May 20 1977
From The Space Library
LaRC announced it had developed an ocean-surface wind sensor for SEASAT-A, managed by JPL and scheduled for launch in 1978. SEASAT instruments would record wind and pressure data over the oceans; lack of this information had prevented accurate long-range weather forecasting. LaRC research had shown the sensitivity of microwave scatterometers to sea-surface winds; LaRC's sensor for SEASAT contained a scatterometer able to measure wind speed and direction over a thousand-kilometer area. (LaRC Release 77-20)
ARC reported successful completion May 19 of a test to qualify the Pioneer/Venus probe for entry into the Venus atmosphere. One of the two spacecraft scheduled for the Pioneer/Venus mission arriving therein 1978 would carry a main probe and three smaller probes to be dropped off at 8000km intervals to measure the Venus atmosphere from top to bottom. At 47km above the surface of Venus, the probe would separate from its heatshield, leaving its parachute behind, to descend as far as possible before the planet's heat destroyed it. Venus surface temperature would exceed 500°C (920°F), hotter than the melting point of zinc.
At White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the U.S. Air Force's Geophysics Laboratory launched a high-altitude plastic balloon measuring 90K ms (about 3 million ft3) to an altitude of about 28km; about 8hr later when wind conditions were right, the balloon released from a height of about 30km an instrumented probe equipped to record system performance while White Sands personnel tracked and recovered the probe pressure vessel and parachute. At an altitude of 15km above earth, the heat and density of the atmosphere and the probe velocity resembled those. expected on Venus at 67km above the surface, the point of actual parachute deployment. (ARC Release 77-30)
NASA announced it had awarded to Lockheed-California Co. a contract to demonstrate composite-material technology in manufacturing L-1011 vertical stabilizers. NASA would cover $1.57 million of the cost of the 6.5yr contract, Lockheed $1.7 million, like others in the agency's program to increase by 50% the fuel efficiency of civilian transport aircraft. LaRC would manage the contract. (LaRC Release 77-22; NASA Release 77-108)
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