Oct 24 1975
From The Space Library
Marshall Space Flight Center announced selection of nine experiments on processing materials in space to be carried aboard a Black Brant 5C sounding rocket scheduled for December launch. The launch would be first in a 5-yr series of space-processing flights in MSFC's Space Processing Applications Rocket (SPAR) project to find improved methods of materials processing on earth, and ultimately to produce materials in space that could not. be produced on earth.
The nine experiments were: dendrite remelting and macrosegregation; liquid mixing; lead-antimony eutectic; foams from sputter deposited metals; thoria-dispersed magnesium; dispersion strengthened lead-silver alloys; particle-interface interactions; bubble behavior in melts; and contained polycrystalline solidification.
The low-cost rocket launches, each of which provided approximately 5.5 min of low gravity (0.001 of earth's) during the coast phase of the trajectory, would offer the only means of obtaining scientific data on space processing of materials in near-zero gravity until flights of the Space Shuttle in the early 1980s. (MSFC Release 75225)
Marshall Space Flight Center had issued requests for proposals for development of solar-energy cooling and heating systems for both residential and commercial applications. The RFPs had been issued in five areas of procurement: firms already producing and marketing solar heating and cooling subsystems; firms developing marketable subsystems and needing government assistance; firms with complete systems under development; firms designing innovative complete systems; and firms to compete for test and evaluation of the subsystems procured under the first two RFPs. The Solar Heating and Cooling Demonstration Act of 1974, which requires demonstration of the practical use of solar heating in the U.S. within 3 yr and of combined solar heating and cooling within 5 yr, made the Energy Research and Development Administration responsible for managing and coordinating the national program. ERDA assigned MSFC the responsibility for developing solar heating and cooling systems in an all-out effort to create a viable industrial and commercial capability of producing and distributing such systems. (NASA Release 75-284)
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