May 13 1976
From The Space Library
Ames Research Center announced award of a $939 000 contract to Battelle Memorial Institute of Columbus, 0., for aid in administering an early-warning aviation safety system for the Federal Aviation Administration. Under the 2-yr contract, Battelle would implement a reporting system to obtain from persons in the national aviation system information on potential threats to flight safety; the reports would be processed to preserve anonymity of the informants and to make the data quickly usable to avoid or reduce aircraft accidents. An aviation-safety reporting system instituted by FAA in May 1975 had met with reluctance on the part of the public to report directly to a regulatory agency. NASA, invited to act as a third party, agreed to act as collection point for safety reports to encourage participation by pilots, controllers, and others using the nation's airways. (NASA Release 76-52; ARC Release 76-34)
Successful testing of a solar receiver developed with heat-transfer technology used by Rocketdyne Division, Rockwell International Corp., for the U.S. space program was "a major step forward in development of solar electricity generating systems," said Dr. Jack Silverman, director of energy systems for Rocketdyne. Using a large field of mirrors individually focusing the sun's rays to a central receiver on a high tower, where the concentrated heat served to boil water into superheated steam, the system generated the steam at 1366 K and 738 newtons per cm`. The central receiver was exposed to high heatflows approaching those encountered in rocket engines, and many times higher than those in conventional steam boilers. The development program was sponsored by the Energy Research and Development Administration; Rocketdyne was also under contract to McDonnell Douglas and ERDA to develop a similar receiver and thermal storage subsystems for a 10 000-kw solar electricity-generating pilot plant to be in operation by the end of the decade. (Rockwell Release RD-9)
13-15 May: NASA launched Comstar 1 A-1, first of a series of three Comsat General Corp. satellites planned to provide 14 400 two-way high-quality voice circuits in a telephone-communications network serving Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and contiguous U.S. An Atlas-Centaur fired from ETR at 6:28 pm EDT 13 May put the Hughes Aircraft-built comsat in an elliptical transfer orbit; firing of the apogee motor at 6:42 pm 15 May would put the Comstar on station over the equator at 128°W, south of San Francisco, at just over 35 000-km altitude, by 4 June. The spinstabilized cylinder 6.1 m high and 2.4 m in diameter, weighing about 816 kg in orbit, with 14 000 solar cells mounted on the cylinder surface, would carry 24 radio repeaters each capable of handling 1200 one-way voice channels in the 4- to 6-ghz range, using a technique of cross polarization that would double satellite capacity by more efficient use of the frequency spectrum. Comsat General Corp. would own and operate the satellites and associated earth facilities, leasing to American Telephone and Telegraph Co. and to GTE Satellite Corp., a subsidiary of General Telephone and Electronics Corp. The $43-million satellite was called Comstar D=1 after achieving orbit. (NASA Release 76-75; NYT, 13 May 76, 51; Comsat General Release CG 76-115; MOR M-491201-76-01 [postlaunch] 27 May 76)
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