Dec 20 1978
From The Space Library
NASA announced it had selected Global Associates, Oakland, Calif., to provide operating services at the Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans, La. Services provided under the contract would support NASA program activity and missions of the Depts. of Agriculture, Defense, and Commerce tenanted at the Michoud facility, as well as refuse collection and telecommunications services at Slidell Computer Complex, Slidell, La. MSFC managed both facilities.
Under the 1-yr cost-plus-award-fee contract, with four 1-yr options for extension, Global Associates would provide management, personnel, and materials for plant engineering, maintenance, telecommunications, and property and supply, as well as mail, transportation, medical, and food services. Proposed cost over the 5-yr period was approximately $26.5 million. NASA's primary program at Michoud was manufacture and assembly of external tanks for the Space Shuttle, including those for service as test articles, on test flights, and on operational missions. (NASA Release 78-192)
Boeing had awarded a $2 million contract to United Technologies' Chemical Systems Division to build seven servoactuator systems (and two actuators for preflight testing) that would raise the inertial upper stage (IUS) to deployment position in the Space Shuttle payload bay, Defense/Space Business Daily reported. Each system would consist of two servoactuators (one for backup), composed of an actuator and electronic controller positioned on either side of a tilt table in the payload bay to which the IUS would be secured. On command, the system would physically tip the tilt table to a predetermined position (e.g., 58°) for IUS deployment. The actuator motor would drive an extendable shaft 41 to 57in long to rotate the tilt table. Pyrotechnic devices on the tilt table would release the IUS, and springs would launch it into space. First flight of the IUS on board the Space Shuttle was scheduled for 1980. (D/SBD, Dec 20/78, 239)
ESA reported on the mechanical-qualification tests of the CAT/ Apple/Meteosat-2 composite (a payload scheduled under the APEX program for the third test flight of Ariane in May 1980) taking place Dec. 12-22 in the ONES facilities at Toulouse. The tests were to check behavior of the payload structure and the subsystems under conditions arising during launch; results would be compared with mathematical models. Undergoing tests would be a dynamic mockup subjected by means of an electroacoustic exciter to longitudinal and transverse vibrations like those occurring in flight.
The payload being tested had three satellites mounted one above the other: the Ariane technological capsule (CAT), carried on all Ariane test flights; Apple, a technological satellite of the Indian Space Research Organization, which would carry a communications experiment; and ESA's meteorological satellite Meteosat-2 which would continue the Meteosat mission into 1980. Apple and Meteosat-2 would be the first satellites placed in geostationary orbit by a European launcher. These tests were the first conducted in Europe on such a heavy payload, 6.5m high and weighing 1574kg. (ESA Release Dec 20/78)
FBIS reported the USSR had launched a communications satellite, Horizont, Dec. 19 under a program "for further improvement and development of communications systems and television transmissions." Satellite apogee was 48 365km; perigee, 2581km; period, 23hr 40min; inclination, 11.3°. Horizont carried improved multiplex-relay apparatus for transmitting telephone and telegraphic radio communications and TV programs, including those from the 22nd summer Olympic games in Moscow. It had a three-axis system for precision orientation, a power supply system with independent guidance and alignment of the solar batteries with the sun, a thermo-regulation system, a telemetry system for transmitting data on onboard systems, a radio system for precision measurement of the orbit's parameters and control of the satellite, and an orbit-correcting system. All satellite systems were functioning normally. (FBIS, Tass in English, Dec 20/78)
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