Jul 14 1974
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(New page: The Air Force launched Nts 1 Navigation Technology Satellite on an Atlas F booster from Vandenberg Air Force Base into orbit with a 13 762-km apogee, 13 440-km perigee, 7-hr 48-min per...)
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The Air Force launched Nts 1 Navigation Technology Satellite on an Atlas F booster from Vandenberg Air Force Base into orbit with a 13 762-km apogee, 13 440-km perigee, 7-hr 48-min period, and 125.1° inclination. The spacecraft, designed and built by the Naval Research Laboratory and originally called Timation 3A, would test techniques under consideration for the Dept. of Defense's NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) . Nts 1 carried receivers and transmitters to broadcast its exact position continuously and an atomic clock to transmit ultra-precise time signals. NAVSTAR, when completed in the mid-1980s, would be a system of 24 satellites providing worldwide, accurate, and instantaneous three-dimensional positions of air, sea, and surface vehicles equipped with a GPS receiver. (Pres Rpt 74; Au Wk, 22 July 74, 14; AFSC Release OIP 274.74)
Gen. Carl A. Spaatz, first Air Force Chief of Staff, died in Washington, D.C., of congestive heart failure at the age of 83. Gen. Spaatz had been one of the first 25 Americans to earn "wings" as the Army's First Aero Squadron in 1916. In 1929 Gen. Spaatz, with Gen. Ira S. Eaker, set a refueling endurance flight record by staying aloft 151 hrs over Los Angeles. For this feat he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. During World War II Gen. Spaatz commanded the largest armada of air-craft and airmen ever assembled under the control of a single commander. President Truman appointed him Chief of Staff when the Air Force became a separate branch of the military service in 1947. After his retirement in 1948 he served as chairman of the Civil Air Patrol. (Johnston, NYT, 15 July 74, 1)
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