June 1979

From The Space Library

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Current revision

NASA announced that Arnold W. Frutkin, associate administrator for external relations since November 1978, would retire June 27. For 18 years before his present appointment, he had headed NASAs Office of International Affairs and was credited with "an extraordinarily successful series" of international space endeavors and policy initiatives including ATS 6 broadcasts, U.S.-USSR arrangements for Apollo-Soyuz, ESA Spacelab agreement, and multinational work on NASA science and applications missions. He had come to NASA from the National Academy of Sciences, where he was deputy director of the U.S. committee for the International Geophysical Year (IGY). (NASA anno June 1/79; NASA Release 79-85)

JSC announced the appointment of Kenneth S. Kleinknecht, veteran NASA manager for manned spaceflight projects, to direct JSC operations at KSC, completing installation of the thermal protection tiles and internal vehicle systems on the orbiter Columbia. Kleinknecht, who had joined NACA in 1942, would report to KSC from permanent assignment in Paris as deputy associate administrator for STS (European operations). (JSC Release 79-39)

WFC announced that its associate director, Abraham Spinak, would be on special assignment as executive assistant to a special NASA senior-staff group evaluating management of the STS. The group would study Shuttle funding problems, uncertainties of program predictions, and information flow and control. (WFC Release 79-12)

ESA reported successful completion of exercises at Kourou, French Guiana, to prepare for Ariane launches, including assembly of a test launcher, filling and draining of propellant, and automatic countdown. The operation was to verify the launch team's competence and the suitability of the site for the launch program scheduled to begin in September. (ESA/CNES Release June 6/79)

FBIS continued to report the status of the Soyuz 32 crew aboard Salyut 6. Beginning their 14th week in orbit, the crew prepared the shower stall and used it; they also used the Splav (alloy) furnace to make "foam metals" in a Soviet-Bulgarian experiment for low weight and high mechanical qualities. (On June 2, Reuters reported that a joint Soviet-Hungarian flight had been called off because of "serious trouble" with the Salyut 6 and predicted delays of 4 to 5 months or even a year in further joint manned flight. This would have been the 5th USSR joint mission with eastern-bloc countries.) On June 4, in the 15th week, the crew observed Far Eastern forests and corrected Salyut 6's orbit using the Progress 6 engines. On June 5, the crew was congratulated by the Soyuz 29 record-holding crew for completing 100 days in orbit.

Soyuz 34, an unmanned ferry vessel launched June 6 "to check a crucial engine that failed during a manned mission in April," might serve as return vehicle for the Soyuz 32 crew besides bringing supplies, press reports said. The April mission that failed to dock (Soyuz 33) had been crewed by Nikolay Rukavishnikov (veteran of Soyuz 10 and 16) and Georgy Ivanov, first Bulgarian cosmonaut. A June 6 report said the specific part found at fault in Soyuz 32 had previously been tested 8,000 times with no defect evident; nevertheless, the modified Soyuz 34 was launched unmanned to prevent possible casualty. Soyuz 34 docked successfully June 9 in the space Formerly used by Progress 6, which had been set loose June 8 to deorbit over the Pacific Ocean.

The crew sent away Soyuz 32, loaded with used equipment and experiment material, for a soft landing June 13. Later June reports from scientists studying the returned material said that future stations would allow for larger numbers of meteorite impacts; for the first time, returned equipment was available for analysis, such as devices that operated for 600 days rather than the planned 100, and lamps that "had not worked out their term." (FBIS, Tass in English, Intl Svc in Russian, Dom Svc in Russian, June 1-30/79)

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