Scrapbook 1: Apr 1962 — Ranger 4, Kosmos 3, Ariel 1, Ariel 2
U.S. Rocket on Way to Moon But Timer Flaw Mars Mission
HOW IT LOOKS—This is a model of Ranger 4, the spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Monday in an attempt to put a capsule filled with instruments on the moon. —AP Photo
Satellite Will Crash On Dark Side
CAPE CANAVERAL (AP) The United States launched an inquisitive scientific probe toward the moon Monday but a failure in a timing device in the spacecraft apparently ruined a major portion of the ambitious experiment.
The spacecraft was expected to hit the dark side of the moon at 2:55 p.m. CET Thursday.
Scientists abandoned plans to try to correct the faulty “brain” in the Ranger 4 spacecraft.
The shot was launched from here at 3:50 p.m. EST (9:50 p.m. CET).
After beaming a series of signals from ground stations in an effort to steer the gold and silver craft onto its intended course, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goldstone, Calif., decided this was fruitless.
A statement said:
“Since Ranger 4 has not responded to commands from earth stations, a decision has been made not to send the spacecraft mid-course or terminal maneuver commands.”
The feeling was that any attempt at sending these commands might knock the vehicle off its present collision course with the moon.
If the trouble with the payload’s control and telemetry system—the result of an errant timing device—could have been overridden by ground signals, officials said earlier, there was still a possibility Ranger 4 could have achieved its main missions. These were to take closeup television pictures of the moon and eject an instrument package for landing on the bright side of the lunar surface to record moon quakes and meteorite hits.
These goals cannot now be accomplished, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported.
Nevertheless, the United States can take some consolation in the fact that it is about to land a package on the moon, even though it will crash and destroy itself. Seven previous U.S. moon failures could not claim that much.
Ranger 4 will impact on the far side of the moon—the side never seen from the earth except in photographs taken by Russia’s wide-swinging satellite, Lunik III.
The Soviets also crash-landed the Lunik II payload on the moon 2½ years ago.
The signals showed the vehicle’s course would carry it about 900 miles above the top edge of the moon and land it on the back side at 8:55 a.m. EST Thursday. The impact point will be at a lunar latitude of 6 degrees south and longitude of 216 degrees east.
The control malfunction caused the spacecraft to tumble through space, unable to perform vital functions such as locking one antenna toward the earth and another toward the sun for stabilization.
As the craft sped away from earth, its speed gradually decreased from the initial 24,500 miles per hour. The continuing pull of earth’s gravity slowed it to 6,000-mile-an-hour clip.
A spokesman for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which made the craft, said the trouble apparently developed in a timer—a clock-like electronic device activated a few seconds before launching. Its purpose was to allow a central computer and sequencer to issue steering commands to Ranger 4 on a precise pre-set timetable in the early stage of flight.
Officials said strong signals were still being received from two tracking beacons in the payload. These were expected to continue to be strong for several hours, and then begin fading as the batteries weakened.
If Ranger’s systems had worked, the solar cells would have transformed sunlight into energy to power the batteries for the trip to the moon.
It is expected the batteries will be dead by the time the lunar impact occurs.
The giant Atlas-Agena B rocket blasted away from its launching pad at 3:50 p.m. (EST) with the gold and silver spacecraft tucked in its nose.
The powerful booster worked as planned, unleashing the 730-pound Ranger 4 on a course toward the moon at the planned speed of 24,500 m.p.h.
But two hours later the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reported a malfunction had occurred in the spacecraft telemetry (radio) system making it impossible to determine whether Ranger 4 was responding to commands sent to it from earth.
Later, at a news conference, William H. Pickering, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the problem apparently was serious and that the space craft probably would not be able to carry out most of Its missions.
Pickering said the official indication of trouble came when a South African tracking station was unable to receive telemetry signals radioed from instruments inside the body of the spacecraft. However, signals were being received from two tracking beacons in the vehicle.
MOSCOW (AP) — The Soviet Union launched another satellite, Cosmos III.
Moscow Radio said Cosmos III was orbiting the earth every 93.8 minutes and was carrying sclentific instruments plus telemetry equipment to radio data back on weather and communications.
The announcement also listed the times at which the satellite would pass over various cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Satellite bid
Britain will try next Thursday to put her first satellite—the U.K.1—into orbit
UK1 today
CAPE CANAVERAL, Wednesday.— Britain’s first satellite, UK1, is due to be launched at noon tomorrow. Scientists hope they have cured the mechanical trouble that wrecked the first attempt on April 10.—D.M. Reporter.
RUSSIAN and other Soviet bloc delegates will watch Tuesday’s attempt to launch UK1—Britain’s first satellite.
They will be among nearly 100 members of the United Nations Outer Space Committee invited to Cape Canaveral for the first international assault on space—weather permitting.
