Aug 7 1980
From The Space Library
The Washington Post reported that schoolteacher Janice Brown, 32, piloted Paul MacCready's solar-powered Gossamer Penguin as high as 12 feet off the ground for 14 minutes, 21 seconds, going 2 miles along a desert streambed at Edwards Air Force Base in the first sustained flight by an aircraft powered only by the Sun. The top speed was 16.5 mph. The Gossamer Penguin had a 72-foot wingspan and weighed about 68 pounds, including the bank of 2,800 photovoltaic cells mounted above the wing. Unlike other electrically powered aircraft, Penguin had no storage batteries and relied only on direct solar power. (W Post, Aug 8/80, A-6; Indl Dsgn, Sept/Oct 80, 18; FRC X -Press, Aug 22/80, 2)
JPL engineers had sent a command August 7 to Viking orbiter 1, switching off its transmitter and ending its four year mission. Viking project manager Kermit Watkins said that its attitude-control gas would have been depleted before it completed another orbit: by commanding it to turn off, instead of allowing it to occur automatically, "we will be sure that the radio transmitter has been shut off." Confirmation of the switchoff was received at 4:16 EDT August 7. The Viking lander would continue to transmit meteorological and engineering data weekly on command until about December 1994. (NASA Release 80-129; NASA Dly Actv Rept, Aug 11/80; W Star, Aug 5/80, A-2)
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