Jun 27 1977
From The Space Library
NASA announced a new way to control the flight of its sounding rockets and point their instruments more accurately in astronomical and other scientific studies: a small TV camera in the nose cone would allow an operator on the ground to remotely aim the onboard attitude control system precisely at the desired stellar object. In the first use of "manned" rocket observation Apr. 15 at the White Sands Missile Range, N.M., scientists from Johns Hopkins Univ. had made the first sighting of a quasar in the ultraviolet spectrum. The quasar (quasi-stellar object, a celestial source resembling a star but probably a galaxy) was 3 billion light-yr from earth; it was the faintest and most remote object observed from above earth's atmosphere. Dr. Arthur Davidsen of JHU's department of physics had operated the rocket controls while watching the TV screen; his colleagues were Professors William G. Fastie and George Hartig. Observations in the ultraviolet range would let scientists compare properties of relatively near and more distant quasars. (NASA Release 77-131)
The U.S. superconducting magnet flown to a USSR magnetohydrodynamic facility near Moscow [see June 13] had been bolted into place June 20, ERDA reported. The successful installation, said Dr. William D. Jackson, head of ERDA's MHD program, was comparable to the 1975 linking of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts. Final leg of the magnet's journey had been a 10-mile trip on a U.S. truck flown in with the magnet on a USAF C-5 Galaxy aircraft, escorted to the facility by Soviet police. Operation of the system would begin in Oct., and about 20 U.S. scientists and engineers would take part in the 2yr experiment. (ERDA update, June 27/77)
Interest expressed by the USSR in joint development with the U.S. of spaceborne systems for navigation, air surveillance, and air-to-ground communications had come at an awkward time for the U.S., Av Wk reported. Congress earlier in 1977 had killed the Aerosat program to launch two air-to-ground comsats sponsored jointly by the FAA and ESA with Canadian participation; ESA might seek its own joint effort with the USSR. Also, the Dept. of Defense's NavStar system, designed mainly for military navigation users through a secure signal system, had offered a "clear" system for civilian use that the DOD had been trying to sell to airlines and other potential civilian markets. Soviet officials (who had told a visiting delegation from the U.S. radio-technical commission for aeronautics that they had been keeping tabs on NavStar development) were apparently more enthusiastic prospects for NavStar than U.S. users. (Av Wk, June 27/77, 17)
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