May 12 1965
From The Space Library
LUNA V "hit the moon in the area of the Sea of Clouds" at 10:10 p.m. Moscow time [3:10 p.m. EDT], Tass announced. The release continued: "During the flight and the approach of the station to the moon a great deal of information was obtained which is necessary for the further elaboration of a system for soft landing on the moon's surface," The announcement revealed no further details of the landing, Western experts saw evidence that the Soviets had attempted a soft landing and failed. (Tass, 5/12/65; Shabad, NYT, 5/13/65, 1, 24)
USAF launched Blue Scout Jr, space probe from Eastern Test Range with instrumented payload to measure pitch angle and magnetic field intensity in space. Probe attained 8,536-mi, altitude in its 3-hr, 50-min. flight and returned useful data to earth before falling into Indian Ocean. (U.S. Aeron, & Space Act., 1965, 141)
First developmental test of a possible landing system for the Apollo Spacecraft was successfully performed at NASA Manned Spacecraft Center with the drop of a boilerplate spacecraft from a crane into a 700,000 gallon water tank. The boilerplate was fitted with two pairs of rockets and an 8-ft,-long altitude sensor. Rockets were mounted in the outer rim of the heat shield; thrust vector of the rockets was aligned with the gravity vector of the spacecraft, Structural reinforcement of the heat shield area was current solution for preventing damage to the spacecraft in a rough water landing. If the landing rocket system proved desirable, it would cut several hundred pounds from the weight of the Apollo command module in addition to providing an improved emergency and landing capability. (MSC Roundup, 5/28/65, 8)
USN would build new stations at Raymondville and Roma, Tex, as part of its SPADATS (Space Detection and Tracking System) surveillance network for detecting satellites passing over the U.S. reported Warren Burkett in the Houston Chronicle. (Burkett, Houston Chron., 5/12/65)
NASA announced award of $15 million contract to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. to build an additional Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, Grumman already was building three OAO spacecraft under a previously awarded contract. (NASA Release 65-154)
At Bell Telephone Laboratories a two-mile-long laser beam was folded into a ten-foot-long space by reflecting the beam back and forth more than 1,000 times between two mirrors, By distorting the shape of the mirrors to enable the beam spots to form a pattern of slowly changing ellipses, scientists kept the reflections separate. Bell predicted that a computer utilizing this effect could store 1,000 bits of information which could be read out serially one bit every billionth of a second. (NYT, 5/12 /65 )
DOD awarded Smith and Sapp Construction Co, a $1,616,970, NASA-funded, fixed-price contract for construction alterations to existing spacecraft facilities at Cape Kennedy. (DOD Release 323-65)
Soviet's first communications satellite MOLNIYA I maintained direct radiotelephone communications between Vladivostok and Sofia, Warsaw, and Prague for almost three hours. (Tass, 5/12/65)
In interim decision, FCC awarded ComSatCorp for two years "sole responsibility" for design, construction, and operation of three ground stations for a global communications network, Future of AT&T-owned Andover, Me, station was not discussed. (ComSatCorp)
XB-70 and Boeing 707 noise comparison results were reported by FRC engineers Carol S. Tanner and Norman J. McLeod at Aircraft Operating Problems Committee meeting at LaRC, During takeoffs both aircraft reached maximum noise level in the frequency range of about 125 cps. Data from tests would aid in prediction of runway noise levels for the proposed supersonic transport. (FRC Release 13-65)
Capt. Robert F. Freitag (USN, Ret.), Director of NASA Manned Space Flight Field Center Development, told Theodore von Kármán Memorial Seminar in Los Angeles that solutions to air and water pollution "could very well develop out of the research now being undertaken to develop self-sustaining life support systems for astronauts on missions of long duration." (West, L.A. Times, 5/13/65)
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