Jun 12 1980
From The Space Library
DFRC reported that an unmanned remotely piloted vehicle crashed during a research flight, impacting a dry lakebed north of the center. Air launched from a B-52 mother ship at 7:10 a.m. PDT, the small plane called DAST (drones for aerodynamic and structural testing) exhibited wing structure problems about 10 minutes later. NASA was investigating. The DAST program, to demonstrate the control of wing flutter by advanced flight control systems, used a remotely piloted vehicle that could be launched from a mother ship and flown through the maneuvers using telemetry from a pilot in a ground cockpit. The likelihood of structural damage during flight called for a safer and more economical way of testing advanced high-risk concepts. (DFRC Release 80-9)
NASA announced that WFC would begin testing this month at the Manassas, Va., municipal airport an experimental computer-advisory system that would increase data available to pilots using small airports without control arrangements. Designed as an extension of the procedural system now in use at uncontrolled airports, the system would keep track of aircraft in the vicinity and supply pilots with air-traffic information.
Computer-generated voice, radar, and weather-sensing information would automatically broadcast an airport advisory every 2 minutes and a traffic advisory every 20 seconds: the airport advisory would offer an airport identifier, broadcast time, windspeed and direction, favored or active runway, altimeter setting, and ambient and dew-point temperature. The traffic data would include the number of aircraft on each pattern, and position and heading of arriving or departing aircraft. Manassas was estimated to handle about 200,000 operations (landings and takeoffs) yearly; the demonstration would allow pilots using the system in an uncontrolled high-density environment to evaluate its effectiveness. (NASA Release 80-88; WFC Release 80-7)
FBIS carried a Tokyo Kyodo story that Japan's Space Development Council had decided that the failure last February of its Ayame 2 communications satellite was caused by malfunction of the apogee motor. The ground station lost contact with Ayame 2 three days after launch when engineers tried to fire the motor to put it into proper orbit. The council report called for domestic production of the apogee rocket and other major satellite components in future; the apogee motor had been made in the United States. (FBIS, Tokyo Kyodo in English, June 12/80)
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