Jan 23 1978
From The Space Library
NASA had formally designated as Project Galileo a 1982 mission to orbit a spacecraft around Jupiter for at least 20mo and send a probe into its atmosphere, NASA Administrator Robert Frosch announced. The designation had honored the 16th century Italian astronomer, first to observe Jupiter by telescope and discover its moons. Galileo would be the first planetary spacecraft carried by the Space Shuttle and the first planetary spacecraft named for a person, although NASA had christened the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 3 (OAO 3) "Copernicus" after it was launched. (NASA Release 78-11)
NASA announced it had retired Landsat-1, first spacecraft designed to discover and monitor earth's natural resources, on Jan. 16 after 5.5yr of operation in outer space. The multispectral scanner carried on Landsat-1 had revolutionized earth observation from space. Launched in 1972 with a life expectancy of 1yr, Landsat-1 had taken more than 300 000 pictures and had demonstrated remote-sensing applications in geology, oceanography, agriculture, forestry, hydrology, urban planning, crop prediction, and other disciplines. Landsat-2, launched in 1975, was still in orbit; a third Landsat would be launched in March. Three U.S. ground stations had received Landsat data, as had stations in Canada, Brazil, and Italy. Iran and Japan were building stations; Argentina planned one. (NASA Release 78-9; Goddard News, Jan-Feb 78, 5)
Av Wk reported that the third instead of the fifth Space Shuttle mission would attempt to raise the orbit of the abandoned Skylab space station, bettering chances of Skylab's remaining in orbit until the Shuttle could come to the rescue. NASA had scheduled the third Shuttle flight for Oct. 1979; the fifth, for Feb. 1984. A Martin Marietta teleoperator propulsion unit carried on the Shuttle to boost Skylab to a higher orbit would be left in space for retrieval by the fifth Shuttle flight. MSFC would build a solar panel for the teleoperator to keep it in orbit for as long as necessary. (Av Wk, Jan 23/78, 22)
The USSR had decided to keep a permanent manned space station in earth orbit as a result of the current Salyut 6 space station mission, Av Wk reported. Staffing this and follow-on Salyuts without major intervals between missions would be a milestone in manned spaceflight, and would demonstrate the USSR's decision to invest major resources in space.
The USSR had claimed the Salyut 6/Soyuz 27 mission was more scientific than military; its activities had included photographing the Soviet Union to explore for natural resources, detailed medical studies of cosmonaut blood circulation, and upper-atmosphere and micrometeorite monitoring. The crew had also devoted more time to system checkout and monitoring, because the design of Salyut 6 was a significant change from that of previous Salyut space stations.
The USSR had of previously flown a spacecraft configuration like Salyut 6/Soyuz 26/Soyuz 27 to test the interaction of three large vehicles. It had tried various spacecraft attitudes to evaluate stresses during maneuvers on the docked system, and had transferred food and equipment from the Soyuz 27 resupply vehicle and film, biological samples, and records to the Soyuz 27.
The Soyuz/Salyut mission had achieved three manned-spaceflight firsts: four-man space station, simultaneous docking of two transport spacecraft with an orbiting space station, and manned resupply of an occupied station. (Av Wk, Jan 2/78, 20; Jan 9/78, 25 Jan 16/78, 20; Jan 23/78, 19)
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced it had awarded Eppley Laboratory, Inc., Newport, R.I., a $79 000 contract for specialized solar-tracking devices to measure solar radiation reaching earth, to extend its solar-radiation network. The Department of Energy had provided NOAA with funds for 50 pyrheliometers, one for each of NOAA's solar-radiation collecting facilities, to measure increased temperatures proportional to the intensity of incoming radiation. Architects, engineers, and others interested in solar-energy applications would use this information with other temperature, precipitation, and cloud cover data. (NOAA Release 78-8)
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