Jun 16 1977
From The Space Library
Rockwell International's B-1 division announced it had made significant savings in awarding a contract to Honeywell Inc.'s avionics division for equipment to test electronic systems on the USAF B-1 strategic bomber. B-1 division president Bastian Hello said the new equipment would use large amounts of off-the-shelf items and would be able to test a wide range of systems supplied by Rockwell, Boeing, and the AIL division of Cutler Hammer. The contract would direct Boeing and AIL to get test equipment from Honeywell under separate purchasing agreements. Rockwell should receive first deliveries of the equipment in 1978. The USAF would use the test equipment to maintain B-1 operations; Boeing (offensive-avionics integrator) and AIL (defensive-avionics contractor) would use the equipment in supplying electronic instruments to the program. (Rockwell Release LA-6)
June 16-Aug. 18: NASA launched Goes 2, second in a series of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, from the Eastern Test Range at 6:51 am EDT June 16 on a Delta vehicle into a transfer orbit. On second apogee the boost motor fired at 11:26pm EDT to put the spacecraft in a nominal orbit where it would move to a position specified by NOAA at 75°W, and be turned over to NOAA for operations in about 30 days. Orbital elements were 36 859km apogee, 188.6km perigee, 23.7° inclination, and 651.8-min period.
NASA announced on Aug. 18 that it had turned Goes 2 over to NOAA for operational use on July 29 at 1600Z. NASA engineers had completed a planned orbital checkout to ensure proper operation, having moved the satellite to 66:5°W over the equator where most of the tests occurred. Of the original 801b of hydrazine carried for station keeping, more than 671b remained unused. The engineers had found minor problems in the data handling equipment used to relay signals from earth-based data collection platforms, and in the x-ray section of the solar-environment monitor; the data-collection problem had resulted from interference by VHF equipment that could be turned off for most of the mission, but the x-ray problem arose from faulty cabling that might require more calibrations. Goes 2 was officially certified as successful on Aug. 5-15, having achieved its mission objectives. (MOR E-608-77-05 [postlaunch] June 20/77, [postlaunch] Aug 18/77)
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