Nov 22 1965
From The Space Library
Gemini VII spacecraft was mechanically mated with its launch vehicle following activation of two replaced fuel cell sections. The cells originally installed in the spacecraft were thought to have been damaged when one of the cryogenic reactant tanks was inadvertently overpressurized, Preparations at Launch Complex 19 and flight controller simulations in Mission Control Center, Houston, were proceeding smoothly toward supporting the scheduled December 4 launch date. (MSC Roundup, 11/26/65, 1)
NASA Flight Research Center had received a flying laboratory that would be used to provide airborne simulation of advanced aircraft with particular emphasis on the proposed supersonic transport, Called the General Purpose Airborne Simulator (GPAS), the new system was a Lockheed JetStar capable of speeds greater than 550 mph and altitudes up to 40,000 ft, that had been modified by the Cornell Aeronautical Lab, under $13-million contract with NASA. It would enable NASA engineers and pilots to evaluate specific future aircraft designs in a wide variety of actual flight conditions. (FRC Release 24-65)
At the request of Labor Secretary W. Willard Wirtz and chief Federal mediator William Simkin, the International Association of Machinists authorized 200 strikers to resume work on the Gemini spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center. The machinists struck McDonnell Aircraft Corp, Gemini's builder, on Nov, 18 in a dispute over wages and working conditions. Not only had the strike threatened to ground Gemini VII, scheduled for launch December 4, it had also halted, and continued to halt, work on the F-4 Phantom jet fighter at the McDonnell St. Louis plant. (AP, Wash. Post, 11/23/65, A8; Hoffman, N.Y. Her. Trib, 11/23/65)
NASA selected four companies to perform four-month design studies on an experiments pallet to fly aboard Project Apollo missions: Lockheed Missiles and Space Co,; McDonnell Aircraft Corp,; Martin Co,; and Northrop Space Labs. The firms, under separate and concurrent fixed-price contracts valued at approximately $375,000, would design, develop detailed specifications, and produce mock-ups of a pallet to house scientific, technological, and engineering experiments to be carried on Apollo missions of up to two-weeks duration beginning in 1968. After review and evaluation of the design studies, NASA planned to select one of the firms to develop the experiments pallet flight hardware under a cost-plus-incentive-fee contract. (NASA Release 65-361)
AFSC Space Systems Div, would like to run a four-month series of wind-tunnel tests to requalify the Gemini Agena Target Vehicle, reported Missiles and Rockets. Test series would be part of USAF's and NASA's continuing effort to determine what caused the Agena failure on Oct. 25 and what modifications would be needed to prevent a recurrence. (M&R, 11/22/65, 13)
In an editorial in Missiles and Rockets, William J. Coughlin said: "A start on a correct MOL public information program should be made immediately by taking SAMOS off the dirty-word list and bringing it back out in the open. To do otherwise is to keep the U.S. in the position of accepting reconnaissance as something offensive, in the most literal sense. It is not. The U.S. conducts reconnaissance over the Soviet Union for its own protection against a closed society. It should not be afraid to acknowledge that fact." (M&R, 11/22/65, 46)
Surveyor mission to softland a television camera on the moon had been postponed until May 1966, JPL announced. Unspecified technical problems in the spacecraft and testing gear were blamed. (AP, NYT, 11/23/65, 11)
France postponed her first attempt to orbit a satellite, No reason was given. (UPI, NYT, 11/23/65, 52)
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