Sep 15 1976

From The Space Library

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Current revision

The U.S. Air Force launched a Lockheed-built photoreconnaissance satellite into a polar orbit from Vandenberg AFB on a Titan IIIB-Agena D. Initial orbital elements were 342-km apogee, 132-km perigee, 96.4° inclination, and 89.2-min period. The spacecraft was a 3000-kg cylinder 8m long and 1.5m in diameter. The last previous satellite of this type, launched 22 March, had reentered 18 May. (Av Wk, 4 Oct 76, 26; USAF anno. 15 Sept 76; Sf, March 1977, 117)

Johnson Space Center announced receipt of delivery on the second of two Space Shuttle training aircraft. The first had been delivered 8 June 1976. The modified Grumman Gulfstream II twin-engine jet, flown to Ellington AFB from the plant in N.Y., would simulate Shuttle Orbiter handling qualities, performance, and flight-control procedures during subsonic flight phase, from 10.6-km altitude to simulated Orbiter touchdown. Grew training for approach and landing tests of the Shuttle Orbiter would begin late in Oct. (JSC Release 76-58)

Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. officially opened a facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., to manufacture a unique all-silica insulation refined from common sand from which 34 000 "tiles" would be made to cover 70% of the Shuttle Orbiter's surface. The material was said to be so efficient that it could be held with bare hands while red-hot; it could be taken from an oven at 1533K and plunged immediately into cold water without damage. The tiles would be expected to survive such temperatures through 100 flights with only minor maintenance, making the Shuttle a truly reusable space transportation system. Each tile would be milled to match the curvature of the Shuttle surface at the exact point to which it would be attached; the JSC Roundup said the task of fitting the tiles to the spacecraft skin would be like assembling a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle twice the size of a basketball court. No two tiles in a "shipset" would be exactly alike. (JSC Roundup, 24 Sept 76, 2)

Soviet scientists studying the movement of Phobos and Deimos, moons of Mars, had discovered that the speed of revolution of Phobos was increasing, Izvestia reported. The USSR's institute of theoretical astronomy had processed nearly 5000 observations of the Martian satellites from various observatories worldwide over the past 100 yr. Phobos was found to revolve at a distance of 9400 km from the center of Mars; Deimos was in an orbit 2.5 times further away. The acceleration of Phobos over the years was believed to be caused by a so-called tidal interaction with Mars, and meant that-"in several tens of millions of years from now"-it would fall on to the planet. (FBIS, 15 Sept 76)

15-27 September. The USSR launched Soyuz 22 into earth orbit 15 Sept. at 12:48 pm Moscow time (5:48 am EDT) from the Baykonur cosmodrome near Tyuratam. Orbital parameters were: apogee 280 km, perigee 250 km, inclination 65°, period 89.6 min. The spacecraft, carrying cosmonauts Col. Valery Bykovsky and civilian Vladimir Aksenov, was the first manned Soviet craft to carry foreign-made equipment-a "multizonal" photographic instrument made by the "state-owned enterprise" Karl Zeiss Jena of East Germany. In a preflight interview, Bykovsky said the camera would occupy "a whole section of the Soyuz spaceship." Previously, "Intercosmos" instruments developed by other socialist countries had been installed only on unmanned Soviet satellites. The Zeiss MKF-6 photographic unit was designed "to simultaneously photograph the earth's surface in six different wave bands," four visible and two infrared, according to a Tass broadcast. Journalists were permitted to inspect the spacecraft's interior, where the "photographic section" had been installed in the space usually occupied by the docking compartment. Izvestia announced that the docking equipment had been removed and that Soyuz 22 would therefore make no attempt to dock with Salyut 5, vacated only 3 wk earlier by the Soyuz 21 crew. Soyuz 22 had been constructed as a backup vehicle for last year's Apollo-Soyuz test flight, Izvestia said. (FBIS, Tass in English, 15-16 Sept 76; Intl Service in Russian, 15 Sept 76; W Star, 15 Sept 76, A-4, 16 Sept 76, A-4; NYT, 16 Sept 76, 21; W Post, 16 Sept 76, A18; Av Wk, 20 Sept 76, 25)

Moscow radio said 16 Sept. that Soyuz 22 photographed the earth's surface and the upper layers of its atmosphere with the Zeiss multispectral camera built in East Germany for this mission. Pictures of the Soviet Union would be used in agriculture, forestry, and geology research; Anatoly Alexandrov, president of the' USSR Academy of Sciences, said the new equipment promised much to the Soviet economy in those fields as well as in mineral prospecting. One unusual task was the study of color effects caused by cosmic-ray particles in light-sensitive cells of the eye. The cosmonauts also took samples of the cabin air to record changes in its composition during the flight.

Tass reported 20 Sept. that Soyuz 22 had taken pictures of objects that had never been "targets of space photography": the northern regions of the Soviet Union, with simultaneous earth and aerial photography to provide the fullest possible comparative data on surface phenomena and processes.

The cosmonauts were concluding their final photography sessions 22 Sept. in preparation for their return to earth, the Moscow domestic service reported, packing tapes, logbooks, and other materials in the landing module and checking its engine.

After spending 8 days in orbit, the crew of Soyuz 22 soft-landed 23 Sept. at 10:42 am Moscow time (3:42 am EDT) about 150 km northwest of Tselinograd in Kazakhstan. Cosmonauts Bykovsky and Aksenov were feeling well, Tass reported, and the flight data were being processed and studied.

Soyuz 22's East German-made Zeiss multispectral camera did not survive the mission; it was built into the orbital module, normally jettisoned before Soviet reentry procedures. The flight director, cosmonaut Aleksey Yeliseyev, emphasized that the crew "enjoyed a large measure of independence in controlling the ship and in carrying out various investigations." Vladimir Shatalov, in charge of cosmonaut training, said that Bykovsky (as commander of Soyuz 22) oriented and stabilized the ship so that Aksenov (as flight engineer) could position and operate the camera. The crew "carried out all operations ... by heart, so to say, without consulting their instructions," Tass reported.

Postflight medical checks performed at the Baykonur cosmodrome near Leninsk showed the Soyuz 22 cosmonauts to be in good health, Tass reported 27 Sept. One of the scientific directors of the mission said that all twelve of the photo cassettes brought back from Soyuz 22 were in good condition, and that the crew had completed "an immense amount of research" in space during their week-long expedition.

Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine noted that launching Soyuz 22 on a mission that did not dock with a Salyut space station contradicted an earlier statement by cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk, commander of the Soyuz 18 mission to Salyut 4 , who had told a COSPAR meeting in June that no more Soyuz vehicles would fly missions independent of the Salyut stations. (Av Wk, 27 Sept 76, 20 FBIS, Moscow domestic service in Russian, 16 Sept 76, 17 Sept 76, 22 Sept 76, 27 Sept 76; FBIS, Tass in English, 17-20 Sept 76, 23 Sept 76, 27 Sept 76)

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