Sep 18 1980
From The Space Library
Tass reported that Soyuz 38, launched September 18, carried a Cuban cosmonaut and a Soviet mission commander to join cosmonaut Leonid Popov and Valery Ryumin, who were within two weeks of breaking a space endurance record on the orbiting Salyut 6 space station. Armando Tamayo Mendez, 38, was the seventh non-Soviet citizen to fly in the USSR's Intercosmos program. His companion on Soyuz 38 was veteran cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko. (W Post, Sept 19/80, A-30)
NASA announced that Administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch had signed a memorandum of understanding with Dr. David H. Jacobson, vice president of South Africa's council for scientific and industrial research, for establishment of a Landsat ground station near Johannesburg. The pact would let the South African council, an early user of Landsat Data, operate a ground station at Hartebeesthoek and receive, process, and disseminate data. The council would pay for a ground station and attending costs, plus an annual access fee of $200,000 after the first six months of data receipt, and would have to make Landsat Data available on a nondiscriminatory basis. Landsat users in southern Africa would have access to regular coverage of the region, as a contribution to development efforts of southern African nations.
Nine Landsat stations were operating outside the United States, two in Canada and one each in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, India, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. The People's Republic of China and Thailand were buying ground station equipment, and other ground stations were being planned. (NASA Release 80-147)
ComSatCorp announced appointment of Dr. Delbert D. Smith, vice president for corporate affairs, to a three-year term on the board of the International Institute of Communications (IIC) at the latter's annual conference. Smith led a conference discussion of satellite communications for social and developmental purposes.
The IIC, based in London, was set up to further international cooperation in the field of communications; it put out research and policy studies of the impact of media on society and analyzed the implications of communications technology, seeking to eliminate barriers to the free flow of communications. (ComSatCorp Release 80-33)
INTELSAT announced that it would buy an additional INTELSAT V satellite from Ford Aerospace and an additional NASA Atlas Centaur vehicle to launch it. The first INTELSAT V launch had been scheduled for December 1980. The ninth in the INTELSAT V series would help fill domestic and international demand until higher capacity comsats became available in the mid-1980s. INTELSAT's decision would add about U.S. $70 million to the cost of the INTELSAT V program, estimated at U.S. $650 million. (INTELSAT Release 80-19-I)
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