Apr 13 1973
From The Space Library
Preparations for the first Skylab mission, launch of the Skylab 1 Orbital Workshop scheduled for May 14, continued with only minor discrepancies, NASA announced. Onboard experiments and major spacecraft elements that had not flown before required extensive first-time testing. Lower than desired voltage had been detected in one cell in each of two important flight batteries. The batteries would be replaced and tested. Stowage of crew equipment and consumables in the Orbital Workshop had been completed. Testing of the Saturn IB and the command and service modules continued without major problems. (NASA Release 73-74)
Australian Prime Minister E. G. Whitlam and Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA Administrator, officially opened the largest space-tracking antenna erected in Australia for NASA. The 64-m-dia (210-ft-dia) antenna at the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Communications Complex near Canberra would be part Of NASA's global Deep Space Network (DSN) of three stations. The first station was built at Goldstone, Calif., in 1966 and the third was nearing completion in Madrid, Spain. (NASA Release 73-69; NASA PAO)
The April 12 loss of NASA's instrumented Convair 990 aircraft Galileo would have "very serious effects" on NASA's research programs, Dr. Hans Mark, Ames Research Center Director, told the press in Mountainview, Calif. The $5-million aircraft had been carrying more than $1-million worth of equipment when it and a Navy aircraft collided and crashed in flames. The Galileo had participated in the Feb. 17March 8 U.S.-U.S.S.R. survey of the Bering Sea and was scheduled to chart the patterns of whales and other sea mammals. "It was one of the major programs at Ames." Dr. Mark said. "We do not have another aircraft to carry on its work." It would be "impossible" to go ahead with the project. A joint NASA-Navy investigation would try to determine the cause of the collision. x/A Herbert S. Ainsworth (USN) told the press that human error was responsible. (W Post, 4/14/73, A3)
Apollo 13 Astronaut John L. Swigert, Jr., was named Executive Director of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics staff, succeeding Charles F. Ducander, who was retiring effective June 30. Committee Chairman, Rep. Olin E. Teague (D-Tex.), said Swigert's "broadly based skill and enthusiasm" would "aid in expanding the effort being made by the Committee to assure that our national space program and federal research and development will receive adequate support in the mid-1970s.” (AP, Houston Post, 4/14/73; Com Off)
A U.S. Navy and United Kingdom agreement to begin an eight-month study of an advanced vertical or short takeoff and landing (v/STOL) Harrier aircraft was announced by Secretary of the Navy John W. Warner. Rolls-Royce Ltd. and Hawker Siddeley Group Ltd., of the U.K., and McDonnell Douglas Corp. and United Aircraft Corp. Pratt & Whitney Div. would study the design of the Pegasus 15 engine, specifications of the new power plant, projected costs, identification of airframe modifications for the uprated engine and an advanced technology wing, test performance predictions, preparation of a preliminary aircraft specification, and definition of a possible full development program. (DOD Release 189-73)
The Air Force had made the first major improvements in aircraft landing techniques in more than two decades with installation of solid-state instrument landing systems (ILS) at six Air Force bases, the Air Force Systems Command announced. The new systems automatically transmitted signals that appeared on cockpit instruments to indicate the aircraft's position in relation to the runway's centerline and the pilot's glide slope. They replaced failure-prone tube circuits and introduced longer system life, greater reliability, and easier maintenance. (AFSC Release 035.73)
President Nixon submitted to the Senate the nomination of William E. Kriegsman to be a Commissioner of the Atomic Energy Commission succeeding Dr. James R. Schlesinger, who had become Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The nomination was confirmed May 31. Kriegsman was manager of the Washington, D.C., office of Arthur D. Little, Inc., and a former White House staff assistant in environment, space, nuclear energy, and oceanography. (PD, 4/16/73, 368, 378; CR, 5/31/73, D603)
The Atomic Energy Commission announced that space reactor technology declassification had been completed with the declassification of engineering scale information developed in the SNAP-50 (systems for auxiliary nuclear power) space reactor program and the lithium-cooled reactor experiment. Thermionic-converter-reactor and uranium-zirconium hydride-reactor technology had been declassified in 1972 and nuclear rocket-propulsion technology earlier in 1973. (AEC Release R-156)
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