Jan 15 1976
From The Space Library
Helios 2, third cooperative project of the U.S. and the Federal Republic of Germany, was launched from Complex 41 of the Eastern Test Range at 12:34 am EST (0534 GMT) on a [[Titan-Centaur]] (TC-5) into solar orbit that would put it between 44 million and 144 million km from the sun, 3 million km closer than its twin, Helios 1, launched 10 Dec. 1974. Each Helios carried 7 experiments of West German scientists and 3 from the U.S. The experiments would investigate solar processes and events such as coronal, solar-wind, and interplanetary fields and waves; cosmic rays, both solar and nonsolar; dust particles and zodiacal light; and celestial mechanics. Helios 2 was the first spacecraft carrying a detector for gamma-ray bursts in space, whose cause and source had not been identified since discovery in 1969. Combining Helios data with information from other satellites might pinpoint the direction of the sources and permit their identification with visible celestial objects. The Helios spacecraft weighed 376 kg, with a 1.75 m cylinder carrying conical solar arrays on each end that gave it a spool shape; with deployable booms extended, Helios 2 would measure 32 m tip to tip. The solar arrays would provide a minimum of 240 w at aphelion-much more when closer to the sun-to power the data handling and transmission. Scientists also hoped for more information on the unexpected concentration of micrometeorites found by Helios 1; about 15 times more of these particles were detected within 53 million km of the sun than had been observed near the earth. Cost of the 2 Helios missions was about $260 million, of which the German share was about $180 million for spacecraft units, 7 experiments, and command and data-acquisition expenses; mission control would be at the German Space Operations Center near Munich. The U.S. paid for the 2 launch vehicles and the 3 U.S. experiments, plus support services, a total of about $80 million. A third Helios had been considered for launch in 1980 to measure solar activity at the height of the 11-yr cycle and to study Comet Encke. (NASA Releases 75-317, 76-2; MOR S-823-76-02 [prelaunch] 7 Jan 76, [postlaunch] 23 Jan 76; NYT, 16 Jan 76, 27)
The USSR's supersonic passenger plane TU-144, in service between Moscow and Alma Ata in Kazhakstan, had flown further on the special test bench still being used to operate its engines under varying flight conditions than it had in the skies, according to a story in the newspaper Pravda. The bench, designed simultaneously with the aircraft itself, could accommodate the 65-m-long plane and simulate conditions such as outside-temperature changes from -60°C to 150°C; oncoming and vertical air currents with a velocity of 30 to 50 m per sec; and air-current impact on skin and control mechanisms in TU-144 takeoff and landing. The plane's wings and fuselage were "wrapped" in 5000 steel rods with sensors attached to 12 000 points that signaled the slightest change to computers; the bench included 8000 thermometers, as well as 3300 km of wires from the TU-144 to instruments and computers, "equal to the distance between Moscow and Alma Ata," the report said. During the tests, the cabin retained normal atmospheric pressure and temperature even when exterior conditions imitated those at 18 to 20 km in the stratosphere where the plane would be flying. (FBIS, Tass in English, 14 Jan 76)
Scientists attempting to find a source of unlimited energy like that which powers the sun had taken two potentially significant directions, Walter Sullivan reported in the New York Times. Soviet researchers had shifted from emphasis on laser beams for crushing nuclear fuel to superdensity, to use of electron beams for that purpose. Although 90% of U.S. effort had been on converging pulses of laser light, a new system of using ion beams had shown advantages over the electron-beam method from which it evolved: the apparatus would deliver a vast amount of energy to a fuel pellet, causing the shell to explode both inward and outward. The inward blast, crushing the pellet core to 1000 times its original density, would produce a fusion reaction resulting in helium, and a small amount of mass would be converted into a large amount of energy. The U.S. electronbeam study was based at Sandia Laboratories, in N.M., one of three research centers operated by the Energy Research and Development Administration. Although the U.S. use of ions was the chief novelty in the fusion-energy field, laser fusion was still the front runner, Sullivan noted. (NYT, 15 Jan 76, 22)
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