Jul 14 1977
From The Space Library
NASA launched a 280kg (6201b) geostationary meteorological satellite (GMS) for Japan from Cape Canaveral at 10:56 EDT on a Delta vehicle into an elliptical orbit, to be boosted at third apogee into a geosynchronous orbit at about 35 500km altitude over the equator south of Tokyo. Gms 1, known as Himawari in Japan, was that country's contribution to CARP, the global atmospheric research project sponsored by the Intl. Council of Scientific Unions and the World Meteorological Organization. The cylindrical craft had carried a visible infrared spinscan radiometer (VISSR) and a space environment monitor to identify and photograph weather patterns from Hawaii to Pakistan and detect solar energy activity that might disrupt communications on earth. More than half the world's tropical storms had begun in the western Pacific and eastern Indian Ocean, said Kazuo Watanabe, project manager for Japan's national space development agency; Gms 1 could provide detailed weather photos and other data every 30min to give instant warning of typhoons in the area. Watanabe noted that Japan had been depending on data from a U.S. satellite in polar orbit that furnished images only twice a day. (NASA Release 77-110; MOR M-492-101-77-01 [prelaunch] July 12/77; Hughes Aircraft Co. release July 12/77; NYT, July 15/77, A-8; W Post, July 15/77, A-22)
NASA Administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch announced that President Carter had declared July 16-24 as a U.S. Space Observance, the dates chosen by Congress to coincide with the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing as well as Apollo-Soyuz and the Viking l landing on Mars. Dr. Frosch said that the president's recognition of NASA achievements "should serve as inspiration and encouragement to all of us." (NASA anno July 14/77)
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