E.L.D.O. Plans Big Satellite

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31188, 12 October 1966, Page 17

E.L.D.O. Plans Big Satellite

(N.Z PA. Reuter —Copyright!

PARIS, October 11

The European Launcher Development Organisation is going ahead with a new programme to put a 4401 b telecommunications satellite in orbit in the early 19705, officials said yesterday.

The proposed satellite, to be launched into space by Brit-, ain's Blue Streak rocket, will be four times the size of the present American Early Bird satellite and should meet European requirements five years hence they said. The officials refused to comment on a suggestion by a British rocket engineer that the Blue Streak being used by E.L.D.O. would not be powerful enough to carry the sort of satellite needed in 1970. They said the seven-nation organisation was fully aware that a bigger rocket would be needed to launch a heavier payload for television transmissions. •‘But so far E.L.D.O. knows what it wants and has the means to achieve it,” they said. A report by the Rolls Royce chief rocket engineer. Mr Vai Cleaver, circulated in Madrid, said the payload requirements of communication satellite launchers in the early 1970 s might well be between 10001 b and 20001 b. In the report, distributed to delegates at the current international astronautics! conference. Mr Cleaver said E.L.D.O

should already have started work on a new rocket, with : hydrogen-filled upper stages added to a modified Blue Streak.