Nov 19 1975
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The Space Shuttle orbiter might travel by ground rather than air from Rockwell International's assembly facility at Palmdale, Calif., to Edwards Air Force Base for its approach and landing tests, a Rockwell official said as the orbiter made its first appearance for the press. Original plan had been to send the orbiter piggyback on NASA's Boeing 747 scheduled to launch the unpowered craft during its tests at Edwards. Travel on the ground would take 6 hr to go about 32 km, using an off-the-road vehicle inherited from the Apollo program, and would cost less. (NASA Release 75-293; Aero Daily, 20 Nov 75, 107)
19 November: Soyuz-20, the unmanned Soviet spacecraft launched from Baykonur 17 Nov., docked automatically with Salyut 4 using onboard radio devices and computer installations for a program of "testing unit constructions and onboard systems... in joint flight," Tass announced. Salyut 4 , the orbiting space station, had been visited by the crew of Soyuz 17 for almost 30 days and by the crew of Soyuz 18 for more than 60 days. The Soyuz-20 mission had been analyzed as transfer of fuel to Salyut 4 ; in orbit since 26 Dec. 1974, the space station was thought to be running low on maneuvering fuel. Reporters had speculated that a new two-man crew might be sent to Salyut 4 later this year for a stay of 3 mo or longer that would break the 84-day record set by U.S. astronauts in 1974. The value of the automatic docking for resupply would be the economy of not sending men with each flight, although the Soviets had never indicated the cost of their launches.
Tass reported that the "space complex Salyut-4-Soyuz-20" was in an orbit with apogee 367 km, perigee 343 km, 51.6° inclination, and 91.4 min period of revolution. (W Post, 21 Nov 75, B14; NYT, 21 Nov 75, 25; FBIS No. 225, 19 Nov 75, No. 226, 20 Nov 75; Aero Daily, 20 Nov 75, 108)
19 November-23 December: Atmosphere Explorer-E, third in a series of new deep-dipper spacecraft designed to investigate the ionosphere, was launched from Eastern Test Range aboard a Delta vehicle at 9:07 pin EST (0206GMT) into an almost perfect orbit: apogee, 3026 km; perigee, 157 km; inclination, 19.7; period, 118.1 min. In orbit the satellite became Explorer 55.
Major difference between the original and new generation of atmosphere explorers was the unusually large onboard propulsion system that enabled the later spacecraft to move themselves up or down in space by hundreds of km or go from highly elliptical to circular orbits. The name "deep-dippers" meant that the spacecraft could drop into the atmosphere and pull out again, taking measurements only while in the upper reaches of the thermosphere. This region, important because it absorbed most ultraviolet light and heat received from the sun and because movement of that heat determined the structure of the upper atmosphere, had been difficult to study because the altitude was too high for all aircraft and most balloons and too low for other satellites. The dipping orbit prevented accumulation of excessive heat in the metal skins of the AE spacecraft.
Explorer 55 would also carry a backscatter ultraviolet spectrophotometer to obtain a vertical profile and density measurements of the ozone layer between 20°N and S; the measurements would be compared with those from Nimbus 4, launched in 1970, to evaluate the long-term accuracy of the Nimbus instrumentation. A mission operations report 23 Dec. said Explorer 55 had completed more than 400 orbits and all subsystems were performing well. (NASA Release 75290, 70-29, 72-212; KSC Release 266-75; SBD, 21 Nov 75, 114; KSC Spaceport News, 31 Sept 75, 3; MORs 13 Nov 75, 3 Dec 75, 23 Dec 75)
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