Jun 27 1983
From The Space Library
NASA launched HiLat (U.S. Air Force satellite P83-1) from WSMC on a Scout at 11:37 a.m. EDT into an orbit with 834-kilometer apogee, 765-kilometer perigee, 100.9-minute period, and 82° inclination. The 248-pound HiLat would obtain data on propagation effects on plasma distortion on radar and other communications and baseline data for interpreting the distortions. (NASA Dly Acty Rpt, June 29/83; NASA MOR M-490-604-83-01 [prelaunch] June 22/83)
U.S. balloonists Maxie Anderson, first to make a balloon crossing of the Atlantic, and Don Ida were killed when they crashed in a forest in Bavaria during the Gordon Bennett race for distance from Paris. Police saw the basket of the balloon detach and fall into the forest; a West German search-and rescue unit said that the balloon struck a high-tension wire that separated it from the gondola. Police found both occupants dead at the scene.
Anderson, with Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman, landed Double Eagle II in France August 17, 1978, after a transatlantic flight. He and his son Kris hand flown across North America from San Francisco to Quebec, landing the balloon at Kitty Hawk May 12, 1980, far from its North Carolina goal. He and Don Ida had attempted a 45-day around-the-world flight in the balloon Jules Verne last November but encountered mechanical trouble in India. (NY Times, June 28/83, B-8)
June 27-30: The Soviet Union launched Soyuz T-9 at 1:12 p.m. Moscow time June 27 to link with orbiting complex Salyut 7-Cosmos 1443. Crew members were Col. Vladimir Lyakhov, pilot, and flight engineer Aleksandr Aleksandrov, Soyuz T-9 docked with the complex at 2:46 p.m. Moscow time June 28, and the cosmonauts entered the station to begin "practicing. . .control of large-size manned complexes." On reactivating life-support and communications systems, the crew began unloading the automatic cargo craft that had brought about three tons of supplies. (FBIS, Tass in English, June 27, 28, 29, 30)
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