SPACESHIP IN ORBIT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29205, 16 May 1960, Page 11

SPACESHIP IN ORBIT

Four-Ton Soviet Satellite

(N.Z. Preu Auoctatton—Copy right i (Rec. 10 p.m.) MOSCOW, May 15 Russia today announced the successful launching of a satellite carrying a dummy spaceman in a cabin simulating conditions for manned flight in space. The announcement came on the eve of the summit conference in Paris. A statement by the-Soviet news agency, Tass, said that the spaceship-satellite, weighing more than four tons, was now orbiting the earth every 91 minutes about 200 miles up. It was not planned to recover the pressurised cabin, weighing some two and a half tons, contained in the spaceship-satellite, which carries the dummy spaceman and equipment, including food containers.

“This lays the beginning for difficult endeavours to build reliable spaceships, guaranteeing safe manned flights into outer space,” the Tass announcement said.

News of the launching coming at this / time follows the Soviet pattern of attempting to score a propaganda victory at times of international negotiations or discussiops.

The Tass statement said: “For the last few, years, the Soviet Union has been conducting scientific research and designing work to prepare a manned flight into outer space. “The Soviet Union’s achievements in the creation of artificial earth satellites of huge weight and size, the successful testing of powerful rocket carriers, capable of orbiting, a sputnik weighing several tons, have paved the way to the building and testing of a spaceship for long, manned flights into outer space.” The statement added: “On May 15. 1930, the Soviet Union orbited a spaceship round the earth. “According to the available information, the satellite-ship was put into a' pre-calculated orbit, which is close to circular and some 320 kilometres (about 200 miles) above the surface of the earth, where it separated from the carrier rocket’s last stage. “The satellite-ship’s initial period of revolution around the earth is 91 minutes. Its inclination to the equatorial plane is 65 degrees “The satellite-ship weighs four tons 992 J lb without the last stage of the carrier rocket “The ship has a pressured cabin on board, which contains a dummy spaceman, all the necessary equipment for a future manned flight and. moreover, various instrumentation weighing 1477 kilograms (approximately 32501 b) together with the sources

of power supply,” the announcement said. “Not Stupendous’* Asked to comment on the latest Soviet achievement, Professor D. F. Lawden, professor of ipathematics at the University of Canterbury and a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, said that putting four tons into space was not in itself a stupendous achievement

“If they can send a, rocket to the moon which weighed about a ton, then this latest attempt of putting a four-ton space satellite into orbit 200 miles above the earth, while a fine effort, is nothing to get unduly excited about,” said Professor Lawden. He said that the weight of the spaceship was only consistent with the weight of each succeeding rocket the Russians were sending into outer space.