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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 201
S-IC and $11 stages; about 20 support and service buildings
would be built in the first phase. Water transportation system
had been selected, the system calling for improvement of about
15 mi. of river channel and construction of about 15 mi. of canals
at the facility. In planning the facility, Sverdrup and Parcel
Co. of St. Louis was preparing design criteria; Army Corps of
Engineers was acquiring land for NASA in cooperation with
Lands Div. of the Justice Dept. The 13,500-acre facility in
southwestern Mississippi is 35 mi. from NASA Mich_oud Operations,
where Saturn stages are fabricated.
September 26: Liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen engine RL-lOAS completed
its preliminary flight rating test, MSFC announced. RL-
10A3 was advanced version of RL-1OA1, first US. engine using
liquid hydrogen. Six A3 engines will be clustered in Saturn S-IV
stage and will be used in advanced Centaur vehicle. The fiveday
PFRT included 20 static firings for an accumulated 2,820
sec. of firing time, plus humidity, vibration, and other tests.
Federal District Judge Joseph Lieb signed injunction against
International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 267, ordering
the union to stop allegedly unfair labor practices-refusing to
operate cranes unloading heavy equipment at Cape Canaveral
missile launch complex.
President Kennedy signed le islation to authorize production of
electricity at Hanford, Wac%., atomic plant by usin byproduct
steam from a plutonium reactor. He commente t that such
production would ive the U.S. a clear margin of superiority in
the peaceful use o P atomic energy.
September 27: NASA announced that Venus-bound MARINER 11 had
been in flight one month, during which time it had traveled more
than five million mi. from earth and had transmitted scientific
data on interplanetary space from a greater distance than any
space probe except PIONEER v (launched March 11, 1960).
U.S.S.R. placed scientific satellite COSMOS IX into orbit (apogee, 219
mi.; perigee, 187 mi.; period, 90.9 mio.), in series to study ionos-
phere, radiation belts, and effect of meteorites on spaceships.
NASA postponed launch of first Canadian satellite, Alouette, at
Pt. Arguello.
Astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr., would
tions durin his forthcoming orbital
nounced. 8dr. Schirra’s special
cloud forma-
used to test techniques for the advanced Nimbus weather satellite.
Because of unnamed technical difficulties, flight test of x-15 rocket
research aircraft was postponed minutes before X-15 was t,o be
dropped from its mother ship.
Results of a USIA poll in Britain showed that 82% of people questioned
had identified TELSTAR communications satellite by name,
compared to 78% able to identify SPUTNIK I in 1957. Testifying
before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and
Astronautics, Robert Mayer Evans, special assistant to USIA
Director Edward R. MUITOW, reported the survey’s results and
said they showed “an extraordinary level of awareness” of the
communication satellite in its first weeks of existence.
AEC announced Soviet atmospheric nuclear explosion of nearly 30
megation yield.
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