space exploration 1962

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N63 17392c d ~ AEROSPACEJANUARY 1962

JAMES E. WEBB wasappointed Administrator, Na tional Aeronautics and Space Administration, in February ,1961. He received hisA.B. degree from the

University of North Carolina, and ; tudiedlaw at George Washington University .He has honorary LL.D . degrees from theUniversity of North Carolina , SyracuseUniversity and Colorado College. Heserved as Director of Bureau of the Bud-get from 1946-49, and as Under Secretary of State from 1949-52.

SPACEEXPLORATION-- ---.....--1962

By James E. WebbAdministrator,Nat ional Aeronautics and Spa ceAdministration

Space flight in the United States has justreached its fourth anniversary. It was onJanuary 31, 1958, that Explorer I, a 31-poundcylinder, was launched into orbit. Now theoldest man-made vehicle in space, its predecessors having "decayed," Explorer I is still silently orbiting earth and it is interesting tonote that this pioneer spacecraft may still be" up" when man first sets foot on the moon.The first four years of American space exploration have been extremely active ones. In

that time, the U. S. has successfully launched65 spacecraft, and the broad American spaceprogram offers considerable promise for thefuture.As we enter the fifth year of space progress,it is appropriate to take a short-range look at"what's next." What will the next 12 monthsbring in American space flight?

The coming year will see the introductionof some new space programs and the continuation of a number of proj ects started in earlieryears. Among the major steps will be a newseries of scientific spacecraft, advances in applied spacecraft, the first planetary investiga-


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tion , with missions to the vicinity of Venus,forward steps in lunar exploration , andmanned pa ce fli ght.The . civil pace pro gram , conductedby the ational Aeronautics and pa ce Admini tration, can be broken down into threegeneral areas: scientific pacecraft, whicheek pu rely cientific information to add toma n' sto rehou e of knowledge ab out the uniyer e; applied pacecraft, which can be emplo 'ed in the near future to bring practicalb nefit to mankind ; and mann ed space flight.

~ o ; . vi i li st for 1962 are the -c ientificpacecraft, which include sounding rocketsand atellite which operat e in the vicinity ofear th ; and lun ar, planetar y and interplanetarypacecraft.

In the former category will be a continuinger ies of space probes, small in trumentedpackage which ar e launched on uborbitalfli ght to acquire specific data . There willalso be a continuation of the Explorer serieof earth satellite , which .\Till seek general information on co mic radiation. the earth'smagnetic field, micrometeorite frequency andallied area of interest. These atellites ,\Till belaunched into varying type of orbits ''lithdifferent combinations of instruments.

A scientific space program of con iderableinterest scheduled for first launch in 1962, iso 0 , the Orbiting Solar Observatory. the firstof a series of satellite ob ervatories which includes OAO (Orbiting Astronomical Ob ervatory) and OGO (Orbiting Geophysical Ob-ervatory) .

The 0 0 satellite is 37 inches tall andweigh about 440 pounds. It contains a number of instruments to make solar measurement of the ultraviolet, gamma ray and x-ra y region of the spectrum from points abovethe earth's atmosphere, which distorts suchmea urements. OSO is stabilized and sunoriented , so that the instruments are alwayspointing toward the sun. The first 0 0 willbe launched into a circular earth orbit at analtitude of 300 miles; later versions will beent into solar orbit.

The coming year will also see an expanded

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national lunar exploration program with theRanger spacecraft. Ranger is a 10-foot tallspacecraft weighing about 725 pounds.Ran ger will release a capsule designed to"hard" land on the lunar surface, sending backlunar data in the period just before impactand performing a number of experimentswhile on route to the moon. For acquisitionof lunar data, Ranger is equipped with instruments to measure surface radiation and withtelevision cameras which will send back toearth "close-up" photos of the moon momentsbefore impact. Ran ger will also contain asmall, ejectable capsule designed to survivethe impact through a combination of a retrorocket to slow its descent, and cushioning material in the capsule itself. The spherical capsule, weighing about 300 pounds, contains aseismometer to record "moon quakes," and atemperature recording device. An altimeterwill trigger its ejection from th e Rangerpacecraft about 15 miles above the lunar surfa ce. Once on the surface, the capsule willimmediatel y start transmittin g data to earth,and it will continue to do so for 30 to 60 days.

