April 1975

1 April: NASA commemorated the 15th anniversary of the launch of Tiros 1 (Television Infrared Observation Satellite), the world's first weather satellite. Since its launch 1 April 1960 at Cape Canaveral on a ThorDelta booster, 30 experimental and operational weather satellites of increasing complexity had been launched to provide continuous information on earth's environment. Over the 15-yr span the weather satellites had taken more than 2.2 million photographs while traveling through 12.1 billion km of space. Not a single major hurricane or storm had gone undetected or untracked.

President Ford issued a statement in recognition of the Tiros 1 anniversary: "More accurate daily weather forecasts. . .have had an immeasurable impact in making the lives of millions more pleasant, productive, and secure. No major storm anywhere goes undetected by NASA or NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] satellites. We can be proud that people everywhere can benefit from this practical application of U.S. space science and technology." (NASA Release 75-73; NASA Activities, April 75)

• A prototype of a flexible tunnel to connect the Space Shuttle airlock with the forward end of the Spacelab was being tested at Marshall Space Flight Center. The tunnel would provide a pressurized passageway for crew members and scientists to move to and from the orbiting laboratory without spacesuits. The flexible circular tunnel, built by Goodyear Rubber Corp., would accordion-fold to 0.6 m and extend to a length of more than 4.3 m. Made rigid by steel rings, the tunnel was constructed of layers of aluminum foil, Capran film, and nylon cloth covered by a spongy meteoroid shield.

MSFC engineers were testing the tunnel, which would be exposed to the space environment when the Orbiter bay doors were opened, for structural strength, airtight integrity, and materials compatibility. (MSFC Release 75-63)

• Marshall Space Flight Center had issued a single-source request to Sunstrand Corp. to submit a proposal for the design, development, manufacture, test, and delivery of the auxiliary power unit for the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster's thrust-vector control subsystem. The APU would include a gas generator, turbine, gearbox, fuel pump, electrical controls, control valves, instrumentation, mounting system, and the mechanical and electrical connections required to interface with other SRB subsystems.

Two APUS would be used during prelaunch and ascent phases of flight to provide hydraulic power to the thrust-vector control system of each booster. (MSFC Release 75-62)

• The Air Force was again studying the feasibility of a nuclear-powered aircraft twice the size of the C-5, the Washington Star reported. In an interview with the Star, Dr. Lawrence W. Noggle, program manager for nuclear aircraft-propulsion technology at Wright

Patterson Air Force Base, said that nuclear power could be used as an alternative power source for large subsonic aircraft. Other potential fuels under study were liquid methane, liquid hydrogen, and coal. A nuclear-powered aircraft, which would require larger engines to carry a larger cargo, could use conventional fuel for takeoff and landing and then switch to nuclear power at cruise speed. The Star quoted Dr. Noggle as saying, "We could use modified jet engines. . . with the reactor totally isolated from the engine through containment." He predicted that nuclear-powered aircraft could fly for days without refueling. (W Star, 1 April 75, A4)

• NASA announced publication of the Skylab Earth Resources Data Catalog (JSC 09016), containing 35 000 photographs taken on 1973-74 Skylab Orbital Workshop missions. The volume described in detail the earth-resources equipment and techniques used aboard the station; explained how the photos could be used in disciplines related to land-resource management, marine resources and management, land surveys and mapping, and environmental applications; and supplied a detailed index for finding space photographs, as well as instructions on locating data available through other government agencies. (NASA Release 75-92)

• NASA executed a $3.65-million supplement to a cost-plus-award-fee contract with Serv-Air, Inc., to continue to provide aircraft for earth-observation and astronaut-proficiency training at Johnson Space Center. Contract provisions also called for maintenance, modification, and related ground support of the JSC aircraft; maintenance and ground support of transient aircraft; engineering, design, fabrication, and installation of electronic and mechanical systems, subsystems, components and equipment; and related logistic func

tions.

This agreement provided for the third and final year of the contract which had an estimated total value of $7.57 million. (JSC Release 75-23)

1-4 April: In Montreal, the 89-nation International Telecommunications Satellite Organization held its third ordinary meeting of signatories in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the Canadian signatory, the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corp.