Security, customarily very severe here, has been drastically chopped in favour of the Communists, who will, apparently, have a better view and more detailed briefing than any of us non-Communists so far.
Six complex, British-designed and British-made instruments will ride inside the American-made satellite, which will be fired into space by an American Thor-Delta.
13 stations
The instruments were devised at London’s Imperial College and University College and Birmingham and Leicester Universities.
The aim of the project is to seek more knowledge of the ionosphere—an electrified layer beginning three miles above the earth and stretching into space—and to measure the effects of the sun’s radiations on it.
Thirteen stations in Britain, the U.S., Chile, Peru, Ecuador, South Africa, Australia, and Newfoundland will track the satellite which is expected to orbit for about a year between 200 and 600 miles above earth.
[…] task should be tackled in […] stages:
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An aircraft capable of flying at five times the speed of sound to explore the working of controls and other flight problems in the outer fringes of the atmosphere.
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A true aero-space machine which can fly at nine times the speed of sound in the outer atmosphere and then shoot on under rocket power into space.
A surprising and important feature of the “space cell’s” recommendations is that the basic programme would cost no more than the proposed new generation of aircraft-carriers. This would be about £200,000,000.
Basic research and design studies now ordered are well within the spending power of the Air Ministry and the research establishments without making heavy demands for extra funds.
The next step must be to convince the Treasury that a full programme should be started and that it would bring worthwhile returns.
The breakthrough on cost compared with the prohibitively expensive U.S. and Soviet space efforts is promised by the simpler and more logical R.A.F. approach.
Ram-jets
A machine which could fly with highly developed jet engines—probably ram-jets, in which Britain has the technical lead—at high speeds on the fringes of space would already have overcome much of the propulsive effort needed to break out into space.
Comparatively little rocket power would then be needed for the final stage. Such machines could be used time and again.
A grave national defence requirement which has emerged in recent months is a basic reason behind the Air Ministry’s decision to achieve space flight.
Both the Russians and the Americans are developing a new weapon known as NABS—the Nuclear Armed Ballistic Satellite.
This will be an orbiting H-bomb of 50 megatons or more which, when exploded at an altitude of 100 miles, would burn up 250 square miles of territory below.
Clearly the R.A.F. has the responsibility to propose a national means of defence against such a threat.
The R.A.F. had its beginning with the constitution by Royal Warrant 50 years ago today of the Royal Flying Corps. The R.F.C. was then formed one month later on May 13, 1912.
BRITAIN’S first satellite chirruped its way across Southern England at breakfast time to-day.
In one minute exactly Ariel—it was given this name by Mr. Macmillan in New York—hurtled across the country from Land’s End to Southend.
Scientists tracking it in its 60-second flight heard “a twittering like a couple of toy cage birds.”
At 8.15 a.m. Ariel—a set of British instruments in an American satellite launched last night from Cape Canaveral—whipped over the coast at Land’s End and curved towards London.
It passed over Falmouth, Plymouth and a spot close to Guildford—less than 30 miles from London—before hurtling on over the sea above Southend.
GONE
In Minute
Scientists under Dr. Hubert Hopkins, senior principal scientific officer at the Radio Research Station at Datchet, Bucks, watched eagerly from the tracking station at Winkfield Row, Berks.
And he reported: “She was over and gone in a minute.”
Council you see her from the street? “No—not with the naked eye. But depending on visibility it would have been possible with a very powerful pair of binoculars.”
Ariel was scheduled to pass over the country on the same trajectory every 101 minutes and scientists were standing by through the day to watch its progress and record every “chirrup.”
The signals were coming from instruments designed by scientists at London’s Imperial and University Colleges and at Birmingham and Leicester Universities.
First signals began to be received at Winkfield 4.42 a.m. and went on for 10 minutes. This time is about 10 minutes later than was expected.
Signals were picked up for the second time at Winkfield, this time for 30 minutes beginning at 6.31 a.m.
The satellite was again late, indicating that it is travelling a little higher than expected.
Britain to put up Ariel No. 2
Express Staff Reporter
WASHINGTON, Friday.
BRITAIN and America have “well-advanced plans” to launch a second joint satellite within the next 18 months, it was announced in Washington today.
Sir Harrie Massey, chairman of the Royal International Society, said that a third satellite would be launched after that, but it has not yet been decided for what experiments it would be used.
In Britain the “singing satellite” Ariel should be visible through fairly powerful binoculars in about 10 days, when its orbital flight coincides with sunrise and sunset.
LIKE STAR
A spokesman at the tracking station at Winkfield, Berkshire, said: “When the sun is in a position to light up the satellite from below the horizon you will be able to spot it zooming across the sky like a very fast star.”
Ariel, an American capsule containing a load of complex British-made electronic equipment, was launched via an American rocket at Cape Canaveral on Thursday.
Ariel is orbiting between 770 and 240 miles in space at 17,000 miles an hour. Its first messages were received at 4 a.m.