The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

Ka-band
See frequency bands.
Kagoshima Space Center
A Japanese launch site on the east coast of the Ohsumi
peninsula at 31.3° N, 131° E. It is dedicated to ISAS
(Institute of Space and Astronautical Science) missions.
Kakehashi
See COMETS (Communications and Broadcasting
Experimental Test Satellite).
Kaliningrad
The site of Russia’s mission control center (TsUP). The
Kaliningrad facility has eight control rooms, including a
main one with 27 workstations, each able to accommodate
two flight controllers. TsUP is integrated with a
global network of mission-control centers, which
includes those in the United States, France, and China.
Kaplan, Joseph (1902–1991)
A Hungarian-born American physicist who was prominent
in efforts to launch the first American satellite. Kaplan
came to the United States from his native Tapolcza in
1910, trained as a physicist at Johns Hopkins University,
and worked on the faculty of the University of California,
Berkeley, from 1928 until his retirement in 1970. He
directed the university’s Institute of Geophysics—later
renamed the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary
Physics—from the time of its creation in 1944. From 1953
to 1963, Kaplan served as the chair of the U.S. National
Committee for the International Geophysical Year. 165
Kaputsin Yar
A Russian launch complex, and also the country’s oldest
missile test site, located at 48.5° N, 45.8° E. Although
used quite often for launches of smaller Cosmos satellites
during the 1960s, the number of launches from this
site fell dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s to about
one orbital launch per year. On April 28, 1999, the
ABRIXAS satellite was successfully launched from here
(although the spacecraft’s battery failed after only a few
days in orbit).
K-band
See frequency bands.
K
219
Keldysh, Msitslav Vsevolodovich (1911–1978)
The chief theoretician of Soviet astronautics in the 1960s.
Keldysh studied physics and mathematics at Moscow
University, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1938. He worked for
many years in a variety of positions at the Central Institute
of Aerohydrodynamics, Moscow University, and the
Steklov Mathematical Institute. From 1960 to 1961 he
served as vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences,
and thereafter as its president until 1975.
Kelly, Thomas J. (1930–2002)
An American engineer with Grumman Aircraft (now
Northrop Grumman) who led the team that designed
and built the Apollo Lunar Module (LM). Kelly helped
develop the lunar-orbit rendezvous concept used by
Apollo, then spearheaded Grumman’s effort at Bethpage,
New York, to realize the vehicle that would land
a dozen astronauts on the Moon and, in the case of
Apollo 13, serve as a lifeboat for the safe return of the
stricken crew. A native of Brooklyn, Kelley earned a B.S.
in mechanical engineering from Cornell University
(1951) and a M.S. in the same field from Columbia University
(1956). After graduating from Cornell, he joined
Grumman as a propulsion engineer and later did the
same job at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio,
when he was called up for military service. He worked as
a space propulsion engineer for Lockheed Martin’s missiles
and space division in 1958–1959, then returned to
Grumman, where he stayed until his retirement in 1992.
His experiences in building the LM are recounted in his
book, Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar
Module (2001). 166
Kennedy, John F. (1916–1963)
U.S. president from 1961 to 1963. While on the presidential
campaign trail, Kennedy attacked incumbent
Eisenhower’s record in international relations, taking a
Cold Warrior position on a supposed “missile gap”
(which turned out to be false) wherein the United States
supposedly lagged far behind the Soviet Union in intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) technology. On May
25, 1961, President Kennedy announced to the nation
the goal of sending an American to the Moon before the
end of the decade. The human spaceflight imperative was
a direct outgrowth of it; Projects Mercury (in its latter
stages), Gemini, and Apollo were designed to execute it.