Feb 13 1980
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(New page: NASA announced that it would maintain an expendable launch vehicle capability at the Eastern Space and Missile Center (ESMC) in Florida as a backup to the Space Shuttle during transiti...)
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NASA announced that it would maintain an expendable launch vehicle capability at the Eastern Space and Missile Center (ESMC) in Florida as a backup to the Space Shuttle during transition to Space Transportation System (STS) operation. It would use the standard Delta launch vehicle, capable of putting spacecraft weighing up to 1,100 kilograms (2,400 pounds) into orbit. NASA would charge commercial Delta users $22 million per launch at the outset. (NASA Release 80-22)
NASA reported studies by Western Union and U.S. Telephone & Telegraph warning of a fivefold increase in satellite video and data traffic by the end of the century. By the year 2000, executive telecommunications would be a substitute for business travel; 90% of the messages would need real-time (instantaneous) service and only 10% (such as electronic mail delivery) would be non-real-time. The demand for telecommunications would saturate domestic communications satellite capacity in the 4-6 GHz (C-band) and 11-14 GHz (Ku-band) frequencies.
Having decided to resume advanced communications satellite research, NASA would work toward opening the frequency band at 20 -30 GHz for commercial use in the next two decades. This band had not yet been used in the United States. The 20-to 30-GHz (Ka-band) offered a far greater range than the C-or Ku-band; capacities of communications satellite systems using it would be 50 to 100 times greater than those working in C-band. (NASA Release 80-19)
NASA announced that it had deferred an experiment to use zero gravity in studying cloud-physics phenomena, formerly scheduled as a Spacelab payload in 1982. Technical problems in transition from ground laboratory to space environment had caused delays and increased design and construction costs of the Atmospheric Cloud Physics Laboratory to the point of terminating the GE contact. NASA would use the equipment in its ;round-based weather and climate research. (NASA Release 80-23)
NASA said that it would launch seven sounding rockets February 15 and 16 from the San Marco platform off the coast of Kenya to study a total solar eclipse visible in that area but not in North America, recording changes in the electrical structure of Earth's middle atmosphere and temperature distribution in the solar corona during an eclipse. Two Astrobee D and three Super Arcas rockets would carry payloads from Pennsylvania State University, and two Black Brant rockets would carry payloads from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. Piggyback on one of the Black Brants would be a Johns Hopkins University experiment to measure ultraviolet zodiacal light from the solar corona. Instrument packages carried to 330 kilometer (205-mile) altitude would make measurements during parachute descent. GSFC would manage the eclipse study with support from Wallops Flight Center (WFC) in rocketry, instrumentation, and range support. The mobile launch platform in the Indian Ocean was operated by the University of Rome's center for aerospace research. (NASA Release 80-24; WFC Release 80-1)
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