Mar 26 1976
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
RCA-B, called Satcom 2 in orbit, was launched from the Eastern Test Range at 5:42 pm EST (2242 GMT) on a Delta 3914 vehicle into a synchronous transfer orbit at 35 753-km apogee and 185-km perigee, and inclination of 27.25°. Second in a series of 3 large 24-transponder comsats to be launched by NASA on a fully reimbursable basis for the Radio Corporation of America, Satcom 2 would transmit voice, data, telex, and facsimile messages to and from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii from its geosynchronous orbit at about 35 800-km altitude above the equator at 120°W. The spacecraft was box-shaped, 1.2 x 1.2 x 1.6 m, weighing at launch about 990 kg; it was 3-axis-stabilized, carrying 2 rectangular solar panels about 7m2 continuously oriented to the sun to provide electric power. After dropping the apogee motor, Satcom 2 would weigh about 463 kg in orbit. The communications system included a fixed 4-reflector antenna assembly and a lightweight transponder of traveling-wave-tube amplifiers; the 24 input and output filters were of a graphite-epoxy composite. All 24 channels were simultaneously operable throughout a minimum 8-yr lifetime, each having a 36-mhz bandwidth within the 500-mhz allocation to RCA's Globcom Inc. (NASA Release 76-37; MOR M-492-206-76-02 [prelaunch] 18 Mar 76, [postlaunch] 13 Apr 76)
The Hugh L. Dryden Flight Research Center, formerly the Flight Research Center at Edwards, Calif., was formally dedicated in a ceremony by NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher; Dr. T. Keith Glennan, first administrator of NASA from 1958-1961; Sen. Frank E. Moss (D-Utah), chairman of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences; and Mrs. Dryden, guest of honor, who unveiled a bust of her late husband that would be placed in the Center's lobby. After the ceremony, visitors were invited to a display of aircraft in the main hangar, including the 747 aircraft that would be used for the Space Shuttle orbiter approach and landing tests next year. Center efforts to transfer space technology to industry were represented by a solar-energy display and low-drag truck exhibits. Dr. Dryden in 1947 had been named to the newly created post of director of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics; when Dr. Glennan, then head of the Case Institute of Technology, was selected as NASA's first administrator, he insisted on Dr. Dryden as his deputy. When James E. Webb was chosen NASA's second administrator, he also made the condition that Dr. Dryden remain as his deputy; he had served in that position until his death in 1965. (NASA X-Press, 26 Mar 76; program)
Marshall Space Flight Center forecast completion by 1 April of a unique facility-one of the largest and most significant construction jobs undertaken in the past 10 yr-at the Center, an x-ray test facility costing about $4 million. The new facility included a 305-m-long stainless steel x-ray path guide tube nearly a meter in diameter, connecting the x-ray source with a 6-m-diameter instrument chamber housing the telescopes and other instruments to be tested. Work began in January 1975, and would be completed on schedule. The facility, the only one of its size and type, would be used first to test instruments for NASA's High Energy Astronomy Observatory (HERO) program; later it would be used in x-ray verification testing and calibration of mirrors, telescope systems, and instruments, for rocket payloads in x-ray stellar studies and similar projects. After checkout, the facility would be turned over to MSFC's Science and Engineering Directorate. (Marshall Star, 31 Mar 76, 4; MSFC Release 76-53)
NASA's Technology Utilization Office, publisher since 1963 of more than 6000 single-page Tech Briefs on new techniques and innovations resulting from advanced research and technology programs in NASA, announced it would begin publication of NASA Tech Briefs in April 1976. The new document would be a two-color journal designed for non-aerospace users of NASA technology, containing information on as many as 600 items annually that previously appeared in the single-page briefs as well as new data that previously appeared in Technology Compilation booklets. The document would sort the information into 9 technical categories to make it accessible as a current-awareness medium, and a cumulative index would appear once a year. The journal would be free to U.S. citizens. (NASA Release 76-60)
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