Jun 5 1962
From The Space Library
Astronaut M. Scott Carpenter and his family were received by President Kennedy at the White House, then flew to New York for the city's reception and to receive New York City's highest award, the Gold Medal. The reception committee included, in addition to Mayor Wagner, former Presidents Herbert C. Hoover and Harry S. Truman.
NASA explained the reasons for the 250-mile overshoot of the landing by AURORA 7, attributing most of the overshoot to a 25° error in the capsule's yaw attitude at the time the retrorockets were fired. This caused the thrust of the retrorockets to be exerted on the capsule at an angle rather than in line and resulted in less slowing of the capsule and consequently a shallower descent curve than planned. This accounted for some 175 miles of the 250-mile overshoot as well as a deviation of 15 miles to the north of the orbital track. Other factors that contributed to the overshoot were the retrorockets delivered about three per cent less than the specified thrust, and the retrorockets fired about three seconds late.
A cooperative program for testing. Relay and Telstar communications satellites by NASA and communications organizations in the U.S., Europe, and South America was announced by NASA. Providing ground stations and conducting the communications experiments would be AT&T, IT&T, British General Post Office, French National Center for Telecommunications Studies, West German Post Office, Brazilian Department of Posts and Telegraphs, and Telespazio of Italy. The foreign organizations would participate on a voluntary basis with no exchange of funds by the governments. NASA would provide ground stations with orbital data. on the satellites.
U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, meeting in Geneva, set up a ten-nation working group under the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee to examine international exchanges of scientific information on outer space. Takeo Hatanaka of Japan was named chairman; other nations represented were the U.S., U.K., U.S.S.R., Belgium, Chad, France, Hungary, Romania, and the United Arab Republic. Another group, chaired by W. A. Sarabhai of India, was set up to examine the U.S. proposal of an international research rocket range to be established near the Equator.
Space Vehicle Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee, headed by Dr. Jerome. V. Wiesner, visited MSFC.
Greenhut Construction Co. was awarded $903,158 contract for modification of a Saturn static test stand at MSFC, Huntsville, Ala. Built in 1956 for Redstone and Jupiter missile test-firings, the stand was later altered to accommodate the huge Saturn S-I stage. Under this contract., the test stand would be modified to provide two test positions capable of holding the Saturn stage, with work to be completed by February 1963.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
