firefighters in New York, Houston, and Los Angeles. Results to date indicated that the new unit-which was 30% lighter than conventional systems and featured a high-pressure, longer duration air tank and a face mask allowing better vision-was superior to old-style units. The new system was expected to be introduced commercially later in the year. (NASA Release 75-25)

• Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) introduced S. 397 to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to acquire and maintain for future generations the site in Auburn, Mass., on which Dr. Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-propelled rocket on 16 March 1926. (CR, 27 Jan 75, S884)

27 January-13 February: A joint conference of technical directors for the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Apollo-Soyuz Test Project met at Johnson Space Center. Participants in the conference, held while U.S. and Soviet working groups also met at JSC (see 16 Jan.-8 Feb.), reviewed the progress of ASTP preparations and published the necessary documentation.

A joint communique issued 13 Feb. stated that discussions and agreements were completed on technical questions relating to the development of new spacecraft equipment and design improvement, mission ground-support equipment, and publication of technical documentation.

The communique also stated that communication lines between U.S. and U.S.S.R. centers fully guaranteed the flow of information necessary to conduct the joint mission. Both docking systems were carefully checked and were ready for flight, with final checkouts scheduled at the respective launch sites. Crew training was proceeding satisfactorily (see 7-26 Feb.) with the final joint training session scheduled for April in the U.S.S.R.

Soviet ASTP Technical Director, Professor Konstantin D. Bushuyev, had informed U.S. officials that Soyuz 16 (launched 2 Dec. 1974) had successfully completed a full test of basic flight phases planned for ASTP as well as performance of spacecraft systems and interaction with U.S.S.R. ground control systems. Joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. tracking activity during the flight had shown that the precision of tracking information was satisfactory.

During a 13 Feb. press conference at JSC, Professor Bushuyev said that, in addition to changes in the Soyuz life-support systems and the addition of the docking apparatus, other design changes on the Soyuz spacecraft included the installation of a transporter for the Apollo and related antennas, a new interspacecraft communications system, an optical target to permit Apollo to target the approach and rendezvous, and some flashing beacons and orientation lights. (Joint communique text; JSC press briefing transcript, 13 Feb 75)

28 January: Lee R. Scherer assumed the duties of Director of Kennedy Space Center, succeeding Dr. Kurt H. Debus, who retired in October 1974. Scherer had been Flight Research Center Director since 1971 and, before that, Assistant Director for Lunar Programs and manager of the Lunar Orbiter program at NASA Hq. (KSC Release 17-75) • Marshall Space Flight Center announced the award of three contracts, part of a program to design, fabricate, test, and demonstrate a lowcost aesthetically appealing solar collector for residential heating and cooling. Chamberlain Manufacturing Corp. was awarded $72 621 and

Honeywell, Inc., was awarded $104 255 to deliver a low-cost collector based on existing technology and the requirements of the solar heating and cooling demonstration. A third contract was awarded to PPG Industries which would furnish collector panels from off-the-shelf hardware at essentially no cost. (MSFC Release 75-22)

29 January: NASA's basic goal in the U.S. stratospheric research program was to determine the normal makeup of the upper atmosphere with emphasis on understanding the dynamic processes occurring and the perturbations caused by natural and man-made events, Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA Administrator, said at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences. NASA's current highaltitude program was being carried out by conventional and special purpose aircraft such as the U-2, instrumented packages placed on commercial aircraft, instrumented balloons, sounding rockets, and computer modeling techniques. Satellites still provided the best potential for continuing repetitive global observations of the upper atmosphere. The Nimbus satellites had measured properties affecting the ozone and had made vertical profiles of the upper atmosphere. Atmospheric Explorer (AE) satellites had made coordinated investigations of photochemical processes in the upper atmosphere caused by solar ultraviolet radiation.

Dr. Fletcher said that NASA would continue these efforts and had plans for new atmospheric studies. In addition to payloads planned for launch on the Space Shuttle, NASA would use instrumented aircraft, balloons, and sounding rockets to study the effects of chlorofluoromethanes, or Freon, on atmospheric ozone. (Transcript)

• Reduction-in-force and reduction-in-grade notices were sent to 213 Civil Service employees at Marshall Space Flight Center as a result of the reduction in the end-of-FY 1975 personnel ceiling. In addition to the 93 persons separated and the 120 persons reduced in grade, 191 MSFC employees received reassignments as part of a reclassification survey conducted during the summer of 1974. (MSFC Release 75-24) 30 January: NASA's Office of Space Science announced assignment to Marshall Space Flight Center of overall responsibility for a definition study of the Atmospheric, Magnetospheric and Plasmas-in-Space (AMPS) Spacelab payload, to fly on the Space Shuttle. AMPS would be a manned laboratory equipped to study the dynamic process of the atmosphere and magnetosphere, using active and passive probing techniques. (NASA Release 75-28)

