May 12 1978
From The Space Library
NASA announced launch of ESA's orbital test satellite 2 Ots 2 at 6:59pm EDT, May 11, from Cape Canaveral toward a stationary orbit 22 300mi over Gabon in West Africa. A Delta vehicle had put the satellite into synchronous-transfer orbit with apogee of 36 042km, perigee of 185km, and inclination of 27.4°. An apogee boost motor fired 37hr after launch at fifth apogee had circularized the orbit so that Ots 2 could drift to its final location above the equator at 10°E. Ots 2 would remain for 6 or 7yr relaying telecasts among nations of the European Broadcast Union and carrying as many as 7000 telephone calls at a time.
This new comsat was one of two experimental models built by ESA to test performance in orbit; their descendants, European operational comsats, would serve in the 1980s as satellite links for intra-European telephone, telegraph, and telex traffic and would provide western Europe with television relay.
The first launch of an Ots from Cape Canaveral Sept. 13, 1977, had failed when the Delta first stage exploded 55sec after liftoff. The probable cause (burn-through of a solid-propellant strap-on Castor IV motor at the bottom of the first-stage Thor booster) had been avoided for further flights by increasing the thickness of insulation between the solid propellant and the exterior motor case.
Industries in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Spain had built the spacecraft under ESA supervision; prime contractor was British Aerospace Dynamics Corp. Under an agreement with the U.S., ESA would reimburse NASA for the cost of the Delta launch vehicle, launch services, and other administrative costs totaling $417 million. GSFC had provided technical direction of the Delta project; Kennedy Space Center's expendable vehicles directorate was responsible to GSFC for launch operations. (MOR M-492-210-78-02 [prelaunch] Apr 27/78; NASA Release 78-53; W Post, May 12/78, B-6; ESA Release Apr 7, 12/78; May 8, 17/78)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced it had agreed to participate during May in an experiment called Avefria (Spanish for lapwing) to perturb the atmosphere so that scientists could study ionospheric irregularities and their effects on radio communications. The experiment would create a high-altitude barium-ion cloud in the ionosphere (an atmospheric layer 25 to 250mi above earth in which radio signals typically travel for long distances) by rocket-borne release of barium-metal vapor. Optical observation and radio-communications stations in Nev. would make scientific measurements of the cloud and its interaction with the ionosphere. Major observation point would be the Tonopah (Nev.) Test Range; JPL would operate a second observation station at its Table Mountain astronomy site near Wrightwood, Calif. (JPL Universe, May 12/78, 1)
NASA announced Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. biotechnologists and engineers would use frogs on the Space Shuttle as research subjects to study inner-ear balance as the cause of space sickness that had afflicted some astronauts. Under a 6mo contract with Ames Research Center, Lockheed researchers would first study the behavior in space of the frog's otolith nerve bundle, which closely resembled man's. Microelectronic sensors inserted in the frogs would periodically feed data into recorders on the ground and in space. Preflight ground-based tests using a centrifuge would furnish baseline data to compare with information obtained in weightlessness. (JSC Roundup, May 12/78, 4; NASA Act, May 78, 14)
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