Jan 30 1976
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
Col. Stuart A. Roosa, 42, an astronaut since 1966, announced in Houston that he would retire from the Air Force and from NASA on 1 Feb., one day after the 5th anniversary of the launch of his only space flight, Apollo 14. Roosa had piloted the command module while Capt. Alan B. Shepard and Cdr. Edgar D. Mitchell had made the third moon landing, and had previously been on the Apollo 9 backup crew. Roosa told associates he was exploring "companies involved in new procedures." (NYT, 30 Jan 76, 34; W Star, 30 Jan 76, A-2)
San Marco C-2, launched from the San Marco platform 18 Feb. 1974 into an elliptical orbit to record day-by-day variations in the equatorial atmosphere's density, composition, and temperature, was declared a success after 23 mo in orbit during which it obtained more than 17 diurnal cycles of data. The data had been correlated with data from Explorer 51 (AE-C) in studying the physics and dynamics of the thermosphere, and these studies would continue as more data from the two satellites were processed and analyzed. Two U.S. scientific instruments were still operating normally, but the Italian air-drag balance instrument (which malfunctioned shortly after launch) had not performed properly. (MOR S-894-74-04, 30 Jan. 76)
INTELSAT-the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization awarded an 18-mo $275 000 fixed-price contract to TRW Systems, Inc., for a skewed reaction-wheel thruster attitude-control and stabilization system. A system based on the reaction-wheel principle would offer a combination of light weight, high reliability, and accurate performance for future comsats. External disturbances of satellite stability would be canceled by spinning up the reaction wheels to create offsetting torques, then stopping the spin by use of thrusters. (INTELSAT Release 76-4-M) INTELSAT-the International Telecommunication Satellite Organization awarded a 12-mo $22 000 fixed-price contract to the Republic of China's Government Radio Administration for collection and study of ionospheric scintillation data at 4 ghz, to be used as a data base for studying satellite-signal fluctuations caused by ionospheric effects. (INTELSAT Release 76-5-M)
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