Significant accomplishments of the meeting included agreement that domestic services provided for Chile by INTELSAT would be considered on the same basis as international services, thus increasing Chile's voting representation on the board of governors; that any signatory owning shares in INTELSAT totalling 1.25% or more would be entitled to representation on the board of governors; and that the capital ceiling of $500 million for payments and contractual commitments for development of Intelsat V satellites, planned for launch in the late 1970s, would have to be increased by from $200 to $400 million. (INTELSAT Release, April 75)

3 April: Robert G. Strom, Univ. of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory scientist, was quoted by the Baltimore Sun as saying in a 31 March interview that 75% of the 500 photographs taken during Mariner 10's third and final pass of Mercury [see 16 March] "did not turn out." Because of a receiver malfunction at the Canberra, Australia, tracking station, Mariner 10 could not be maneuvered quickly enough to photograph all the desired area. However, Strom

emphasized that Mariner 10's third pass was "actually a bonus" and the mission had been a complete success. (B Sun, 3 April 75, A8) 4 April: NASA had awarded a $1 388 498 firm-fixed-price contract to Goodyear Aerospace Corp. to produce a special-purpose processor to augment existing computing capability for NASA's Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE), Johnson Space Center announced. The contract included design, fabrication, delivery, and installation of the processor and any associated system software. LACIE, a cooperative program shared by U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA, aimed at improving wheatproduction forecasts by use of satellite earth-resources data. (JSC Release 75-20)

The testbed aircraft for the Air Force Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) was deployed to Europe for a series of exercises with North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) ground, air, and sea forces. The Air Force was developing AWACS as an airborne surveillance command and control center to detect and track airborne targets at any altitude, at long ranges, and over all types of terrain and water.

During the test exercises the aircraft, topped by a 9-m-diameter rotating radome assembly, would work in the United Kingdom with British naval forces and with the U.S. Navy's sixth fleet, and in West Germany with the NATO and U.S. air defense ground environment system and with Hawk defense missile batteries. NATO Hq in Brussels would provide ground static displays for NATO officials.

During all exercises AWACS would coordinate with ground, sea, and air forces through a time-division multiple-access data link.

This was the second deployment of AWACS to Europe. Since 1973, when the system had been demonstrated there, it had been equipped with additional major elements including communications, dataprocessing, navigation, display, and identification instrumentation. (AFSC Release OIP 99.75)

• NASA announced the appointment of Kenneth L. Woodfin as Assistant Administrator for Procurement, replacing George J. Vecchietti who had retired. (NASA Release 75-94)

5 April: A Soyuz spacecraft, launched by the U.S.S.R. from Baykonur Cosmodrome and carrying Cosmonauts Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov, was returned to earth shortly after launch when the launch vehicle failed to perform normally. Tass reported, "On the third-stage stretch the parameters of the carrier rocket's movement deviated from the preset values and an automatic device produced the command to discontinue the flight under the program and detach the spacecraft for return to earth." Tass also reported that the purpose of the mission had been to continue experiments aboard the Salyut 4 space station (launched 26 Dec. 1974). The Soyuz softlanded southwest of Gorno-Altaisk in Western Siberia. The search and rescue service brought the cosmonauts, both in good condition, back to the cosmodrome.

During a telephone conference on 8 April, Prof. Konstantin D. Bushuyev, U.S.S.R. technical director for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, told his U.S. counterpart, Glynn S. Lunney, that the launch vehicle that failed was not the version of the booster that would

be used for the July ASTP launch. He promised to provide Lunney with additional details on the failure after they became available. (Tass, FBIS-Sov, 7 April 75, U1; NASA Release 75-97; W Star, 7 April 75, A4)

7 April: Thor-Delta launch operations at the Eastern and Western Test Ranges had resumed on a limited basis despite the continuing strike by employees of the launch vehicle's manufacturer, McDonnell Douglas Corp. [see 10 Feb.and 22-23 March], Aviation Week and Space Technology reported. With supervisory personnel at the company's plant completing the hardware in the place of striking workers, McDonnell Douglas hoped to finish 10 of the 12 launch vehicles scheduled for delivery to NASA launch sites by the end of 1975. NASA's GEOS-C Geodynamic Experimental Ocean Satellite and Canada's Telestar-C communications satellite, both originally scheduled for March, had been rescheduled for April and May launch on Thor-Delta vehicles delivered before the strike began. Other launch dates would depend on the buildup and checkout of booster hardware at the launch site, and on availability of hardware still at the plant.

