New U.S. Satellites Circling Earth

Press, Volume C, Issue 29673, 17 November 1961, Page 15

New U.S. Satellites Circling Earth

<NZ Press Assoaatton— Copyright) CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida), November 16. Three new United States space satellites were circling the earth today, two of them boosted aloft by the same rocket.

The triple success marked one of the most productive days in United States missile history, American Associated Press said. It was marred only by an earlier failure yesterday to send a rocket to investigate the deadly Van Allen radiation belt in space. The rocket, launched from Point Arguello, California, exploded soon after launching. Soon after, however, a Discoverer satellite was sent aloft from the launching pad at Vandenberg Air Force base, also on the California coast This firing—another in a long series of firings aimed at recovering data capsules on their way back to earth—was the first successful Discoverer launching after two failures last month. A recovery attempt will be made in a few days A few hours later, a 50ton Thor-Abie-Star rocket shot skywards from the missile centre here carrying Transit 48, a space navigation satellite powered by a nuclear generator. Sitting on top of it was a satellite shaped like a door knob and known as ‘T'raac.”

In the third successful double launch in United States space history, the satellites went into space orbits about 600 miles up. Their transmitters were sending loud, clear signals as they whirled round the earth. If the navigation signals proved accurate enough the satellites might be used as the first instalment of a foursatellite system which the United States Navy hoped to have working by late next year. The system would give clear navigational “fixes” to ships anywhere in the world. The “Traac” (transit research and altitude control) was designed to check the feasibility of using the earth’s gravitational pull to keep a satellite permanently stabilised with one side pointing towards earth as it whirled round in orbit. The door knob - shaped satellite was to shoot out long antennae in a few days, to give it what scienticts believed to be the ideal form fo- such stabilisation. Yesterday’s successes gave the United States a total of 59 successful earth satellites in less than four years, compared with 13 for the Soviet Union.