Spacecraft Looked Like Colliding

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30934, 15 December 1965, Page 21

Spacecraft Looked Like Colliding

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) PERTH, December 14. What appeared to be a freak space “collision” over the Carnarvon tracking station in Western Australia last night had local residents gasping.

The Gemini VII spacecraft with Frank Borman and James Lovell on board and the Echo II satellite appeared to be about to produce the first collision between two man-made satellites. Residents saw the Echo II satellite first, as it headed north to south and mistook it for the manned spacecraft.

Then from over the horizon, beading from north-west to south-east, shot Gemini VII. People in the streets stood staring upwards as the two craft sped towards each other on an apparent collision course. The two space vehicles crossed orbital paths at the same point, and for a split

second appeared to have collided. But there had been no chance of a collision as the two craft were more than 400 miles apart. An astro simulator, Mr Ed Dunbar, a member of the American flight control team at Carnarvon, said the chances of the two satellites crossing orbital paths at the same point were “astronomical.” “Never Before” “It has never happened before,” he said. "Flight control panicked when we told them what was going to happen. They thought Gemini and Echo were at the same altitude. “If they bad been at the same altitude, they would most certainly have collided." Echo II is a 100 ft diameter aluminium foil balloon circling the earth in a polar orbit. It is 624 miles above the earth—compared with Gemini Vll’s 185 miles. Echo is used in communication experiments.