Oct 13 1976
From The Space Library
NASA announced that a data-collection unit called Site Data Acquisition System (SDAS), first in a centralized nationwide network that would monitor the performance of solar heating and cooling systems, had begun operating last wk, transmitting daily the data from a solar heating and cooling system installed at the George A. Towns Elementary School in Atlanta, Ga. The school, built in 1962, operated throughout the year, including the summer months; a large-scale system for heating and cooling, with solar collectors on the roof, had been added to the building last year. The project was conducted jointly by Westinghouse Electric Corp. and the Ga. Inst. of Technology, under a cost-sharing no-fee contract with ERDA. The data-gathering network to which the Towns school SDAS belonged would collect information on climate-temperature, humidity, wind, and available sunlight-and collector inlet-outlet temperature, flow rate, and performance of the energy-storage system. Raw data would be received, processed, and printed out by an IBM facility in Huntsville, Ala., under contract to MSFC.
Total number of units in the program might reach 2000 or more by the end of 1979, NASA estimated. Users of the information would include manufacturers of heating and cooling systems; building and construction firms; architects, municipalities, individuals, and others concerned with building design and construction. The national program was aimed at demonstrating the efficiency of solar energy systems for residential and commercial building, and to stimulate marketing and public acceptance. (NASA Release 76-166; MSFC Release 76-188; C Trib, 19 Oct 76, 1-18)
NASA announced that Robert N. Lindley, director of project management at GSFC, would begin a temporary assignment in Paris 24 Oct. as Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Flight (European Operations), serving as senior NASA adviser to ESA for the Spacelab program. During this assignment, Dr. William C. Schneider, currently Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Flight at NASA Hq, would act as director of project management at GSFC. Both officials would return to their original positions at the end of the ESA assignment. (NASA anno 13 Oct 76)
Rockwell Intl. announced award to the Aerostructures Div. of Avco Corp. of a contract valued at more than $50 million for long lead-time production work on outer wings of the B-1 bomber. Work would cover the first three operational B-1s produced for the U.S. Air Force. The Aerostructures Div. would design and fabricate tools and prepare for actual building of the outer wings. Rockwell Intl. had assembled outer wings for the first three B-1 prototypes, which had already accumulated more than 350 hr of flight tests at Edwards AFB, Calif. Outer wings on each side of the B-I would constitute a shipset-one of the largest sections of the B-I-weighing more than 13 000 kg, and measuring more than 18 m long and 4.5 m wide. Fuel would be stored inside the wing structure. (Rockwell Release LA-5)
The European Space Agency announced choice of payloads for its Ariane launcher L02 and L03 qualification flights scheduled between June 1979 and October 1980, Principal passenger on the L02 flight would be the recently announced Geosari satellite, with a lateral passenger, Amsat, a 70-kg radio-amateur space communications satellite proposed by a German organization affiliated with the Intl. Radio Amateur Satellite Organization. Ariane L03 would carry the India comsat Apple (Ariane passenger payload experiment), a three-axis-stabilized spacecraft weighing 616 kg that would continue experiments in the 4- to 6-ghz frequency to be performed by India in the Satellite Telecommunications Experiments Project (STEP), Mounted in the lower central portion of the launcher, Apple would bear the load of a principal-passenger satellite to be chosen by the end of the year from among a second Meteosat prototype; a flight prototype of Symphonie, Franco-German comsat; an Italian Sirio microwave comsat with a payload different from the first model (see A & A75, 10 Mar); and a Canadian CTS spacecraft equipped with a European communications payload. Nominal orbit for the L02 and L03 flights would be 35 800-km apogee, 200-km perigee, and 17.7° inclination. (ESA release 13 Oct 76)
ESA announced plans to award to Messerchmitt-Bolkow-Blohm of West Germany, as prime contractor for COSMOS (a consortium of European aerospace companies), two contracts worth a total of about $55.38 million (U.S.) for definition of the Exosat satellite (phase B) and for subsequent design and development (phase C and D). Subcontractors from ten member states of ESA would share in satellite development. Exosat, scheduled for launch in 1980-81 by a Delta or Ariane vehicle, would measure position, structure, spectral and temporal characteristics of cosmic x-rays between -0.1 kev and +50 kev. Work on the 12-mo phase B contract would begin in Jan. 1977. (ESA release 13 Oct 76)
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