The first test flights of the Ranger spacecraft were attempted in 1961. In 1962, threeRanger lunar missions are scheduled; the firstof these, launched in January, was a nearmis , pas ing within 23,000 miles of the moonand providing valuable experience In spacecraft technology.Although Pioneer V, launched in 1960,provided some interplanetary data, the first. S. attempt to acquire information about apecific planet will come in 1962. Scheduledfor this year are two launches of the MarinerR spacecraft, designed for a "fly-by" of Venus,

coming within approximately 16,000 miles ofearth's nearest planetary neighbor in space.The 1,100-pound Mariner R will investigateinterplanetary space between the orbits ofearth and Venus and will carry instrumentation to record data about Venus itself, such asthe temperature of the surface and atmosphereand the strength of the Venusian magnetic field_

In addition to these programs, the UnitedStates will participate in 1962, in a new international program designed to provide

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foreign nations with space research capability. In cooperation with the United Kingdomand Canada, the U. S. will make availablelaunch vehicles and spacecraft, together withtracking and data acquisition facilities , forexperiment to be conducted by these nationswith instrumentation of their own design. .

The year to come will also witness progressin the field of applied spacecraft, the meteorolo gical and communications satellites whichhave been under test since 1960.

The Tiros program (Television and InfraRed ObS8rv:::tian Satellite) has been ai_'--ned ztdevelopment of an earth satellite system toaid in weather forecasting by transmittingtelevision photographs of earth's cloud coverand infra-red measurements of the solar energy absorbed and reflected by earth. Sinceless than one-fifth of earth's area can be covered by ground observations, such a systemcan fill in the large gaps between stations andaid immeasureably in accurate forecasting.

The pr0 3ram to date has been highly succesful. Tiros I, launched in April, 1960, wasfollowed by Tiros II (November, 1960) andTiros II I (July, 1961). These satellites sentback many thousands of good cloud coverphotos which were put to practical use. Tirosdata are analyzed at two U. S. Weather Bureaustations, where meteorologists process the pictures and prepare cloud analyses, showing ona map the distribution, structure and fonn ofthe clouds. The maps are transmitted by facsimile to the ational Meteorological Centerin Washington for use in preparing weathermaps and prognostic charts.

The satellites' value was attested recentlyby David S. Johnson, chief of the U. S.Weather Bureau's Meteorological SatelliteLaborat ory. As an example, he cited the photographs of tropical storm Liza taken by TirosII I in 1961. "These showed," said Mr. Johnson , "that the analyzed position of the stonncenter as determined from the few conventional observations available was in error byabout 500 kilometers (about 300 statutemiles) ."

Other examples mentioned by Mr. Johnson


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were the accurate forecast by the Australianweather service of a break in an extended heatI a v e , made possible by data from Tiros II ,and Tiros Ill 's discovery of Hurricane Esther_During 1962, there will be four additionalTiros launches, the first to take place withinthe first quarter of the year. They will be atthe same time developmental and operationalmissions, for the Weather Bureau will continue to utilize Tiros data.

Tiro, however, has one main disadvantage:its cameras do not always point at earth; theatellite remains in a fixed attitude, so thatduring a major portion of the orbit the camera!>J are directed away from earth, out intopaC e- This deficiency will be corrected in the_eco laeneration meteorological satellite,'in!b,l whi ch will be earth-oriented throughou t it" orbit. Two imbus satellites, flown_imultaneously in polar orbits, can provide information from every point on earth everysix hour. Late in 1962, A A will launchfIe fir t of these advanced satellites. At thesame time, A A has und er con ideration athird-generation weather satellite known asAeros, capable of injection into a circulartationary orbit at an altitude of 22,300 miles.Three of these can provide con tinuous monitoring of global weather.

