May 19 1965
From The Space Library
A 71-ton Little Joe II rocket fired from White Sands Missile Range, N. Mex, to test the Apollo spacecraft escape system split into fragments three miles above ground following a series of excessive rolls occurring about 25 sec. after launch. The escape rocket fired immediately, however, and carried the 14-ton Apollo boilerplate free of the debris; the parachute recovery system operated normally, lowering the command module to the ground. Apollo program manager Dr. Joseph F. Shea said: "Although the prime objectives of the high altitude abort test were not met, the launch escape system proved its mettle in an actual emergency, which is the purpose for which it was designed." The launch escape subsystem would be used to propel the spacecraft and its crew to safety in the event of a Saturn launch vehicle failure either on the pad or during powered flight. Little Joe II had been programed to carry the test vehicle, Boilerplate 22, to 22-mi,-altitude in 89 sec,; an escape motor would propel the spacecraft to a peak altitude of about 35 mi. Finally, the three 84-ft,-wide parachutes would lower the command module to earth. ( NASA Release 65-145; N.Y. Her. Trib., 5/20/65; NAA S&ID Skywriter, 5/21/65, 1, 2; NYT, 5/20/65, 42; MSC Roundup, 5/28/65, 8)
U.S. launched eight military satellites into orbit from Vandenberg AFB March 9 with a Thor-Agena D booster, NASA disclosed. This was the greatest number of payloads the U.S. had ever orbited with a single launch vehicle and was believed to exceed any multiple launching made by the Soviet Union, Orbital parameters: apogee, 585 mi. (942 km.) ; perigee, 561 mi. (903 km.) ; inclination to the equator, 70°. Two payloads would measure solar radiation; two would test stabilization methods for future spacecraft; one would map the earth's surface; another, Surcal (Space Surveillance Calibration), would help improve precision of satellite tracking networks; another, Oscar (Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio), would broadcast on frequencies that amateur radio operators could track. The satellites had been unidentified until NASA listed them in its periodic satellite summary. The summary also showed that unmanned COSMOS LXI, COSMOS LXII, and COSMOS LXIII, launched by U.S.S.R. March 15 with a single launch vehicle, had become 26 satellites or pieces of satellites, COSMOS LXVI, and two companions, launched May 7, had fallen out of orbit. (GSFC SSR, 4/15/65; Clark, NYT, 5/19/65; Wash. Post, 5/20/65, Al2)
NASA launched a two-part 104-lb, sounding rocket payload from NASA Wallops Station, Va, to measure electron densities and ion composition of the upper atmosphere. Designed as a mother-daughter experiment-with radio signals to be sent from daughter to mother-the payload separated as planned at about 170-mi, altitude and the two-sections reached peak altitude at 605 mi. The sections were programed to rise separately for about 8 min, and reach a distance apart of about 3 mi. Experimental information was radioed to ground stations and no recovery of the sections was required; they impacted in the Atlantic Ocean, Measurement of the differences between the signals of the two devices, monitored by ground stations, was expected to provide more accurate profiles of upper atmosphere electron density. The launching was timed to occur while Canadian satellite ALOUETTE was passing nearby. ALOUETTE's instruments would provide a horizontal profile of ionospheric and ion densities and temperatures to be correlated with findings of the mother-daughter experiment. (Wallops Release 65-30)
The Gemini 2 spacecraft which made a suborbital unmanned flight from Cape Kennedy Jan, 19, 1965, would be reworked by the McDonnell Aircraft Corp, and delivered to USAF in July 1966 for a preliminary unmanned flight in the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center announced. USAF would launch the spacecraft in an unmanned suborbital flight to test the Gemini B heat shield design. The heat shield would have a hatch to allow crew transfer from the Gemini to the Orbital Laboratory. ( NASA Release 65-166)
NASA successfully launched Argo D-4 sounding rocket from Wallops Station, Va., to peak altitude of 588 mi, Objective of 17½-min. test was the measurement of phase differences to determine electron density along the rocket trajectory. Experiment was provided by Pennsylvania State Univ. (NASA Rpt. SRL)
Dr. Homer E. Newell, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, was among the ten outstanding Federal Government employees who received a career service award from the National Civil Service League. (Mohr, NYT, 5/20/65)
A $784,600 contract had been awarded to Mechling Barge Lines, Inc., for towing three Saturn space vehicle barges, NASA MSFC announced. Two of the barges, Promise and Palaemon, would be used to carry the Saturn I and IB boosters. A third, being readied, would transport the larger Saturn V booster. The contract covered a one-year period. (MSFC Release 65-128)
Dr. Wernher von Braun, Director of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, was named chairman of the International Sponsors Committee for Clark Univ.'s $5.4 million Robert Hutchings Goddard memorial library scheduled for completion by 1968, Several nuclear-powered, self-supporting lunar bases and a wide variety of space stations would be in operation by the year 2000, Dr. von Braun told the luncheon meeting of the National Space Club in Washington, D.C, He made his predictions during the question and answer period following his speech on Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard's contributions to American rocketry. The greatest activity in space 35 yrs, hence would be in earth orbits, von Braun felt, and space would provide a "tremendous military field," This field would not be the science fiction concept of orbiting hydrogen bombs, but rather a broad program of military reconnaissance, Photography and direct observation of foreign military developments were cited. Space stations would be in a variety of orbits and many would be manned by scientists and repairmen shuttling back and forth in reusable vehicles. Scientists would spend up to six weeks at a time in the stations to make their observations. The use of reusable boosters would cut the cost of delivering payloads to orbit down to some 10% of today's costs, von Braun added. (NSC Newsletter, 5/65, 6/65)
"Early Bird should not be construed by any government as just another door to be opened when there is a self-serving point to be made, and a door to be slammed when that point is in danger of being questioned," said Dr. Frank Stanton, president of the Columbia Broadcasting System, in a speech at the Career Services Awards dinner of the National Civil Service League in Washington, D.C, Dr. Stanton said it was agreed the peoples of the world should have an opportunity to hear foreign leaders, but that this must be done in an atmosphere of freedom "with openness and in candid discussion." He added: "Early Bird must not be transformed from the unprecedented opportunity into the most universal and pervasive censorship-both affirmative and negative-ever known." (NYT, 5/20/65, 75)
Dr. Johannes H. Klystra, interviewed in his laboratory at the State Univ. of New York in Buffalo, revealed that laboratory mice and dogs had survived completely submerged in heavily oxygenated salt water; the lungs had extracted oxygen from the pressurized liquid. Dr. Kylstra said that man might one day find it useful to develop techniques for breathing liquids as an aid in the exploration of the two new realms that are just opening up to him: space and the ocean depths. A space flier, for example, could be protected from the destructive forces of a less-than-soft landing on another planet if he were in a cockpit filled with oxygenated liquid that he could also breathe; a free-swimming underwater explorer with liquid-filled lungs could go deeper, stay longer and ascend faster and more safely than a diver breathing a gaseous mixture of nitrogen and oxyGen. (Osmundsen, NYT, 5/19/65, 49C)
Bendix Corp. would receive from USAF a $2,666,840 initial increment to a $22,123,000 fixed-price contract for modification and improvement of the AN/FPS-85 space track radar. Work would be done in Towson, Md., and at Eglin AFB, Fla. (DOD Release 343-65)
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