Jun 12 1973
From The Space Library
The Air Force launched an unidentified satellite from Eastern Test Range by a Titan MC booster into orbit with a 35 787.0-km (22 237-mi) apogee, 35 778.9-km (22 232-mi) perigee, 1436.0-min (23-hr 56-min) period, and 0.3° inclination. The press quoted sources as saying the spacecraft was an early warning satellite expected to be stationed over the Indian Ocean to give split-second notice of missile launchings in the U.S.S.R. (Pres Rpt 74; AP, B Sun, 6/13/73, A16; Av Wk, 6/18/73, 17)
NASA held a Skylab earth resources experiment package press briefing at Johnson Space Center. Dr. Verl R. Wilmarth, EREP project scientist at JSC, said that the Skylab 2 astronauts-Charles Conrad, Jr., Dr. Joseph P. Kerwin, and Paul J. Weitz, launched May 25 to crew the Orbital Workshop-had completed their ninth EREP pass. The sensors had been turned on over 190 areas designated by the principal investigators. A unique collection of laser propholometer data had been obtained over hurricane Ava. Data collected over Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay area would update topographic and geologic maps. (Transcript)
A specially equipped United Air Lines, Inc., 727-200 jet transport aircraft was testing two-segment landing approach procedures to reduce noise levels near airport landing patterns in an Ames Research Center and Federal Aviation Administration cooperative program. The aircraft first descended at a steeper than usual glide-path angle. As the aircraft neared the runway and intersected the normal, shallow-approach flight path, the glide-path angle was decreased and the final landing made normally. A 67% reduction in the area disturbed by objectionable landing noise was expected to be achieved. (NASA Release 73-113)
Sen. Frank E. Moss (D-Utah), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, told the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in an interview that he had been in the U.S.S.R. when the Soviet Salyut 2 space station (launched April 3) disintegrated. "We knew that their Skylab had come apart, but it was classified at the time and didn't become public knowledge until after we had returned to the United States." Moss, in Philadelphia to address a meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said that even if it experienced more space failures, the U.S.S.R. would do its utmost to make the joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. Apollo-Soyuz mission scheduled for July 1975. (P Bull, 6/13/73, 11)
The International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. and the U.S.S.R. signed a five-year agreement in Moscow to cooperate on scientific and technical information in telecommunications, electronics and electromechanical components, and consumer products and on publication of scientific and technical data. (ITT Release, 6/14/73)
Radio glow, a new phenomenon observed by U.S.S.R. scientists, was described in Pravda by Soviet radioastronomer Vsevolod Troitsky. The phenomenon was caused by charged particle flux from radiation belts in the lower layers of the earth's ionosphere and was thought to be generated at altitudes up to 100 km (60 mi) and related to changes in the area of solar spots and chromospheric flares. Observations had been made simultaneously in the far eastern, northern, and southern parts of the U.S.S.R. Irregular radiation on superhigh frequencies would permit study of dynamic processes in the ionomagnetic sphere of the earth. (Tass, FBIS-Sov, 6/12/73, LI)
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