May 19 1977
From The Space Library
NASA reported that MSFC had received 119 proposals for experiments in materials processing to be performed on Space Shuttle and Spacelab flights. As lead center for the Spacelab program, a cooperative venture of NASA and ESA, MSFC had been given project management responsibility for the first three Spacelab payloads. An MSFC team had evaluated the proposals, and the center would announce selection of between 10 and 20 experiments by the end of July. (NASA Release 77-103; MSFC Release 77-91)
NASA announced it had issued proposals to buy 6 spinning solid fuel upper stages (SSUS) for boosting spacecraft launched from the Space Shuttle into higher orbits. The decision was the first step following agreement earlier this yr with McDonnell Douglas and Boeing Aerospace, allowing them to design, build, and test the devices and market them independently of NASA. The agency as part of a procurement agreement would normally bear cost of development and production; the current bidding would be limited to the 2 companies that had agreed to develop the stages with private funds.
The purchase would include hardware, analyses, logistics, and services needed to put a spacecraft into higher orbit after launch and orientation by the Space Shuttle. The contractor would build the vehicle, provide services, and operate the systems. First delivery in Dec. 1979 would be a flight demonstrator; 3 others would launch advanced INTELSAT V comsats; the other 2 would serve for other missions. (NASA Release 77-101; MSFC Release 77-90)
Press reports said a 23 9001b solid-fuel rocket had fallen off a Delta launch vehicle standing on its pad at KSC May 18 awaiting the mid-June launch of ESA's high-frequency communications test satellite (CTS). In its 12ft fall, the booster had plunged through a platform and damaged the Delta's liquid-oxygen tank; the entire assembly would have to be removed for repairs. Cause was probably failure of one of the attachments holding the motor in place, a spokesman said; an investigation was under way. The Delta had on its first stage 9 of the solid-fuel boosters, each more than 36ft tall and 4ft in diameter, normally jettisoned about a minute and a half into flight. (Today, May 19/77, 8A; photo, 1A; Av Wk, May 23/77, 27)
Nature magazine reported that the NASA budget had met unexpected opposition in Congress, endangering 2 major scientific missions: the large space telescope, long regarded by space scientists as NASA's top priority project, and the Jupiter orbiter probe planned as a twin launch in 1982 of craft to orbit the planet and send probes into' its atmosphere. Lobbying by NASA and the scientific community might rescue the projects, but loss of either would be a serious blow to the agency's program. Nature said this yr's efforts would be crucial because space science money had been squeezed out of NASA's budget for 4yr to pay for the Space Shuttle, and further delay would probably kill future chances for approval of these missions. (Nature, May 19/77, 196)
The Chicago Tribune reported that U.S. Secy. of State Cyrus Vance and USSR Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko had begun high-level arms control talks in Geneva by signing a convention against environmental warfare and extending a previous agreement on space that had governed the 1975 hookup between Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft, calling for cooperation in space science such as exchange of data on Mars, Venus, and the moon. (C Trib, May 19/77, 1-1)
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