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

328 pressure suit
pressure suit
See spacesuit.
pressurized cabin
A cabin in an aircraft or a spacecraft designed to provide
adequate internal air pressure to allow normal respiratory
and circulatory functions.
prevalve
A valve in the stage propellant feed systems that is used
to keep the propellants from free-flowing out of the stage
propellant tanks into the engine propellant feed system.
PRIME (Precision Recovery Including
Maneuvering Entry)
The second part of the U.S. Air Force START project on
lifting bodies, following ASSET. It involved the development
and reentry testing of the SV-5D, also known as
the X-23A, a 2-m-long, 1-m-wide subscale version of the
lifting body configuration used in the X-24A manned
aerodynamic test aircraft. Three missions were flown in
1966–1967, each beginning with a launch by an Atlas
booster from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Outside Earth’s
atmosphere, the SV-5D maneuvered using nitrogen-gas
thrusters, then reentered and descended to a controlled
landing using an inertial guidance system and airplanetype
flaps for pitch and roll control.
PRIME (Precision Recovery
Including Maneuvering Entry)
Three lifting bodies on the dry
lake bed near Dryden Flight
Research Center, from left to
right: X-23A, M2-F3, and HL-10.
NASA
PRIME (Primordial Explorer)
A mission to study the birth of the first quasars, galaxies,
and clusters of galaxies. PRIME is a 75-cm telescope with
a large near-infrared camera that will capture images in
four colors, surveying a quarter of the sky. PRIME is
expected to establish the epoch during which the first
galaxies and quasars formed in the early Universe, discover
hundreds of Type Ia supernovae (the explosions of
massive stars) for use in measuring the acceleration of the
expanding Universe, and detect hundreds of small, cool
stars known as brown dwarfs. PRIME was selected by
NASA for study as a SMEX (Small Explorer).
Priroda
See Mir.
Private
A small, solid-propellant rocket developed for research
purposes by the U.S. Army during World War II. The Private
A was 2.4 m long, 0.85 m in diameter, and powered
by an Aerojet solid-propellant sustainer engine, with
liftoff thrust provided by four modified 11-cm barrage
rockets attached by a steel casing. It had four guiding fins
at the rear and a tapered nose. The rocket was launched
from a rectangular steel boom employing four guide rails.
A total of 24 Private A rockets were tested, and a maximum
altitude of 18 km was achieved. It was followed by
the Private F, designed to test different types of lifting surfaces
for guided missiles. The Private F had a single guid-