Jun 26 1978
From The Space Library
NASA announced that following the June 16 launch of Goes 3 on a Delta and successful placement in transfer orbit, it had fired the apogee boost motor at 11:22pm EDT on the same date to produce an orbit with 35 469.1 km perigee, 36 679.2km apogee, and 1.7° inclination. The drift had been too rapid, and an orbit-adjust maneuver June 20 had reduced it to 2 deg/day West. Goes 3 had been scheduled to arrive on station at 135°W July 16, 1978. All subsystems were on, except the visible infrared spin-scan radiometer (VISSR); the main power bus was normal. The S-band and UHF equipment had functioned properly, but NASA was checking specifics of gain, margin, and sensitivity. Although the space-environment monitor (SEM) subsystem had appeared satisfactory, it needed further testing for possible interference from other subsystems. NASA expected to check out Goes 3 and turn it over to NOAA for operation when it arrived at 135°W.
Goes 3 would be a key element of the Global Weather Experiment, a worldwide yearlong accumulation of meteorological and oceanographic data that had begun in Dec. 1977. Largest international scientific experiment in history, with 140 nations participating, GWE was collecting information from sources that included nine satellites and scores of ships and aircraft, plus thousands of daily surface and upper-air observations by several hundred buoys distributed in the southern hemisphere and by conventional observation methods elsewhere. The experiment, part of the Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) sponsored by the UN's World Meteorological Organization and the Intl. Council of Scientific Unions, would last through 1979 and provide scientists with. millions of pieces of information from all over the world. Goes 3 would not only provide the major western-hemisphere coverage in the experiment, but would also determine how much important meteorological information could be gathered from a data-sparse area of the world centering on the Indian Ocean.
Goes 3 was the last NOAA geostationary satellite NASA would launch on an expendable vehicle; three additional geostationary spacecraft planned for the next 8yr, beginning with GOES-D, would be launched on the Space Shuttle. (NASA Release 78-72; MOR E-612-78-01 [prelaunch summary] Apr 26/78, [postlaunch] June 26/78; NOAA Release 78-66)
INTELSAT reported that telecasts of the 1978 World Cup soccer championship won by Argentina had been the world's biggest satellite television event. Although final figures had not been tallied, officials estimated the World Cup had surpassed the popularity of the 1976 Montreal Olympics, measured by numbers and hours of international satellite telecasts. INTELSAT said the number of transmissions and receptions of the games had totaled 1364; with an average 2-hr transmission, total time given to transmissions and receptions worldwide was 2728hr. INTELSAT's operations center in Washington, D.C. had estimated an additional 400 transmissions of World Cup material, other than the actual games, accounting for another 700hr. The World Cup thus ran to more than 3400hr compared to the 1976 Olympics, which had held the previous record for satellite television time, more than 2600 transmission/reception hr. (INTELSAT Release 78-18-I)
General Electric Co. and Comsat General had presented to the convention of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association divergent views on whether DOD should have its own satellite communications systems or should lease service from other organizations, Av Wk reported. Lee Farnham, vice president of General Electric, said his company, as a hardware manufacturer, would evaluate a number of considerations before entering into any lease arrangement. Joseph O'Conner, ice president for finance and administration of Comsat General, said his firm, as a telecommunications common carrier, had been structured to establish system and lease communications services.
At the insistence of Congress, the Navy had issued an RFP for a Leasat system based on a leasing arrangement. Comsat General might submit two bids, one for a dedicated Navy system and one for a system to serve merchant shipping as well as the Navy. GE's Farnham said a manufacturer would have to consider (in addition to matters such as user requirements and hardware complexity) three factors in making a. bid decision: financing, corporate impingement (corporate credit rating), and length of the lease. (Av Wk, June 26/78, 23)
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