Oct 31 1973
From The Space Library
The first powered flight of the X-24B lifting body was aborted when the igniters failed to function properly during the prelaunch sequence check. The B-52 aircraft and the captive X-24B returned to Ed-wards Air Force Base, Calif., without mishap. (NASA prog off)
October 31-November 22: The U.S.S.R. launched biological satellite Cos-mos 605 from Baykonur Cosmodrome into orbit with a 400-km (248.6- mi) apogee, 214-km (133-mi) perigee, 90.7-min period, and 62.8° inclination. Tass reported that Cosmos 605 carried white rats, steppe turtles, insects, fungi, and instruments to monitor their condition. Objectives of the mission were to study the effects of space on living organisms and to test life-sustaining systems for biological subjects. The spacecraft was recovered Nov. 22. Dr. Avetik I. Burnazyan, U.S.S.R. Deputy Minister of Public Health, said in a Pravda article on Nov. 9 that the satellite was a continuation of earlier Soviet experiments designed to gain statistically reliable data on the effects of weightlessness on individual cells of organisms and the effects of radiation on the genetic properties of organisms. Previous Soviet biological satellites included Cosmos 110 (launched Feb. 22, 1966, carrying two dogs for a 22-day mission) and Cosmos 368 (launched Oct. 8, 1970, carrying yeast cells, seeds, and onion bulbs all of which were exposed to radiation during a 6-day mission). (GSFC SSR, 10/31/ 73, 11/30/73; FBIS-Sov, 11/1/73, Ul; 11/9/73, Ul ; 11/13/73, U1-U3; NYT, 11/25/73, 23; SBD, 11/2/73, 10)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
