Dec 17 1975
From The Space Library
The Peoples Republic of China announced the launch of its fifth earth satellite, third launched this year. Reuters, quoted in the New York Times, said observers believed it had been a step toward Peking's first manned space flight. The fourth China spacecraft, launched 26 Nov., had been recovered, leading observers to believe the Chinese engineers had perfected soft-landing techniques. Weights of the three craft launched this year had not been disclosed, to hide the capacity of the type of rocket used for launch, nor had the current announcement disclosed the satellite's orbit or height. (NYT, 18 Dec 75, 26; New China News Agency, in FBIS 243, 17 Dec 75)
Evidence that the Arabian peninsula is rotating toward Asia exists in photographs taken during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, according to Dr. Farouk el-Baz, director of the Smithsonian Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the National Air and Space Museum. Dr. el-Baz, who coordinated the earth-observation study of ASTP, said the photographs provided geologic evidence of the continental drift theory in color shots of a vast complex of fault lines extending north from the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aqaba, the Dead Sea, and the Sea of Galilee. The fan-shaped pattern revealed the movement of the Arabian landmass to be a rotation rather than simply an eastward drift, Dr. el-Baz said. Until the ASTP pictures became available, the fault line had not been known to extend beyond the Golan Heights region, probably a pivotal spot geologically as well as politically. (NYT, 18 Dec 75, 24)
Kennedy Space Center awarded a $74 998 contract to the Univ. of Fla. Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences for continuation of a freeze-prediction study. A 1973 contract had provided for study of the application of satellite thermal and infrared imagery to development of a freeze-prediction model; results were so encouraging that a second contract had been awarded in 1974. Also involved in this effort had been meteorologists from the Lakeland office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its Environmental Services Center at Auburn, Ala. Freeze-warning information had previously been provided by NOAA's Ruskin, Fla., facility on the basis of data from 300 recording thermometers operated by a Federal-state agricultural weather system and other reporting stations; the KSC contracts had aimed at developing a computerized system using thermal scanning and infrared imagery from spacecraft and aircraft for more accurate predictions. The study used data from all agencies, including spacecraft readings and actual ground- and leaf-temperature measurements provided by Univ. of Fla. personnel at specific times in selected test areas, combined at KSC for analysis in its earth resources data-analysis facility. The analyzed data had then gone to the university and to NOAA for predictive model development. (KSC Release 294-75)
NASA had awarded Bendix Field Engineering Corp. a $104-million contract to operate and maintain portions of the worldwide Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network that serves the needs of NASA's earth orbital space programs, manned and unmanned. The 2-yr cost plus-award-fee contract would permit negotiation of up to three additional I-yr extensions, and would be supervised by Goddard Space Flight Center. The contractor would provide technical support for STDN stations and facilities as well as for the Laser Tracking Subnet and for the Magnetic Tape Certification Facility and the NASCOM facilities located at GSFC. (NASA Release 75-315)
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