Oct 6 1981
From The Space Library
NASA launched a 90-pound solar mesosphere explorer from WSMC, Vandenberg Air Force Base, at 7:27 a.m. EDT on a two-stage Delta into a polar orbit at an altitude between 535 and 550 kilometers with 95-minute period and 97.4° inclination. The satellite, carrying five sensors to monitor atmospheric constituents between 19 and 50 miles up, would study conversion of molecular oxygen to ozone, a layer protecting Earth against ultraviolet radiation and possibly being depleted by refrigerant chlorofluorocarbons. The University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics developed the instruments and would manage the mission under contract to JPL.
Riding piggyback atop the Delta was a smaller craft built by amateur radio operators at the University of Surrey in England. Uosat (University of Surrey satellite) was ninth in a series of Oscar (orbiting satellite carrying amateur radio) satellites launched as a second payload on U.S. rockets. Using a voice synthesizer, it could broadcast ionosphere data to amateur receivers. (NASA Release 81-106; NASA MOR S-887-81-01 [prelaunch] Sept 17/81, [postlaunch] Oct 16181; NY Times, Oct 7/81, B-11)
ARC announced that John A. Manke, famed test pilot, would head a new directorate of flight research after consolidation of ARC and DFRC, effective October l.
Manke, who made the first supersonic flight of a lifting body and the first landing of a lifting body on a hard-surface runway, had joined DFRC as a research engineer in 1962 and later became a research pilot, testing advanced designs like the wingless craft that were forerunners of the Shuttle. He was project pilot on the X-24B and also flew the M-2, HL-10, and X-24A lifting bodies. Most recently he had been director of flight operations and support at DFRC, where he would remain responsible for on-site management as well as for aircraft operations at both centers. (ARC Release 81-32)
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