Jun 30 1978
From The Space Library
June 30: NASA announced it had selected Pan American World Airways, Inc., Aerospace Services Division, for negotiations leading to award of a contract for support services to facility operations at the National Space Technology Laboratories in Miss. Estimated cost over the first 3yr of the cost-plus-award-fee contract would be $32 million, with two 1-yr unpriced options. The contractor would operate and maintain NSTL real and installed property; manage supplies and equipment; and provide institutional, construction, and installation services. (NASA Release 78-94)
DFRC announced it had begun a 2 wk flight program with Calspan Corp., using the total inflight simulator (TIFTS) to investigate advanced. flight-control systems like those used in the Space Shuttle. TIFTS, a small twin-engine commercial passenger aircraft with the nose modified to include an additional pilot's cockpit, was one of the largest airborne simulators equipped with variable stability and 6 deg of freedom. Test pilots had flown the simulated mission from the nose cockpit (with safety pilots in the normal cockpit) to improve understanding of the flying qualities of advanced craft when landing, especially in actual touchdown under differing pilot-task conditions. (DFRC X-Press, June 30/78, 2)
On the day Soyuz 30 cosmonauts had docked with Salyut 6, the USSR had launched from Plesetsk another satellite in what was believed to be its early warning satellite system, followed by launch of a new space mission series, Defense/Space Business Daily reported. On June 8 Tass had announced launch of eight Cosmos satellites (Cosmos 1013-1020) on one booster rocket. The early-warning spacecraft, Cosmos 1024, had gone into a Molniya (communications satellite) type of orbit with parameters of 630/40 000km, 62.8° inclination, and 12hr 6min period. It was the first of this type of mission launched in 1978; three had been launched in 1977.
The USSR had initiated a new spacecraft-mission series with the launch of Cosmos 1025, put by observers in the general category of military monitors but following a regime used by special-research missions. This was the 45th Soviet space mission in 1978, three more than at this point in 1977. The 1978 missions had been 77% military (not including the four Soyuz missions that had direct military application in manned reconnaissance/surveillance). (D/SBD, June 30/78, 307; FBIS, Tass in English, June 8/78)
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