There will be, in 1962, considerable activity-.. ' otber major applied spacecraftprogram, involving development of a spacecommunications system. There are two typesof comm unications satellites: the passive. inwhich ianals are sent from one point onear th and "bounced" off the satellite to another point on earth, and the active-repeater,10 whICh the atellite contains eqmpment forreceiving and re-transmitting television , telephone and other forms of signals_

Echo I , launched in August, 1960, i anexample of the passive satellite; it is a 100-foot ylar plastic, aluminum-coated inflatablephere off which ignals were bounced successfully.

A A has scheduled another 9S0-mile altitude suborbital flight of a larger (13S-footdiameter) Echo sphere which will be "rigidized" to retain it shape even after loss of theinflated ga . Later, the rigidized Echo will belaunched into orbit as a passive communication satellite experiment .

Also in 1962, in the last half of the year,

ASA will conduct the first test of an activerepeater satellite known as Relay, a 29-inchoctagonal spacecraft containing two transmitters and a variety of other equipment for relaying messages and telemetering test results.Another spacecraft scheduled for 1962launch is Telstar, the first commercial communications satellite, a project sponsoredby American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Telstar will be an active-repeater satellite, a sphere weighing about 170 pounds.With Tels tar AT&T will conduct television,telephone, radio and telegraph experimentsbetween company ground stations in Maineand ew Jersey. ASA will provide-and bere-imbursed for-launch vehicles, launchingand tracking facilities and range and launchcrews for each satellite of the Telstar series,possibly two of which will be launc hed in 1962.

Where Relay and Telstar are relatively lowaltitude communications satellites, with orbitalapogees of about 3,000 miles, another spacecommunications project scheduled for 1962launch is the high altitude, or 24-hour satellite,Syncom. An active-repeater satellite, Syncomwill weigh about 50 pounds. I t will belaunched into orbit at an altitude of 22,300miles, the same altitude required for the socalled stationary satellite which remains overa given spot on the earth's surface. Syncomwill not be stationary, however. It will move,close to a selected meridian of longitude nearthe U. S. east coast, in a "figure eight" pattern33 degrees north and south of the equator.These four programs, together with theArmy's Advent active-repeater "stationary"satellite, will provide the data on which tobase a tully operational global communications satellite system.

Jow, let us look at the manned spaceflight program. During 1961, this programen joyed ingular success, as the Redstonelaunched Mercury capsule carried the firsttwo American a tronauts into space on suborbital flights. Later in the year, the largerAtlas booster launched Enos, the chimpanzee,on a single orbit mission, paving the way formanned orbital flight.

During the next year, there will be a seriesof manned Mercury missions, the exact number to be determined by the degree of successattained. Tentatively, NASA has scheduledsix flights. The first four flights will consist

of three earth orbits each, or a flight durationof approximately four and one-half hours_Later, to test man's ability to live and work inthe space environment for longer periods,there will be two 18-orbit missions, in whichthe astronaut will remain in space for 27hours.

In the meantime, there will be a greatamount of behind-the-scenes effort in development of more advanced manned spacecraft.Work will begin on the Project Gemini spacecraft, a lar-ger, two-man capsule designed forearth orbiting missions of considerably greater duration than those planned for the Mercur-y program. At the same time, initial development of the Apollo spacecraft will get underway. Apollo is the craft which will ultimatelyland three astronauts on the moon, after aseries of earth orbiting and circumlunar missions.

In another area of manned space flight, theXIS special research airplane will continueits investigation of the space threshold. Lastyear, the X-IS flew to an altitude of 217,000feet and a speed of 4,093 miles per hour, withstanding temperatures up to 1200 degreesFahrenheit. In the coming year, it will beflown to still higher speeds and altitudes as itcontinues to explore aeromedical problems,aerodynamic and structural heating, hypersonic stability and control and piloting problems related to this new flight regime. Theresults of this program will make importantcon tributions to the development of a supersonic commercial transport, a lifting re-entryspacecraft and the "aerospace plane" of thefuture . This versatile aircraft is capable ofpertorming a wide variety ot nussions in nearspace.

