U.S. Plans 18-orbit Flights This Year

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29745, 12 February 1962, Page 9

U.S. Plans 18-orbit Flights This Year

OH.P.A ■•Reuter—Copyright ) WASHINGTON, February 10. . T'T 0 , United States astronauts are scheduled to make 18-orbit flights around the earth this year.

Each flight would keep the astronaut in space for 27 hours, the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Mr James E. Webb, said todav, according to the Associated Press. The orbits would be made at satellite velocities of ®bout 17,000 miles an hour. .. Writing in “Aerospace,” the official publication of the Aerospace Industries* Association, Mr Webb said the flights would test man’s ability to live and work in the space environment. He said that beyond the present manned-orbit Mercury programme, a major launch scheduled for 1962 vrould be Oso, the orbiting solar observatory. The 4401 b Oso satellite, 37 inches tall, would be stabilised so its instruments pointed continuously toward the sun. It would measure the ultraviolet, gamma ray and X-ray regions of the spectrum. Barring unforeseen delays, 1962 would see:

(1) The first interplentary probes with missions in tiie vicinity of Venus. Two 11001 b mariner spacecraft were designed to carry instruments to within 16,000 miles of Venus.

(2) Launching of advanced weather sate 11 it e s designed to provide information from every point of the earth every six hours.

<3) The launching of advanced communications satellites that eventually would make global television a reality.

(4) Further development of the lunar exploration programme with the launching of 7251 b ranger craft that released an instrument capsule for a rough landing on the moon.

The United States today successfully orbited a Tiros weather satellite to help scientists make world-wide weather forecasts for Lieu-tenant-Colonel John Glenn's scheduled space flight next Wednesday. Tiros TV was launched at Cape Canaveral (Florida) at 12.43 a.m. on Friday, New Zealand time. It completed its first orbit about 100 minutes later.

The new satellite took some cloud pictures of the eastern United States from an altitude of more than 450 miles during its first trip around the earth. These were described as “quite good.” Better results were obtained on the second orbit, Tiros sending back pictures of “excellent quality.”