and shepherding satellites in the rings of Saturn; new satellites of Jupiter and Saturn; lightning on Jupiter; eight active volcanoes on Io; and new sources of radio emissions in the Jupiter and Saturn systems -measuring atmospheric composition, temperature, pressure, and dynamics, magnetospheres; and particle environments of Jupiter, Saturn, and Titan. (NASA MOR S-802-77-01/02 [postlaunch] Dec 10/81)
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