U.S. Again Orbits Space Needles

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30130, 14 May 1963, Page 13

U.S. Again Orbits Space Needles

(N.2 Press Association—Copyright)

LEXINGTON (Massachusetts), May 12.

A controversial package of “space needles” has been put into orbit around the earth, a laboratory in Lexington announced today, the Associated Press reported.

It did not say when the “needles” —actually 400 million tiny copper fibres known as dipoles—were launched. A British report last week said the package had been launched by the United States Air Force from Point Arguello. California, on May 8. The Air Force, studying a possible new method of global radio communication, considers each of the fibres to be a “tiny passive communications satellite,” the Lincoln laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in its announcement. The laboratory is conducting the experiment for the Air Force

The dipoles are threequarters of an inch long and about one-third the thickness of a human hair. They were

ejected from an orbiting satellite. Fifty pounds of wire was used to produce the dipoles, which are expected to form a thin, narrow ring around the earth, 40,000 miles in circumference. The first United States attempt to orbit such dipoles, which provoked an outcry from scientists abroad, was made in October. 1961. It tailed. The announcement tpday said that the first conclusive radar contact was made today.

The fibres are still in a cloud around the dispenser package about 2000 miles up, but are expected to spread out slowly in both directions until a belt is formed around the earth in several months.

The fibres will drop into the earth's atmosphere in about five years.