Apr 27 1976
From The Space Library
Marshall Space Flight Center announced shipment of the first production segment of a motor case for the Space Shuttle solid-fuel rocket motor from the manufacturer (Ladish Co. of Cudahy, Wis.) to the Cal-Doran Metallurgical Services plant at Los Angeles, where it would undergo heat treatment and cleaning before being forwarded to Rohr Industries at Chula Vista, Calif. Rohr-subcontractor to prime contractor Thiokol Corp.'s Wasatch Div. in Utah-would process the cylindrical segment, with a finished weight of about 5060 kg, for delivery to Thiokol in Sept. 1976. Thiokol would load the solid propellants into 4 motor-case segments over 3 m in dia. and 45.5 m long, each holding about 500 000 kg of propellant. The 4 segments joined would stretch to more than 35 m and constitute about three fourths of the solid-fuel rocket booster. Each launch of the Shuttle would use 2 boosters, burning from ignition on the pad to burnout at an altitude of about 42 km; at that point, the SRBs would be separated and descend by parachute into the ocean for recovery, refueling, and reuse. (MSFC Release 76-76)
Observations from NASA's airborne Kuiper observatory by a group of Cornell University scientists reported the first occultation, or eclipse, of a star by a planet observed from above the lower layers of earth's atmosphere. The occultation was observed from an altitude of 12.4 km over the Atlantic near Bermuda, using the 1-m telescope to view the passage of Mars between the earth and the star Epsilon in the constellation Gemini. Light from the star passed through the Martian atmosphere before reaching earth; changes in the light after it passed through the planet's atmosphere would give astronomers new information about the density and composition of that atmosphere, thought to consist of argon rather than water and carbon dioxide which had been frozen into the Martian polar caps. The two unmanned Viking spacecraft scheduled for Mars landing later this year would also measure the argon present in the Mars atmosphere. (NSF Release PR76-36)
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