Jun 24 1966
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (2MB PDF)
NASA awarded Univac $30-million "five-year contract to provide new computing system" for MSFC beginning in 1967. Computer Sciences Corp. was selected to provide support services for MSFC Computation Lab. under $5.5-million, cost-plus-award-fee contract with provisions for four one-year extensions. Services would include computer operation, maintenance, and programing. (NASA Releases 66-164, 165)
NASA had awarded $22-million renewal contract to TWA for continued support services at KSC. Two contracting methods would be followed: cost-plus-award-fee for supply operations and general maintenance; and fixed-price for remaining services. (NASA Release 66-166)
NASA named L/Col. Robert A. Rushworth (USAF) to receive Exceptional Service Medal for his "outstanding contributions" to US. aeronautical research programs "both as a pilot and as an engineer" on X-15 rocket aircraft. Col. Rushworth, who would leave X-15 program in summer 1966 to attend Armed Forces Staff College, would be presented medal at NASA awards ceremony in October. (NASA Release 66-159)
USAF space launch crews were being familiarized with new low-cost Burner II upper-stage booster developed by Boeing to inject payloads into orbit and then orient the payload accurately. Small, guided, solid-fuel stage, scheduled for operation in late 1966, would "economically bridge the payload gap between the DOD-NASA Scout launch vehicle and the Delta and Agena upper stages." (Boeing Release)
Potential impact of aeronautical technology on social patterns of the nation was discussed by Dr. Raymond L. Bisplinghoff, chairman of MIT's aeronautics and astronautics department, at meeting of Aviation/ Space Writers' Assn. in New York City. In only the 10th year of the space age, he said, the world was ". . . at the beginning of a new surge in science and technology stimulated by their interactions with each other and with social needs, nourished by the resources and needs of space exploration." (Text, AF/SD, 8/66)
France's President Charles de Gaulle watched launch of COSMOS CXXII unmanned satellite from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, into 625-km. (388-mi.) altitude circular orbit with 65ΓΈ inclination and 97.1min. period. Tass said all instruments aboard satellite were functioning normally. De Gaulle was first Westerner to witness a Soviet launching and to visit Baikonur space center. (Tass, 6/25/66; Tanner, NYT, 6/26/66, 1; Wash. Post, 6/26/66, A20; AP, Wash. Sun. Star, 6/26/66,)
NASA Administrator James E. Webb told National Conference of Lieutenant Governors in Cleveland that new satellite weather reporting system meant "you say to every other nation the United States is developing this power technique of space, not to get power over you, but to develop power together with you over the limitations of nature." (AP, Miami News, 6/26/66)
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