May 25 1966
From The Space Library
NASA successfully launched EXPLORER XXXII (AE-B) aeronomy satellite from ETR with three-stage Delta booster. The 2nd stage burned 8 sec. longer than planned-failing to cut off and running to propellant depletion-and boosted the satellite into a higher orbit than planned. Orbital parameters: apogee, 1,688 mi. (2,717.7 km.), as opposed to planned 750 mi.; perigee, 180 mi. (289.8 km.); period, 116 min.; inclination to equator, 65°. Launch was third time Delta 2nd stage had failed to shut down on time and sent 3rd stage and payload to higher altitudes. Built by GSFC, and the last of the original satellites outlined by NASA when it was established in 1958, the 495-1b., 35-in.-dia. EXPLORER XXXII was designed to investigate temperatures, composition, densities, and pressure in the upper atmosphere and their diurnal, seasonal, and annual variations on a global basis. NASA later announced that adjustment of onboard programing of spacecraft’s sensors had compensated for higher apogee and useful scientific measurements would be taken that were not planned originally. All eight experiments onboard were functioning “as expected” and spacecraft was spin stabilized at the required 30 rpm. First aeronomy satellite, EXPLORER XVII, was launched April 3, 1563. Results included first direct measurement of neutral helium; first in situ measurements of concentrations of neutral atmospheric constituents at satellite altitudes as a function of time and solar activity; first data revealing difference by a factor of two (approx.) in value for atmospheric density as determined from onboard sensors and from changes in satellite’s orbit; first detailed description of diurnal and latitudinal behavior of summer ionosphere near altitude of F2 maximum over eastern US. at time of solar maximum. Results had indicated more specialized measurements were needed to reveal basic atmospheric. processes. EXPLORER XXXII incorporated many improvements aimed at achieving this objective. (NASA Releases 66-96, 66-139; AP, Wash. Post, 5/26/66, E17; WSJ, 5/26/66, 1)
Fifth anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s call before a joint session of Congress to undertake a manned lunar landing in this decade. Referring to President Kennedy’s challenge five years ago “to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth,” William Hines commented in the Washington Evening Star on the progress made: “Of course, Kennedy did not ‘invent’ space. Nor did he, in a single 1,100-word exhortation to Congress, create all the conditions needed to make a lunar program possible. The United States had quite a respectable space effort going for several years before Kennedy spoke, and indeed the first American astronaut had flown a brief suborbital mission three weeks earlier. “The foundations on which Kennedy could build a moon program were there. What he did-with advice and urging from many advisers including the then Vice President Johnson and the late ‘grand old man of space,’ Hugh L. Dryden -was set a goal. . . . “The call to leadership in space came at a particularly troublous time in the new Kennedy administration’s development. In the month just past, April 1961, the United States had suffered two tremendous setbacks in what had been called ‘the battle for men’s minds.’ On April 12 Cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin orbited the earth-a full 10 months, as it turned out, before Astronaut John H. Glenn would match his feat. And on April 19 the bottom fell out of the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs adventure to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba.” (Hines, Wash. Eve. Star, 5/25/66, A1, A5)
First full-scale Apollo/Saturn V booster-spacecraft combination rolled out at NASA Kennedy Space Center exactly five years after President Kennedy committed U.S. to manned lunar landing by 1969. Designated AS-500-F, the 365-ft., 500,000-lb. facilities vehicle was moved from Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on 3,000-ton, diesel-powered, steel-link-tread crawler transporter to Pad A for use to verify launch facilities, train launch crews, and develop test and checkout procedures. (MSFC Release 66-114)
USAF Flight Safety Review Board announced it had pinpointed cause of the Atlas booster failure during the aborted GEMINI IX mission May 17: gimbaling of the booster engine which forced the Atlas-Agena into a hardover trajectory was caused by a short circuit in the electrical command system of the engine pitch servo valve. Although several other failures could have caused a similar occurrence, the Board said, only this one could have caused the exact set of data received from the launch vehicle. Malfunction was called a random failure, but to ensure that it would not happen again, new tests would be made on the Atlas and electrical connections in all new boosters would be x-rayed. NASA scheduled the mission, redesignated GEMINI IX-A, for June 1. (UPI, Wash. Post, 5/26/66, E17; NYT, 5/26/66; NASA Proj. Off.)
U.S.S.R. announced successful completion of rocket tests in the Pacific to test equipment for spacecraft landings at sea. Another series of tests, which had begun April 24, was being continued to improve booster rockets necessary to propel manned spacecraft to moon. (Tass, 5/25/66, USS-T Trans.).
NASA had selected Boeing Co. for negotiations on $5-million, three-year contract to provide “technology for high-power solar arrays” for manned and unmanned space missions. Program-part of research effort to increase amount of power for each pound of overall power generating system-would include design and fabrication of nonflight experimental model of a 1,250-sq.-ft. deployable solar panel assembly which would have 12.5-kw. output if completely covered with electrically active solar cells. Completed model would be tested under simulated space environment conditions and would serve as test model in solving major problems of deploying large-area structures, compact packaging, and design of thin solar cells and lightweight material. Contract would be managed by JPL. (NASA Release 66-133)
In a press interview, Capt. Charles Oglesby (USAF) of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) tracking center in Moorestown, N.J., said scanners were checking on 1,100 items in orbit, including functioning payloads and debris. 95% of items in orbit were from the U.S. Of payloads, the US. had 167; U.S.S.R., 43; U.K. and Canada, two each; and France, three. (AP, Balt. Sun, 5/26/66)
USAF awarded Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) Aerospace Corp. a $353,000 contract to develop improved techniques and materials for “rapid landing sites” for V/Stol aircraft and helicopters. Contract called for quick-setting, resinous materials that could be sprayed on ground by unskilled persons in remote areas where it would be too costly and time-consuming to build conventional landing sites and permanent shelter facilities. (AFSC Release 96.66)
Eastern Airlines president Floyd D. Hall announced company had bought options on two French-U.K. Concorde SST’s for service on Pacific routes and to Denver and Seattle. Eastern previously had taken options on two U.S. SST’s. (VSJ, 5/25/66, 14)
May 25-27: Twenty astronauts toured MSFC laboratories and test facilities and received briefings on Saturn I-B and Saturn V launch vehicles. (MSFC Release 66-99)
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