August 1979
From The Space Library
NASA announced selection of a number of investigators and experiments for its missions.
NASA selected 24 scientists to use data from the laser geodynamics satellite Lageos launched May 4, 1976. Having completed an initial phase of settling into orbit and checking out its laser tracking system, the satellite was now ready to provide mobile and fixed receivers around the world with ranging data on crustal-plate motion, density distribution within the Earth, and polar motion/Earth rotation. The investigators would become part of a working group chaired by Dr. David Smith, Lageos project scientist and were to meet August 29 and 30 at GSFC. Seventeen investigators were from U.S. universities (six), private firms (five), or other government agencies (six); others were from France (four), the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and West Germany (one each). (NASA Release 79-102)
NASA selected 32 research proposals that would use global measurements of the near-Earth magnetic field from Magsat, scheduled for launch in October. The 19 U.S. investigators represented universities (12), private firms (6), and government agencies (1). The 13 foreign investigators were from Canada (4), France and Australia (2 each), and Brazil, India, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom (1 each). The 6-month mission managed by GSFC would remedy shortages and discrepancies in data from many geographic areas. (NASA Release 79-103)
NASA selected 40 scientific investigations For Spacelab/Shuttle flights scheduled between 1983 and 1985; 33 of those chosen were from the United States, and 7 from other nations (Canada, France, Japan, and Belgium) each funding its own experiments. The studies, chosen from some 200 responses to a request for proposals, would be on astronomy, solar physics, upper atmosphere physics, space-plasma physics, and high-energy astrophysics. (NASA Release 79-112)
NASA announced a number of personnel changes.
Eldon D. Taylor, formerly of the NASA Headquarters Office of Space Science and Applications, most recently assistant director of administration for the NSF was approved by the president July 30 as NASA's first inspector general. He had also been deputy assistant administrator for resource management at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before going to NSF. (NASA anno Aug 3/79)
Dr. Lee R. Scherer, director of KSC since January 1975, would become associate administrator for external relations at NASA Headquarters September 2, succeeding Arnold W. Frutkin, who retired June 22. Scherer, who retired in 1964 from the Navy as a captain, was program manager for the Lunar Orbiter manned spacecraft while on assignment from the Navy in 1962 and was director of DFRC 1971-1975. (NASA Release 79-106; NASA anno Aug 8/79)
Succeeding Scherer as KSC director would be Richard G. Smith, the deputy director since 1974 of MSFC who had been on detail to Headquarters as deputy associate administrator for STS (the Shuttle program). Smith had been in charge of operations during the Skylab reentry. At MSFC, he had been program manager for the Saturn 5 rocket engine that made Apollo possible. (W Post, Aug 9/79, A-11; NASA anno Aug 8/79)
Dr. Walter B. Olstad, chief of space systems division at LaRC since July 1975, would become deputy associate administrator for aeronautics and space technology at NASA Headquarters effective October 1, succeeding Dr. John M. Klineberg, who became deputy director of LeRC July 1. Olstad had begun as a research engineer at the NACA Langley laboratory in 1954, working first with transonic tunnels, then in reentry physics. (NASA Release 79-110)
JSC announced that Clifford E. Charlesworth had become acting deputy director August 10, succeeding Sigurd A. Sjoberg, who retired May 18. Charlesworth for three years had been deputy manager of the Shuttle payload integration and development program office, responsible for coordinating JSC technical management and Shuttle users. He was deputy manager of the Skylab program 1970-1972, then manager of JSC's Earth-resources program office. He joined JSC as a flight controller in 1962, working on Gemini and Apollo missions and was one of the flight directors during Apollo 11's 1969 Moon landing. (JSC Release 79-51)
Rep. Don Fuqua (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, sent committee members a report prepared by staff of a review of cost, performance, and schedule aspects of the Space Shuttle program, based on NASA's request for a $220-million addition to the FY80 budget request. The staff director wrote that recommendations in the report would, if implemented, improve budget requirement estimating, program cost, and schedule control, as well as NASA communications with the committee. (Text, oversight rept Aug 79)
August 19 saw the end of the record-breaking flight in the Salyut 6 space station of Soyuz 32 cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Ryumin, returned safely in the Soyuz 34 capsule after 175 days in space since launch February 25. FBIS had carried daily reports of their progress. Besides the experiments in materials processing (alloys and coating processes) and the intensive physical routines designed to assist long-term assignments in space, the crew in their last days in orbit had worked with the KRT 10 radiotelescope sent last month by cargo craft and unfurled in space to study extraterrestrial radio sources and nonatmospheric radioastronomy. As early as August 15, they had begun to pack the return capsule with items demonstrating the results of their space stay.
Difficulty with the radiotelescope had presented another challenge to the crew; upon completion April 9 of the scheduled scans, the antenna was to be jettisoned, leaving the docking unit free. "Space sprung another surprise," Tass reported, when the antenna became entangled with a projection on Salyut's surface. The crew tried to free it by "a minor jerk of the station," which was not successful. A space walk was already scheduled to check the exterior of the station, dismantle outside scientific equipment, and retrieve samples of materials exposed for a long time to outer space. Ground control wanted to spare the cosmonauts the stress of an extra task in outer space, but the crew insisted it was the only sure way to solve the problem.
On August 15, the crew in "full pressure suits" opened the hatch, and flight engineer Ryumin moved to the attachment point, releasing the 10-meter (30-foot) antenna with pliers, and "imparted the antennae acceleration relative to the station" (in other words, pushed it away toward the Earth for reentry). Then, Ryumin and Lyakhov disassembled and brought in the micrometeorite registration instruments and the panels with samples of structural, optical, insulation, and polymer materials, some of which were in orbit since Salyut 6"s launch in September 1977, others installed by the Soyuz 29 crew in July 1978. Total time of the space walk was 1 hour, 23 minutes: Tass noted that the suits, "fitted out with metal shielding against cosmic radiation and possible concussions" from meteorites, had previously served Kovalenok and Ivanchenkov of Soyuz 29 and Grechko and Romanenko of Soyuz 26 The cosmonauts landed safely August 19 and appeared to be in the best shape yet: they wanted to walk but were not allowed to do so immediately, although they did get brief dips in the hotel swimming pool. Later reports praised the exercise routine for its good effects on the crew, who agreed that even longer flights were possible. (FBIS, Tass in English, Aug 1-25/79; CSM, Aug 14/79, 2; NY Times, Aug 16/79, A-19)
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