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

NOVEMBER 1962
November 1: U.S.S.R. announced it had launched MARS I, a 1,970-lb.
space probe on seven-month flight to Mars. Launched with an
“improved booster” into parking orbit around the earth, MARS I
was hurled into escape trajectory when vehicle engines re-ignited.
Tass reported MARS I was flying as planned on its course toward
Mars. “All systems are functioning normally and orders sent to
the station [i.e., probe] are well received and obeyed.” Main
tasks of the probe were interplanetary exploration, establishment
of interplanetary space radio communications, photographing
the Martian surface and relaying the photographs back to earth
by radio. “Telemetric, measuring, and scientific instrumenta-
tion will be automatically activated in conformity with the flight
program by radio commands from the earth,” Tass said. The
flight had been preceded by an unsuccessful launch attempt the
previous week, unidentified DOD sources said. (NASA Adminis-
trator James E. Webb stated in September that two Soviet
attempts to launch Mars probes had failed in October 1960.)
NASA reported radiation satellite EXPLORER xv, launched Oct. 27,
was spinning at rate of 73 rpm instead of desired 10 rpm because
of failure of despin weights to deploy. Preliminary data indi-
cated all experiments were functioning and that all received data
were of good quality. Effect of high spin rate on experimental
results was under analysis.
High-altitude nuclear test in U.S. Operation Dominic was made in
Pacific test area, the sub-megaton device carried by Thor rocket
to estimated altitude of 30 to 40 miles. AEC reported two Soviet
nuclear explosions also occurred, one a high-altitude test over
central Asia and the other an atmospheric test over Soviet Arctic.
Development of new type of laser by General Electric and Inter-
national Business Machine researchers was reported in American
Physical Society’s Physical Review Letters and American Institute
of Physics’ Applied Physics Letters. Called “injection laser,”
new crystal laser was powered by electrical current; previous
solid lasers used strong flash lamps as energy source. At least
10 times more efficient than existing lasers, injection laser was
expected to enable engineers to broadcast audio messages on the
beams of light and to modulate the brightness of the light accord-
ing to voice, television, or other pattern. Researchers antici-
pated that single laser beam could transmit a million telephone
messages or a thousand television channels.
Ten years ago the U.S. exploded a hydrogen device (fusion) at the
Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific, the first full-scale thermonuclear
explosion in history and the dawn of the so-called “H-bomb era.”
Dr. Lev Davidovich Landau, member of the Soviet Academy of
Sciences, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for having
developed pioneering theories for liquid helium’s fluidity at low
temperatures.
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