Apr 20 1977
From The Space Library
NASA launched Geos 1, planned as the first "purely scientific" geosynchronous satellite, for ESA from Eastern Test Range on a Delta rocket at 1015 GMT, into an anomalous transfer orbit (11,710km perigee, 241.5km apogee, 26° inclination) because of premature separation of the Delta second and third stages. Failure to achieve spin stabilization would prevent Geos 1 from attaining the desired geosynchronous orbit. ESA planners said they would meet April 26 with the mission's prime investigators in an attempt to salvage the $12 million mission. Geos 1, chief tool of the Intl. Magnetospheric Project, carried instruments to gather data on effects of the. solar wind on earth's magnetic field. (NASA Release 77-66; MOR M-492-302-77-01 [preflight] Apr 13/77, [postflight] Aug 10/77; ESA Release Apr 22/77; W Post, Apr 21/77, B10)
Rockwell International Corp. reported higher earnings and sales for the second quarter of FY 1977 in spite of a 3wk strike in its automotive operations and an energy crisis last winter. Earnings of $36.2 million ($1.05 a share) increased 13% over same quarter earnings in 1976, $32.1 million ($0.95 a share). Robert Anderson, president of Rockwell, said the earnings resulted partly from improvements in the aerospace operations area, which had done more business in military aircraft. (Rockwell Release R-19)
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