There will also be considerable activity inthe development of launch vehicles for futurespace research. For operational space exploration, NASA will continue to employ suchlaunch vehicles as Delta, Atlas, and AtlasAgena. At the same time, there will be aseries of tests of the newer launch vehicles; insome cases the experiments will be combinedwith operational launches. The four-stage solid-propelled Scout vehicle, first flight-tested in1960, will undergo seven test launches in 1962,carrying research instrumentation in each case.Five of the launches will be devoted to supercircular (escape velocity) re-entry tests, seek-

COMPARISON OF MANNED SPACECRAFT

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PROJECTMERCURY


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SPACE PROGRAM-1962

EARTH SATELLITESSeries of soundingprobes and Explorersatellites1 OSO (Orbiting SolarObservatory)

SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMLUNAR, PLANETARYAND INTERPLANETARY3 Ranger (hard Lunarlandings)2 Mariner R (Venusfly-by)

APPLIED SPACECRAFT

INTERNATIONALSatellite launchesin cooperation withUnited Kingdom &Canada

METEOROLOGY COMMUNICATIONS2 Echo (suborbital)Tiros1 Nimbus

MANNED SPACE FLIGHT4 Mercury (3-orbit mission)2 Mercury (lSorbit mission)

1 Echo (orbital)12 Relay1 Syncom (24-hour orbit)1 Telstar (commercia l)

LAUNCH VEHI CL ES7 Scout (5 supercircularre-entry tests;2 electric propuls iontests)Centaur (several tests)3 Saturn (first stage tests)

ing data for application to Project Apollo.Two other Scout missions will test electricalpower generation systems.

The Centaur launch vehicle, which consistsof an Atlas lower stage topped by a pair ofhydrogen-fueled rockets, will be tested forthe first time in 1962 ; several Centaur launchesare scheduled. Also scheduled for initial testis the Titan II booster, which will be employedlater to launch the manned Gemini capsule.

The basic, or C-l version of the huge Saturnvehicle, will undergo additional testing in1962. This vehicle, which will have approximately 1,500,000 pounds thrust in eight flustered first-stage engines, was first test [lownlate in 1961. A series of 10 more test If ghtsare scheduled; three of them, testing 0 11:, thefirst stage, will take place in 1962.

A major part of NASA's work during thecorning year will be devoted to improvementof the tracking and data acquisition network,an area which generally escapes public notice.In the last few years, a very effective networkfor tracking and obtaining data from unmanned satellites has been set up along theeast coast of North America and the westcoast of South America . Also, a simi lar network for maintaining contact with short-duration manned Mercury missions at all times isin existence. Three stations-at Goldstone,Calif.; Woomera, Australia; and Johannesburg, South Africa-comprise the Deep SpaceInstrumentation Facility network for tracking planetary and interplanetary probes.

However, as satellites become more complex,capable of acquiring and tra.'1smitting moredata, new facilities are needed. Similarly,additional stations may be required for the 18-orbit manned Mercury mission, since the capsule's orbit 'drifts" due to the earth's rotation.

cheduled for completion in 1962 are anumber of additional stations in the mannedspace flight network, in order that voice andtelemetry contact may be maintained at alltimes on an 18-orbit Mercury mission. At thesame time, the instrumented satellite trackingand data acquisition network is being expanded and improved to take full advantageof the capabili ties of advanced satellites likeNimbus and OSO. Fo r Mariner R and futureplanetary interplane tary probes,improvem entsare being made in the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility.

That is the civil space program for 1962, avery active program and one which will provide a solid base for the greater achievementsto corne in the second half of space exploration's first decade. Although NASA will directthe program, its success will depend on a number of other gro ups: the aerospace industry,which will build the major portion of the"hardware," the military services, which provide support services, a number of collegesand universities, other government agencies,like the Weather Bureau, and cooperating nonprofit research organizations. It is an ambitious program for a single year, but one whichappears capable of fulfillment because of theequipment reliability and technical know-howgained during the first four years of spaceexploration.

Aerospace ln llustries Association of America, 61 0 Shoreham Building, Washington 5, D.C.

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space exploration 1962

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