May 20 1976
From The Space Library
The U.S. Navy launched an experimental ocean-surveillance satellite-part of the Whitecloud system developed by the Naval Research Laboratory-on 30 April from Vandenberg AFB aboard an Atlas launch vehicle, reported Defense/Space Business Daily. The satellite was in a near-circular orbit of 1122-km apogee, 1104-km perigee, inclined 63.5°, with a period of 107.5 min. (SBD, 20 May 76, 21)
NASA Hq conducted a news conference on the Viking mission to Mars, with Dr. Noel Hinners, Associate Administrator for Space Science; Robert Kraemer, director of planetary programs; Walter Jakobowski, Viking program manager; James Martin, Jr., Viking project manager; and Dr. Gerald S. Soffen, Viking project scientist, to review the mission and answer questions. Dr. Anthony Calio, NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Science, opened the session by recalling the work done on Viking over the past 7 yr that would culminate in Viking's reaching Mars within the next few weeks. The U.S. for the first time would be operating 4 spacecraft simultaneously, 2 in orbit and 2 on the planet's surface. Kraemer mentioned Galileo's sighting of Mars in 1609, the detection of "canali" on the planet's surface by Schiaparelli and others in the 1800s, and Percival Lowell's founding of the Lowell Observatory in 1894 followed by his publication of reports on "Mars and Its Canals" and "Mars as the Abode of Life." Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan stories and "grandfather of science fiction writers," began writing stories about civilization on Mars that had kept the public "waiting ever since to get down to the surface and see what is there." Although, as Kraemer pointed out, 4 Mariner missions had shown that civilization did not actually exist on Mars, nothing had ruled out the existence of life, and that was a purpose of the Viking mission.
Jakobowski reviewed the history of Voyager, Surveyor, and Viking, especially the 1971 Mariner flyby that revealed Mars as a dynamic planet. Martin, Viking project manager at Langley Research Center, said the 2 Viking spacecraft had been flying for a long time and had turned in "exceptionally good" performance; this would be the first mission to use optical navigation to confirm radio-tracking data, and the first set of results had shown the spacecraft to be "right on course." Martin added that-as an expression of confidence in his team-a quiet period had been declared the coming week when most of the flight team would be on vacation; "the team needs that time off to get ready for a pretty active and hectic summer," he said. A.T. (Tom) Young, Viking mission director at L.RC, showed slides of mission operations and possible landing sites, reviewing the reasons for site selection and what NASA hoped to learn in both scientific and engineering areas, concluding with a summary of expected activities during the first 20 days on Mars. Viking-mission audio from JPL would be available starting about 15 June.
Dr. Soffen noted that the scientific questions about Mars covered more than the presence of life there, which was only one of 13 investigations to be conducted by Viking, and suggested that the press representatives "ought to prepare yourselves from an educational point of view about all the experiments other than just the biology." The first question raised by the press was on the indicators of a safe landing; Martin replied that there would be 5-telemetry from a footpad switch; startup of the lander computer, accompanied by turnoff of the descent engine heaters; drop on equipment-power bus with shutoff of entry equipment; and switch in data rate from the orbiter-to-lander 4-kilobit rate to a 16-kb rate for sending pictures to the orbiter. A question about turning on the backup lander computer got a detailed response involving detectors and switches in a complex procedure that occur when "the second computer hollers for help," as Young put it. Other questions concerned dust storms, camera resolution, and chances of success; Soffen concluded by noting "if we knew the answers, we wouldn't have to do this mission." (Text, 20 May 76; NASA Releases 76-90, 76-98)
NASA announced delivery of experiment hardware for the first of three High Energy Astronomy Observatories (HEAD) to the prime contractor, TRW Systems of Redondo Beach, Calif. The hardware consisted of 4 experiments to survey and map x-ray sources during the 6-mo mission of HERO-A in 1977. A Naval Research Laboratory experiment (Dr. Herbert Friedman, principal investigator) would use a large-area survey instrument to locate x-ray sources and obtain data for studying the physics and evolution of energy sources. An experiment built by Goddard Space Flight Center with assistance from the Calif. Institute of Technology would measure emissions and absorptions of diffuse x-rays and correlate results with radio and visible light ray emission; principal investigators were GSFC's Dr. Elihu Boldt and Caltech's Dr. Gordon Garmire. A third experiment, for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and MIT, was a scanning modulation collimator to determine precise celestial positions of selected x-ray sources and investigate their size and structure; principal investigators were SAO'S Dr. Herbert Gursky and MIT's Dr. Hale Bradt. The fourth experiment, for the University of Calif. at San Diego and MIT, would determine the position, spectrum, time variations, intensity, and other properties of hard x-rays and low-energy gamma rays; principal investigators were UCSD's Dr. Laurence Peterson and MIT's Dr. Walter Lewin. Data gathered by the HERO missions could lead to new theories about energy production and high-density nuclear matter. Marshall Space Flight Center, which would manage HERO for the Office of Space Science, directed TRW in designing and building the observatories and integrating and testing the overall system, including the experiments. (NASA Release 76-100; MSFC Release 76-86)
NASA announced signature of an agreement between the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and the Langley Research Center to provide university participation in the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) space research program managed by LaRC, which would use the Space Shuttle to launch and retrieve an earth-orbiting multipurpose experiment carrier starting late in 1979. USRA was established in 1969 through the National Academy of Sciences as a consortium of 50 universities in the U.S., through which the academic community could work with NASA on scientific and technological developments in the space program; its headquarters was at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The agreement with LaRC called for USRA to solicit, select, and implement university experiments for each LDEF mission, with funds provided by the sponsoring organizations. NASA would also seek participants in the LDEF program through a formal announcement of opportunity inviting private companies, research and engineering institutes, and other government agencies to provide space experiments for LDEF missions. (NASA Release 76-99)
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