31 January: An unexpected and sudden drop in the total number of ionospheric electrons within 1000 km of the burning Saturn V secondstage engines had been noted during the 15 May 1973 launch of Skylab 1, Science magazine reported. The probable cause of the electron loss was the large number of hydrogen (H2) and water vapor molecules added by the engines to the ionospheric F-region of the atmosphere. This initiated a recombination process between ionospheric positive ions and ambient electrons, causing the removal of ion-electron pairs. The Saturn's first-stage engines, which burned kerosene in an oxygen environment, cut off at 88 km and, therefore, had little effect on the ionosphere F-region.

Similar changes in ionospheric chemistry had not been noted in association with Saturn V vehicles launched before Skylab 1 because all their final parking orbits (and therefore their second-stage burns)

had been below 190 km, where the ionospheric chemistry is different. (Mendillo et al., Science, 31 Jan 75, 343-5)

• Marshall Space Flight Center announced the award of two contracts to Martin Marietta Corp. for further studies on the Earth Orbiting Teleoperator System (EOTS). Under a $246 570 contract Martin would design EOTS, an unmanned remotely controlled spacecraft, to operate in earth orbit near the Space Shuttle Orbiter. The spacecraft would carry a TV camera for close-up inspection, have docking capability, and be propelled by cold-gas expulsion. Under a $64 000 contract Martin would develop a complete set of requirements for the control and display station, a unit in the Orbiter that would contain control equipment common to all experiments requiring a teleoperator system. (MSFC Release 75-29)

NASA had awarded a $152 565 000 cost-plus-award-fee contract to Martin Marietta Corp. for the design, development, and test of the Space Shuttle external tank, Marshall Space Flight Center announced. The contract, which covered the first increment of the external tank project for 1 Sept. 1973 to 30 June 1980, called for a maximum production rate of 24 tanks per year and delivery of major ground-test articles and 6 flight-model tanks. The work would be done at Michoud Assembly Facility under the direction of MSFC. (MSFC Release 75-28) During January: Opportunities and Choices in Space Science, 1974, a report published by the Space Science Board of the National Research Council, recommended that NASA undertake the Large Space Telescope as the only new space research start in FY 1976. The telescope should be followed by a series of permanent national and international observatories in orbit. The report also recommended that, budget permitting, NASA undertake in 1977 a lunar- polar mission, a Pioneer-Jupiter orbiter, a Mariner-Jupiter- Uranus mission, and a solar maximum mission. However, NASA should compare the importance of the Pioneer-Jupiter orbiter with the Mariner-Jupiter-Uranus mission if current FY 1977 budget estimates would not support both missions. Other recommendations included an immediate reevaluation of strategy for missions to explore the outer solar system during the next decade and for returning a Martian surface sample to earth instead of landing an unmanned laboratory to perform analyses as current plans propose.

The report strongly endorsed the High Energy Astronomical Observatories (HEAO), Pioneer- Venus mission, and MarinerJupiter Saturn mission as vital to the nation's space science efforts. (Text)

• Contracts involving $25 000 or more awarded by Marshall Space Flight Center during the month totaled nearly $200 million. Among them were awards to Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., Inc., for $67 500 to develop the capability of predicting radiant heating at the base region of the Space Shuttle, and for $49 971 to continue a two-phase study of flow effects on Space Shuttle plume simulation. Lockheed also had received $59 740 to continue analyses of Apollo Telescope Mount data obtained during the Skylab mission. A $29 945 contract had gone to Northrop Services, Inc., to continue studies on Space Tug recovery of a spinning satellite.

The U.S. Army Engineer Div., Ala., had received two contracts. A $2-million contract had been awarded for construction at MSFC of the

structural test facility for the Solid Rocket Booster and a $2.93-million contract has been awarded for construction and modifications to the Dynamic Test Facility for vibration testing of the Space Shuttle in the vertical positions. The contracts also included a $152.6-million award to Martin Marietta Corp. for the design, development, test, and evaluation of the Space Shuttle external tank, including six flight units and test hardware.

MSFC had awarded the Dept. of Commerce $60 000 for an atmospheric measuring program. Bendix Corp. had received $99 736 for a Skylab control-moment gyro anomaly investigation, and the University of New York had received $36 253 to continue data analysis of a Skylab zodiacal light experiment. (MSFC Release 75-39)