Caught “On Hop” But Rocket Failed

Press, Volume C, Issue 29523, 26 May 1961, Page 12

Caught “On Hop” But Rocket Failed

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, May 25. An Auckland University physicist, Dr. J. E. Titheridge, was caught on the hop by the launching of the United States Juno rocket today. Yesterday. Cape Canaveral scientists cabled him seeking confirmation of earlier arrangements to track a satellite. The satellite launching was expected by him in four weeks’ time.

Dr. Titheridge had just dismantled all the apparatus used at the university's Ardmore radio research station to record satellite signals. Other cables arrived yesterday, one giving the calculated path of orbit and another giving estimated height, longitude and times for the first 25 equator crossings—all

usually received weeks in advance.

Then, at 1.20 p.m., came the official one-day count-down warning cable—and Dr. Titheridge frantically set about assembling the delicate electrical gear At 6 p.m. he had the recorder together again and he went home for “lunch” and five frenzied hours of calculations. The telephone got him out of bed at 5.30 a.m. today with the final one-hour warning of the rocket shot. He drove straight to Ardmore 23 miles away and with another physicist, Mr C. H. McFarlane, gave the apparatus a final check.

From 7 a.m. they huddled over the recorder but heard nothing. Then at 10 a.m. came a cable from Washington: “Launching failed.”