Mar 28 1983
From The Space Library
NASA launched NOAA-E for NOAA from the Western Space and Missile Center (WSMC) on an Atlas vehicle at 7:52 a.m. EST into an orbit with 829-kilometer apogee, 806-kilometer perigee, 101.2-minute period, and 98.8° inclination. Called NOAA 8 in orbit, it carried search and rescue (SAR) equipment to locate signals from emergency beacons on planes and ships.
An hour later, when the satellite came over Vandenberg Air Force Base for the first time, malfunction of a control device was rotating the spacecraft "like the propeller on a plane," said a NASA spokesman. As it solar panels could not fix on the Sun, the spacecraft was losing the power needed to make corrections and was put into a safety mode to prevent further discharge of battery power. A similar problem occurred in 1978 with Tiros-N and was corrected in two weeks. (NASA MOR E-615-83-04 [prelaunch] Mar 23/83; NY Times, Mar 29/83, A-14; W Times, Mar 29/83, 3; A/D, Mar 30/83, 171; P Inq, Mar 30/83, 10; Spacewarn SPX-354, Apr 26/83)
A report from the House Appropriations Committee said that the Space Telescope, called by NASA Administrator James M. Beggs "the most important scientific instrument" ever to be flown, would cost $200 million more and reach orbit a year later than expected because of difficulties in development.
The report blamed delays and cost overruns on NASA for understaffing the program by 50% in its early development, and on Perkin-Elmer Corporation, one of two major contractors, for failing to "properly plan for a project of the technical and manufacturing difficulty of the Space Telescope." Besides the glitches in tracking and alignment devices, possibly unremovable dust on the primary telescope mirror after 15 months in a Perkin-Elmer "clean room" had lowered its reflecting power by 20 to 30%. (W Post, Mar 28/83, A-8)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
