Jun 25 1976
From The Space Library
NASA announced selection of 8 scientists as a team to develop experiments for a proposed unmanned lunar mission in 1980, under study at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The mission would use a low-cost instrumented polar-orbiting spacecraft with a smaller companion subsatellite, launched together from Cape Canaveral on a single Delta vehicle, to orbit the moon for a yr and examine nearly the entire lunar surface from pole to pole, on both near and far sides, to expand knowledge gained from the small areas visited by previous U.S. and Soviet missions to the whole of the moon. This first U.S. lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972 would also be the first global survey of a body other than earth. The 8 experiment areas would provide measurements for scientists to determine the moon's gravity, magnetism, and heat flow, and the chemical and mineral composition of the moon's surface. Advanced remote sensing-gamma-ray, x-ray, and reflection spectroscopy-would be used in 3 of the experiments to create chemical maps of the lunar surface; a fourth experiment, spectrostereo imaging, would provide photographic data to match these maps with individual features of the lunar landscape. Magnetometer and electron reflector experiments would map electrical and magnetic properties of the lunar surface and subsurface; the remaining 2 experiments-heat flow and gravity field-would provide information on the deep interior of the moon. The gravity field would be mapped by tracking the polar-orbiting spacecraft circling at an altitude of 100 km above the lunar surface; the subsatellite, in a higher orbit up to 5000 km, would track the orbiter when it was hidden from earth by the moon. Mascons (mass concentrations) on the near side of the moon had been discovered by analyzing similar tracking data during the early lunar-orbiter flights in the 1960s; the proposed experiment would determine whether such mascons existed on the far side of the moon, besides providing information on the lunar interior.
Principal investigators named were: gamma-ray spectrometry, Dr. James R. Arnold, Univ. of Calif. at San Diego; spectrostereo imaging, Merton E. Davies, RAND Corp.; electron reflection, Dr. Robert P. Lin, Univ. of Calif. at Berkeley; infrared spectrometry, Dr. Thomas B. McCord, MIT; microwave radiometry, Dr. Duane 0. Muhleman, CalTech; gravity and altimetry, Or. Roger J. Phillips, JPL; magnetometry, Dr. Christopher T. Russell, Univ. of Calif. at Los Angeles; x-ray spectrometry, Dr. Jacob L. Trombka, Goddard Space Flight Center. Each of the 8 principal investigators would be accompanied by groups of coinvestigators; the 71-member science team would be aided by JPL staff members. JPL scientist in charge of the study was Dr. T.V. Johnson. (NASA Release 76-119)
NASA announced it would use starlight that left the surface of a nearby star 200 yr ago to signal the lighting of a giant 200-candle Bicentennial birthday cake at the new Superdome stadium in New Orleans just before midnight on 3 July. Photons of light that left Gamma Bootes just before midnight 3 July 1776-when the signers of the Declaration of Independence were officially witnessing the birth of the U.S.-would arrive on earth to activate a 1000-cycle tone at the Goddard Space Flight Center. The tone, transmitted to New Orleans on commercial telephone lines, would signal the lighting of the cake. GSFC's orbiting astronomical observatory Copernicus, passing over Hawaii in its 740-km orbit, would receive the photons on its star detector and transmit a digital signal to the NASA ground station in Hawaii; this signal, retransmitted to the West Coast and via microwave to GSFC, would activate a relay connecting the tone to New Orleans, where it would be heard on the stadium's public address system for 1 min before the candles would be lighted. Astronaut Story Musgrave would participate in the Superdome activities. (NASA Release 76-121)
Kennedy Space Center announced a broad program of research projects to use the KSC spaceport and its resources to obtain information on thunderstorms and the hazards they offered to launch operations. Meteorological and electronics scientists from the U.S. and abroad converged on the center for sessions of observing the thunderstorms, whose incidence is high in Fla. during the summer months. More than 70 scientists, many of them graduate students, would participate in experiments under the program; 19 principal investigators would represent organizations such as the Naval Research Laboratory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's environmental research laboratory, the Atlantic Science Corporation, Mass. Institute of Technology, N. Mex. Institute of Mining and Technology, S. Dak. School of Mines and Technology, and the Universities of Miami, Arizona, Florida, New York at Albany, and Manchester (England). NASA's Johnson Space Center and Goddard Space Flight Center also were participating.
Experiments would investigate precipitation formation, lightning behavior, air motions in thunderstorm clouds, and intracloud electrical discharges, among the numerous projects beginning this June and continuing through the summers of 1977 and 1978. Experimenters would provide their own instruments for the experiments, but much KSC equipment and material would be available, such as the instrumented aircraft used in previous lightning studies; weather radars; the detection and ranging system and electric-field measuring system used to monitor buildup of electrical charges that might interfere with launches; a weather-information network display; a satellite imagery acquisition system, with equipment for processing weather pictures, and an automatic picture-transmission (APT) recording system with timing and camera devices. An earlier program in 1948 studied dynamics of thunderstorms; the current program would emphasize electrical characteristics. (KSC Release 279-76)
NASA announced that one of its C-54 aircraft based at Wallops Flight Center had photographed several Long Island beaches at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency. The beaches, recently polluted by waterborne trash, were flown over and photographed 23 June with 2 T-11 aerial cameras-one for natural color and one for infrared-and the films were developed at WFC and delivered to EPA's Region II Surveillance and Analysis Division in N.J. EPA would interpret the photographs to obtain information about the extent and expected duration of the problem; NASA would also determine whether recent Landsat imagery of the area would be useful in EPA's analysis. (NASA Release 76-120)
Dr. John F. Clark, scheduled to retire 1 July as Director of Goddard Space Flight Center, had been selected to serve after that date at NASA Hq as special assistant to the Associate Administrator, according to an announcement by Dr. Robert S. Cooper, GSFC deputy director and Dr. Clark's successor. Dr. Clark agreed to stay at GSFC through 14 August to review actions needed to finalize design activities associated with a stability problem in the Delta second-stage engine, Dr. Cooper said, and would also serve as adviser on the Delta's readiness for the Palapa and Itos launches later in 1976. (GSFC announcement 1997)
The European Space Agency announced that Bernard Deloffre, who began serving as director of ESA's Spacelab program 1 March 1975, had tendered his resignation 22 June to the chairman of the ESA council, through the Director General. A forthcoming meeting of the council would discuss a replacement. (ESA release 25 June 76)
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