Dec 20 1961
From The Space Library
X-15 No. 3 made first flight, a successful test of new automated control system, NASA's Neil A. Armstrong as pilot in his first flight of XLR-99-engined X-15. At half throttle, X-15 reached speed of 2,502 miles per hour and an altitude of 81,000 feet.
NASA announced that Douglas Aircraft had been selected for negotiation of a contract to modify the Saturn S–IV stage by installing a single 200,000-pound-thrust, Rocketdyne J-2 liquid-hydrogen/liquid-oxygen engine instead of six 15,000-pound thrust P. & W. hydrogen/oxygen engines. Known as S–IVB, this modified stage will be used in advanced Saturn configurations for manned circumlunar Apollo missions.
Two new radiotelescopes, one at Cambridge University and the other at Jodrell Bank, would be constructed with grants from Britain's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research totaling $3,360,000. The Cambridge telescope would consist of three 52-foot paraboloidal aerials, two fixed and one rail-mounted, designed to examine a limited area of the sky with greater precision than present equipment. The Jodrell addition would be a 125-foot telescope to be used in conjunction with the present 250-foot telescope.
USAF launched Atlas ICBM from Cape Canaveral with a rhesus monkey in a side-mounted pod on a flight 5,000 miles long and 600 miles in altitude. The flight was intended to produce information on reactions to launch and reentry conditions much more severe than in human flights. The monkey survived the flight but recovery attempts failed.
In San Bernardino news conference, Gen. Bernard A. Schriever, U.S. Air Force, said: "I have never felt we were behind Russia in missile development."
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