Oct 9 1978
From The Space Library
ESA announced that Geos 2 had experienced a short-circuit between its solar cells and the spacecraft structure that had perturbed its functions. Although without major impact on mission objectives, the defect (origin of which had not been established) was affecting 3 of the 7 payloads; experiment S-300 to measure magnetospheric fields and waves, and experiments S-302 and 303 to measure low-energy particles. Perturbations for very short periods corresponding to illumination of the damaged part of the solar array had degraded the signals transmitted by the three affected experiments. The experimenters could probably reconstitute the small amount of data lost. The remaining four experiments and all subsystems were functioning normally. (ESA Release Oct 9/78)
Av Wk reported that the high-energy astronomy observatory HEAO 1 was each day discovering about three new x-ray sources in deep space. NASA expected that by the end of the mission in early 1979 the spacecraft would have found more than 1000 new sources. HEAO 1 data had also revealed a new black-hole candidate in the constellation Ara, bringing to four the number of such candidates identified. (Av Wk, Oct 9/78, 13)
Av Wk commented on President Jimmy Carter's acknowledgment in a KSC speech that the U.S. had been operating military reconnaissance spacecraft, and on the possibility of much wider dissemination of the information in reconnaissance-satellite pictures. Although everyone had long known that such systems existed, official announcement of "the fact of existence" would allow the U.S. a number of strategies: the reconnaissance-satellite pictures would be evidence to Congress of Soviet or other hostile activities; the White House might make available to the public pictures with lower than current state-of-the-art resolution; and some pictures might be immediately usable by federal agencies such as the Interior and Agriculture Depts. The announcement would also inform the public that the U.S. could actively monitor arms agreements with the Soviet Union, instead of relying on Soviet assurances that they were honoring agreements. (Av Wk, Oct 4/78, 22)
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