Mar 13 1971
From The Space Library
March 13: U.S.S.R.'s Lunokhod 1 unmanned lunar rover explored 457-m (500-yd) crater on moon, made chemical analysis of soil, photographed area around crater, and "engaged in Cosmo-physical measurements," Tass announced. (UPI, W Star, 3/14/71, A15)
Nike-Apache sounding rocket was launched by NASA from WSMR carrying Univ. of Colorado airglow experiment, Mission was unsuccessful. (SR list)
In cable to Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.), Jean-Jacques Servan- Schreiber, member of French National Assembly, said Anglo-French Concorde supersonic transport "looks to as ...like an industrial Vietnam." Every Concorde cost analysis had proved to be wrong. Cost had "multiplied here, as it will everywhere, four times the initial evaluations." Facts had not been available until recent months. "Now the public eye is on the project and what it sees is bankruptcy." (Kenworthy, NYT, 3/14/71, 21)
March 13-17: Explorer 43 (IMP-I) Interplanetary Monitoring Platform was launched by NASA from ETR by three-stage, thrust- augmented Thor-Delta M-6 booster at 11:15 am EST. Spacecraft entered highly elliptical orbit with 206 049-km (128 032-mi) apogee, 241-km (149.8-mi) perigee, 6012-min period (4 days 12 hrs 12 min), and 28.6° inclination. Primary objective was to investigate during period of decreasing solar activity and through several solar rotations, the nature of the interplanetary medium and interplanetary- magnetospheric interaction, including characteristic features of solar wind, interplanetary fields and sector structure, and modulation effects on cosmic rays. By March 17 onboard computer and 9 of 12 science experiments were operating satisfactorily. Explorer 43 was first of series of second-generation spacecraft designed to study solar-lunar-terrestrial relationships. It was eighth of 10 IMPs and at 288 kg (635 lbs) was largest as well as most advanced spacecraft in Explorer series, Seventh IMP, Explorer 41, had been launched June 21, 1969, and was still operating. IMP program was managed by GSFC under OSSA direction. (NASA Proj Off; NASA Release 71-35; SSR, 3/31/71)
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