Other scheduled launches affected by the strike included NimbusF experimental satellite, OSO-1 Orbiting Solar Observatory, and Communications Satellite Corp.'s Marisat- A maritime communications satellite. (Av Wk, 7 April 75, 17)

• The European Space Research Organization (ESRO) announced the award of a $4.4 million [3.5 million accounting units] contract to a European consortium to provide software for ESRO's Meteosat meteorological satellite, scheduled for launch in April 1977. Under the terms of the contract the consortium, consisting of companies in France, United Kingdom, West Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Sweden, would provide data-acceptance capability, image processing, operational mission support, data archiving, analysis and dissemination of image data, and monitoring of the overall data-processing system.

Meteosat, ESRO's first applications satellite, would record and transmit data for more accurate weather forecasting. (ESRO Release, 7 April 75) The relationship of the scientific community to any White House advisory panel should be the "same as for any other pressure group," Haywood Blum said in a letter to the editor of the New York Times. Based on past performance, "it seems to be unlikely for the scientific community to agree on any substantive issue; witness the ABM [antiballistic missile], SST [supersonic transport], National Cancer Institute, underground nuclear testing, use of DDT and breeder reactor development fights, to name only a few." Further, the wisdom and perspective of the scientific establishment "remain in doubt.' One example was in scientific training in a time of the over-production of Ph.D.s: Dwindling funds were being used not to develop young scientists but to support "the Grant Swinger," who flew from place to place around the world "making contacts while recent graduates were squeezed out of their disciplines." The President needed counsel but, because the scientific community could not provide truly objective and balanced advice, "would it not be better for [this] advice to be exposed to public scrutiny?" (NYT, 7 April 75, 30)

9 April: The House of Representatives, by a vote of 318 to 72, passed H.R. 4700, the bill authorizing NASA $3 585 873 000 in funds for FY 1976 and $922 450 000 for the transition period 1 July through 30 Sept. 1976. The bill was passed as reported out of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics 14 March. (CR, 9 April 75, H2549-75) NASA would store $900 million worth of surplus Apollo-Saturn hardware instead of scrapping it as planned earlier, Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA Administrator, said in a letter to Rep. Olin E. Teague, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology. The flight hardware would be stored in a manner to minimize costs and to permit restoration, if required, to flight condition. Dr. Fletcher also wrote that, as Space Shuttle launch-readiness schedule and program costs required, NASA would convert Launch Complex 39 and its supporting facilities to handle the Space Shuttle.

As requested by the Committee during a 25 March meeting with Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight John F. Yardley, NASA would supply the Committee with a summary of options for missions that could be flown using the remaining Apollo-Saturn flight hardware.

Dr. Fletcher also stated that, because of the "considerable cost" to the government of storing the equipment, NASA would like to discuss the matter with the committee once again during the FY 1977 authorization hearings. (Text, letter Fletcher to Teague, 9 April 1975; UPI, NYT, 17 April 75, 7)

The Helios 1 (launched 10 Dec. 1974 by NASA for West Germany) mission objectives to investigate the fundamental solar processes and solar terrestrial relationships by the study of the solar wind, magnetic and electric fields, cosmic rays, and cosmic dust-had been accomplished and the mission was adjudged successful. (NASA MOR, 11 April 75) • NASA announced that Dr. Rocco A. Petrone, Associate Administrator, would leave NASA in May to join the National Center for Resource Recovery as president and chief executive officer. Dr. Petrone, who in 1960 was assigned on loan from the Army to Kennedy Space Center as Saturn project officer, later became Apollo program manager responsible for planning, developing, and activating all launch facilities for the Apollo program. Upon retirement from the Army he served at KSC as director of launch operations from 1966 to 1969, when he was appointed Apollo program director. In 1972 he was assigned additional responsibilities as program director of the NASA portion of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. In Dec. 1972 he was appointed Director of Marshall Space Flight Center, a position he held until his appointment in 1974 as Associate Administrator. (NASA Releases 69-124, 75-98)

• Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wisc.) said in a speech on the Senate floor that he had asked the Central Intelligence Agency to assess the safety of Soviet manned space technology. "The inlaunch failure of another Soviet manned satellite last Saturday [7 April] reinforces my deep concern that the upcoming joint Apollo-Soyuz experiment may be dangerous to American astronauts. The history of the Sovietmanned program shows an appalling lack of consistency. As soon as one severe problem is solved another occurs." (CR, 9 April 75, S5527)