Feb 16 1978
From The Space Library
Scientists in NASA's Viking project this spring would award grants totaling $5000 to support undergraduate research projects in planetology or astronomy, NASA announced. The money had been part of the annual Newcomb Cleveland Award presented Feb. 15 by the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to 150 Viking scientists, authors of scientific papers that had appeared in 3 special Viking issues of Science magazine. This had been the first Cleveland Award to a group. The grants, ranging from $500 to $2004, would fund a student's (or group of students') ideas or would supplement student work in progress, selected on the basis of originality and feasibility. (LaRC Release 78-7; Langley Researcher, Feb 24/78, 3)
Modification and flight of U.S. Air Force jet cargo/tanker aircraft delivered to DFRC would allow NASA to research the possibility of significant fuel savings, NASA announced. Winglets (2.7m [9ft]-long airfoil sections attached to the wingtips of a KC-135 aircraft) could improve performance in cruise flight by approximately 8%, for an annual fuel saving of 11.9 million liters (45 million gal) based on 1975 use rates for KC-135 aircraft. Other NASA studies had indicated that use of the winglet could benefit existing medium-weight civil-transport aircraft.
LaRC had developed the winglet concept in its wind tunnels. Winglets, made of aluminum 0.6m (2ft) wide at the tip and 1.8m (6ft) wide at the base, could weigh almost 68kg (1501b). The Boeing Co. would install them on outer wing panels under an Air Force contract estimated at $3 million. Varying the incidence and cant angle of the winglets between flights would demonstrate their effectiveness at various positions. After installation of recorders, the KC-135 would make the first flights in a joint NASA-USAF program scheduled after winglet installation in early 1979. Comparison of data would demonstrate winglet effectiveness. (NASA Release 78-25)
Using a multichamber furnace delivered to Salyut 6 by the Progress 1 unmanned tanker/freighter, Soviet cosmonauts had begun major space processing experiments, Tass reported. Operated in a Salyut airlock to vent into the vacuum of space, the furnace had three areas: one maintaining heat up to 1100C, a "cold" area maintaining 600 to 7000, and a "gradient" area allowing linear temperature change between maximum and minimum furnace-heating capabilities. The Salyut space-processing system, designated "Splay" (alloy), would use material samples in capsules, each containing 3 crystal ampules to fuse when heated in the furnace and form monocrystals in the "gradient" area, with 3-dimensional crystallization in the hot and cold sections of the furnace. Combinations of materials heated to form new substances not possible in earth gravity would be aluminum/antimony, aluminum/tungsten, molybdenum/gallium, copper/indium, and indium/antimony. Some of the alloys might have semiconductor properties, suggesting that Soviet interest would be in specific applications in earth orbit rather than in theory.
The cosmonauts had also reported a major technology experiment using a closed-cycle cryogenic system designed to provide temperatures comparable to liquid helium (-2690) but did not say whether or not the test actually used liquid helium. Cosmonauts had also used cryogenics to cool the receivers of a "submillimeter telescope," Tass reported. (FBIS, Tass in English, Feb 15/78, Feb 16/78; Moscow Dom Svc in Russian, Feb 21/78; Av Wk, Feb 27/78, 21)
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