Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1965 - NASA's History Office

January 1965
January I : Operation of SYNCOM 11 and SYNCOM 111 communications satellites
was transferred to DOD by NASA, which had completed its R&D experiments.
Telemetry and command stations and range and rangerate
equipment operated by NASA for the Syncom program would be
transferred to DOD along with the satellites. DOD had furnished the
communications ground stations used to relay transmissions via the
two Syncoms for the past two years and would provide NASA with certain
telemetry and ranging data of continuing scientific and engineering
interest. SYNCOM 111 was to prove useful in DOD’S Vietnam communications.
(NASA Release 65-5)
About 500 employees of the Manned Spacecraft Center’s Florida Operations
were transferred to the Kennedy Space Center, effective today,
under a realignment announced Dec. 24, 1964, by NASA Hq. Elements
of the manned space flight organization were regrouped to meet the
requirements imposed by concurrent Gemini and Apollo launch schedules.
(MSC Roundup, 1/6/65, 1)
Two hrs. and 20 min. of radio signals from Jupiter were received around
midnight New Year’s Eve as predicted by George A. Dulk of the Univ.
of Colorado. The signals were received at the Altitude Observatory of
the National Center for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, which had
kept its radiotelescope operating for the event. (Osmundsen, NYT,
1/2/65, 1)
January 2: NASA had compromised the scientific value of the interplanetary
research program by spending too little on the Deep Space Net communications
system, according to Frank Drake, prof. at Cornell Univ.,
in Saturday Review article. Drake noted that MARINER IV would only
be able to relay 22 photos of Mars back to earth and that these would
be of lesser quality-all because of communications limitations: “. . .
one concludes that the space program could well use an array containing
a hundred or more 65-ft. antennas. One array might cost
$40,000,000, still only a few per cent of what will almost certainly be
spent on planetary exploration in the next ten years.”
(SR, 1/2/65)
Soviet cosmonaut Col. Vladimir Komarov, who commanded the three-
man spacecraft VOSKHOD I on its orbital flight, told a Havana news-
paper: “I believe I will take part in a similar trip-if not to the moon,
then to another place.” Komarov was a member of the Soviet delega-
tion in Havana for celebration of the sixth anniversary of Fidel Castro’s
revolution. (New Orleans Times-Picayune, 1/3/65; AP, Hartford
Courad, 1/3/65)
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