Sep 2 1972
From The Space Library
Navy Triad OI-1X Transit satellite was launched by NASA for Navy from Vandenberg Air Force Base by four-stage Scout booster. Orbital parameters: 838-km (520.7-mi) apogee, 743-km (461.7-mi) perigee, 100.6-min period, and 90.1° inclination. Objective of mission was to simplify navigation procedures by correcting long-term drift in satellite oscillator, reducing data- gathering time for navigation fix, demonstrating capability of experimental disturbance compensation system (DISCOS), obtaining performance data on radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTC), evaluating environmental survey panel and thermal coating experiment, and providing operational satellite for Navy Navigation Satellite System. DISCOS forced satellite to adhere to highly predictable orbit uninfluenced by forces of external atmospheric radiation. System, developed by Johns Hopkins Univ. Applied Physics Laboratory and Stanford Univ., compensated for external forces by providing equal and opposite thrust force. Success of DISCOS might lead to navigation satellites with orbits so precise and unchanging that their paths could be published in reference tables that would facilitate calculation of navigational fixes. Triad DI-IX weighed 93.9 kg (207 lbs), was 1.7 m long and 0.8 m wide (5.5 x 2.5 ft), and was powered by Atomic Energy Commission RTG that would provide 30 w of power for five years. With three components-spacecraft, DISCOS, and RTG-extended separately in orbit, overall length was 3.7 m (24 ft). Satellite was transmitting data on nominal frequencies of 400 and 150 mhz. After six-month experimental phase satellite would be available to all Transit system users. NASA would be reimbursed by Dept. of Defense for cost of launch vehicle and services. (GSFC SSR, 9/30/72; DoD Release 632-72; NASA Scout Prog Off; Pres Rpt 73)
Discovery that radio waves in constellation Cygnus had increased in energy more than 200 times, to become one of six strongest sources of radio waves in sky, was made by Canadian astronomer Dr. Philip C. Gregory. Source, Cygnus X-3, had been discovered originally by Uhuru (Explorer 42 launched by Italy for NASA Dec. 12, 1970) . Dr. Gregory had used National Research Council radiotelescope at Algonquin Park, Canada, in first observation of more than two- to fourfold leap in radio energy. Astronomers at seven radiotelescopes in U.S. and Canada began to study unprecedented event. Dr. Robert Hjellming of U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, W. Va., had said possible explanations were "some kind of energy event around a black hole" where ancient neutron star had collapsed or that energy emanated from object that "suddenly wants to make itself smaller because gravitation is pulling it inward." (Cohn, W Post, 9/4/72)
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