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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 175
September 5: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center announced award of
$4,673,327-contract to Ets-Hokin and Galvin, Inc., of San Fran-
cisco, for construction of main structural portion of Advanced
Saturn test stand at MSFC, Huntsville, Ala. When completed,
the 405-ft.-high test tower would be used for static-firing the
7.5-million-lb.-thrust first stage of Advanced Saturn.
Re-entry and disintegration of SPUTNIK IV reported by Edward A.
Hallbach, director of Milwaukee Astronomical Society. Hall-
bach and others observed the satellite as it broke into about 24
pieces, most of which fell from orbit toward Green Bay, Wisc., area
and Lake Michigan. Law officers in a wide area of northern
Wisconsin reported seeing flaming objects at about the same time.
SPUTNIK IV was launched by U.S.S.R. on May 15, 1960.
Chunk of metal, too hot to touch, was discovered in Manitowoc,
Wisc., street by two policemen. Considered as possibly part of
SPUTNIK IV, the 20-lb. object was sent by local members of nation-
wide Moonwatch tracking network to Moonwatch hq. at Smith-
sonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass., where
fragment would be analysed.
Hughes Research Laboratories announced development of high-
ower amplifier tube that could eliminate spacecraft radio
backouts such as those experienced by astronauts during atmos-
pheric re-entry. Tubes produce about 10 times the continuous
power output of any previous tubes and could pierce heat-
induced ion shields to transmit messages.
General Mills launched balloon, trailing 315-ft.-long reflectorized
olyethelene tube in test to improve long-range communications,
from GM’s research center at New Brighton, Minn. The
cylinder, 23 ft. in diameter, was designed as a relay device to
receive commercial TV signals from WKBT-TV, La Crosse, Wisc.,
and relay them 260 mi. to USAF base, Wadena, Minn.
September 6: NASA Aerobee 100 sounding rocket launched at White
Sands Missile Range (WSMR) by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL),
the rocket reaching 46-mi. altitude in successful experiment to
measure ultraviolet ray airglow spectrum.
0 JPL scientists reported that Venus-bound MARINER 11 was success-
fully transmitting data from nearly two million mi. in space.
John W. Thatcher, staff engineer of JPL’S Deep Space Instrumen-
tation Facility (DSIF), said, “We fully expect that we will be able
to track it and follow it well beyond Venus.” Signals were
reported coming in relatively “loud and clear” at receiving
stations in Goldstone, Calif. ; Johannesburg, SO. Africa; and
Woomera, Australia.
0 International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. (IT~T), announced
plans for NASA Project Relay satellite communication experiment
to link North and South America. To be launched into orbit
from Cape Canaveral this year, the satellite would relay 12 tel-
ephone calls at once, from IT&T ground relay station in Nutley,
N.J., to portable ground station near Rio de Janeiro. The satel-
lite, built by RCA for NASA, would also transmit TV from North
America to Euro e via ground stations at Andover, Me.; Goonhilly
Downs, Eng P and; and Pleumeur-Bodou, France. In another
set of experiments, Relay would establish telephone communications
between Brazil and England. Relay would radiate microwave
signal of 10 watts, compared to TELSTAR’S 2-watt signal.