May 29 1965
From The Space Library
NASA successfully launched EXPLORER XXVIII Interplanetary Monitoring Probe (Imp-C) from ETR on a three-stage Thor-Delta booster. A slightly longer than planned burn by the third stage engines placed the 130-lb, probe into an orbit with 164,000 mi. (264,040 km.) apogee and 120 mi. (193 km,) perigee instead of the scheduled orbit of 130,000 mi. (209,300 km.) apogee and 120 mi. (193 km,) perigee. Inclination was 34°; period, 5 days, 22 hrs. The spacecraft was equipped with devices to report on the earth's magnetic field, cosmic rays, and the solar wind throughout its highly elliptical orbit. Confused telemetry signals from the EXPLORER XXVIII for 3½ hrs. after launching made it seem the spacecraft had not separated from the third stage of the booster; however, later signals indicated that all spacecraft systems were operating normally, that separation had occurred. The Imp series began with EXPLORER XVIII (Imp-A) launched Nov. 26, 1963. (NASA Release 65-164; Wash, Sun. Star, 5/30/65)
MARINER IV, NASA's Mars flyby and photographic probe, reached the distance of one AU (Astronomical Unit) from earth at 9 p.m. EST. An Astronomical Unit is the mean distance of the earth from the sun that had been established, partially from data received from MARINER II, as 92,956,000 mi. The probe had traveled over 271 million mi, in its orbit; its velocity relative to the earth was 51,442 mph. (NASA Release 65-171)
An "antirock"-a meteorite composed of anti-matter-may have hit the earth in 1908, accounting for what was perhaps the most violent explosion ever observed on earth, said a report in Nature by Dr. Clyde Cowan of Catholic Univ. and C. R. Atluri and Dr. Williard F. Libby of the Univ. of California. The 1908 explosion, referred to as the Tunguska meteorite, took place in the air at a height estimated at three miles. Its effects were comparable to those of a nuclear weapon with a yield equivalent to that of 30 million tons of TNT. The hypothesis had been supported, to some extent, by an analysis of tree rings formed during, before, and after the year of the explosion. It was calculated that an anti-matter explosion would create enough additional atoms of carbon 14 to produce a worldwide enrichment of this radioactive substance. In the study, a 300-yr.;old Douglas fir from Arizona and an oak tree from near Los Angeles were analyzed. Wood was stripped from a number of annual rings from 1873 to 1933. In both trees, the highest content of carbon 14 was from wood formed in 1909, the year after the explosion. Another supporting fact was that the blast left no cloud such as that produced by an atomic or chemical explosion; a mass of anti-matter, plunged into the atmosphere, would be annihilated, leaving no cloud. (Sullivan, NYT, 5/30/65, 1, 50)
NASA Lewis Research Center scientist Charles A. Low, Jr., was co-recipient (with William R. Mickelsen) of a patent for a radio-isotope generator with attached propulsion system. Low and Mickelsen would use a colloidal particle thrustor to provide the propellant, Research was underway at LRC on use of colloidal particles as propellant in various thrustor designs. The system could cut interplanetary flight durations by as much as one-half or increase interplanetary payloads by substantial amounts. (LRC Release 65-39)
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