First Images of the Far Side

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Fifty years ago today — October 4, 1959 — the first probe to return pictures of the far side (not the “dark side”) of the moon was launched. The Luna-3 flyby mission launched on a Vostok rocket from what is now the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Luna-3’s first image of the far side of the moon. From the National Space Science Data Center.)

On the same day, the U.S. launched “Little Joe 6,” from Wallops Island, Virginia, to test the Mercury space capsule’s integrity and aerodynamics. The capsule reached 37 miles altitude and flew 79 miles downrange, and the mission was listed as “partially successful.”

The space race was on, a half century ago. Thinking about it makes me wonder if we have the national will to start running a space race again, with the Chinese and the Indians in the mix.

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In the Old Days, Everyone Was a Rocket Scientist

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Our first space history item is interesting, but not the main event: On October 1, 1949 — 60 years ago today — the Long Range Proving Ground was activated at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It became the Florida Missile Test Range, and eventually Patrick Air Force Base and the Kennedy Space Center.

But the event that elicited this post’s subject line happened 40 years ago today, in 1969, when the European satellite “ESRO-1B” was launched from Vandenberg AFB by a Scout rocket. The NASA press release for the launch is very interesting: it includes pages of background information that must have fed the interest and imagination of every would-be “steely-eyed missile man” in the general public.

I had to grab the press release from the Google cache because the NASA link was broken, and I’ll only copy a few paragraphs here:

September 28, 1969
RELEASE NO: 69-138
FOURTH ESRO SATELLITE TO BE LAUNCHED

A 176-pound satellite carrying eight experiments to study the polar ionosphere, the Northern Lights and related phenomena, is scheduled to be launched by a four-stage Scout rocket from the Western Test Range, Calif., no earlier than Oct. 1, 1969. Called ESRO-1B, the European designed and built satellite is the fourth in a cooperative program between the European Space Research Organization (ESRO) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The program is carried out under terms of an agreement signed by the two organizations in December 1966, relating to providing ESRO with launching and associated services.

ESRO-1B is a duplicate or backup version of ESRO 1-Aurorae, a cooperative ESRO/NASA project, which was successfully launched into a highly elliptical near polar orbit by NASA on October 3, 1968, and is still operating. The same complement of eight experiments–a series of high-latitude particle detectors, auroral photometers, and Langrnuir probes–is being carried on board ESRO-1B. The experiments were provided by the Technical University of Denmark; Kiruna Geophysical Observatory, Sweden; the Radio and Space Research Station, