Dec 4 1975
From The Space Library
NASA's winter phase of meteorological rocket and satellite comparisons had been completed at Wallops Flight Center, where 31 single and two-stage rockets had been launched since 18 Nov. Data obtained from the launches had been compared with measurements received from the Nimbus 6 satellite passing over the Wallops facility. The Super-Loki single-stage rocket had carried three types of payload: inflatable spheres of mylar to obtain atmospheric density and wind measurements; datasondes to obtain temperature and wind data; and ozone-measuring devices. The Nike-Cajun, a two-stage vehicle, carried acoustic grenade payloads to measure wind and temperature by recording time and location of detonation on arrays of sensitive microphones at the launch site that could measure time lapse and direction of sound arrival. The rocket and satellite data comparison had been the latest of several conducted from the Wallops facility since 1970. (WFC Release 75-14)
Landsat-2, launched 22 Jan. 75, had successfully completed more than 10 mos of orbital operations during which it had acquired more than 53 000 frames of imagery. Nearly 300 000 messages from data collection platforms had been received, processed, and sent to users; imagery from more than 2600 sample sites for the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE) had been processed and shipped to Johnson Space Center. About 62% of domestic investigations and 43% of foreign investigations had been supplied enough Landsat-2 data to meet the major objectives. Primary mission objectives had been declared satisfied, as well as all secondary objectives that were not time-dependent. (MOR E-641-75-02, 4 Dec 75)
The Soviet Union had landed Arctic explorers on an ice floe 600 km from Chukotka to set up Severny Polyus-23, a drifting observatory to study weather and ice conditions in the Arctic Sea, Tass announced.
Air search last spring had discovered a flat berg 7 km long and 3 km wide about 500 km from Wrangel Island north of the eastern tip of Siberia. N. Blinov, head of the Soviet high-latitude expedition Sever27, called this a rare find because the ice appeared to be 20 m thick. Research stations on such floating islands made it possible to trace circulation of Arctic ice over many years; the Severny Polyus-22 station operating in the Arctic for 3 yr had moved in a clockwise anticyclone circular drift and "repeatedly found itself in both the eastern and western hemispheres." The new station, larger than its predecessor, was expected to last longer. (Tass, in FBIS No. 240, 4 Dec 75)
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