Oct 1 1979
From The Space Library
Effective this date, Air Force Secretary Dr, Hans Mark announced that the U.S. Air Force would realign its space and missile systems research, development, and acquisition elements, establishing two new organizations in the AFSC: Ballistic Missile Office (BMO) and Space Service Division (SSD). The SSD would assume space-related activities for which SAMSO (the U.S. Air Force space and missile systems organization) had been responsible, realigning operations on the east and west coasts: the Eastern Space and Missile Center (ESMC) would be formed at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., and the Western Space and Missile Center (WSMC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. These centers would report through a Vandenberg unit not yet named. ESMC would include the present Eastern Test Range (ETR), the 6,555th aerospace test group, and 6,550th air base wing. WSMC would include the Western Test Range (WTR) and the 6,595th aerospace test wing. (AFSC Newsreview, Sept 79, 1)
ESA reported that the West German firm, Dornier System, leader of the STAR industrial consortium, would be prime contractor for a European spacecraft to participate in the international solar-polar mission (ISPM), a cooperative ESA-NASA project. The contract would cover design, development, manufacture, and testing, at a cost of more than 47MAU (million accounting units, worth U.S. $1.2 in 1979). The ISPM would make measurements outside the ecliptic plane and observations of the Sun using two spacecraft, one each from ESA and NASA, to be launched in February 1983 on the U.S. Space Shuttle. (ESA Release 25)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
