Astronautical and Aeronautical Events of 1962 - NASA's History Office

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1902 101
February 8, 1962, TIROS IV had exceeded its designed performance
and clarity of pictures from the new (Tegea) lens was outstanding.
It had transmitted some 30,000 pictures to date.
June 14: Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr., was awarded the Aero
Club’s Godfrey L. Cabot Award in Boston, as America’s first man
in space.
Astronaut Gus Grissom was awarded an honorary Doctorate of
Space Science degree by the Brevard Engineering College,
Melbourne, Florida.
House Committee on Science and Astronautics reportedly ordered
an investigation of alleged government discrimination against
women, naming in executive session Congressman Victor L.
Anfuso as chairman of a special nine-man, two-woman investiga-
tion subcommittee.
Army Pershing test missile destroyed itself shortly after second-
stage ignition following launch at AMR.
Arm announced the activation of the first Pershing missile bat-
tazon at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
June 14-September 16: GSFC Test and Evaluation Division conducted
“simulationJJ summer workshop to promote exchange of technical
information between scientists and the GSFC staff. Selected
subjects on space environment simulation will be presented by
GSFC scientists before professorgraduate-student teams.
June 15: Two-stage Nike-Apache sounding rocket launched from
Wallops Island with 95-lb. payload to 89-mile altitude with GSFC
experiment to measure electron density and electron collision
fre uency in the ionosphere under undisturbed conditions.
0 NAsaPaunched first two of sk tests of the performance of the
Canadian Black Brant sounding rocket. The first carried a
payload to an altitude of 58 miles above Wallops Station, the
second reached 62 miles altitude.
0 U.S. Weather Bureau announced that the formation of the season’s
first hurricane would be detected by one or all of its battery of
ships, planes, radar, and Tiros weather satellites. Last year
TIROS 111 discovered Hurricane Esther as it was forming in the
Atlantic Ocean. Altogether, the Weather Bureau said, TIROS 111
had seen 5 hurricanes and one tropical storm in the Atlantic,
two hurricanes and a tro ical storm in the eastern Pacific, and
9 typhoons in the centra f) and western Pacific. In preparation
for 1962 season, the Weather Bureau arranged to transmit satellite
cloud-photographs by photo-facsimile to warning centers in
San Juan, New Orleans, and Miami, where they will be used in
forecasting and tracking tropical. storms.
0 At Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences hearing
on the Administration’s FY 1963 budget request for the space
program, Dr. Harold Brown, DOD Director of Research and
Engineering, testified that DOD is “developing the technologies
which contribute to military and unmanned orbital systems able
to rendezvous with satellites and then land at pre-selected locations
on earth.” Dr. Brown assured the committee that DOD has “no
intention to pre-empt those areas which are within the proper
purview” of NASA.
0 President Eennedy congratulated labor and management at US.
missile sites for achieving a new low in work stoppages. Ac-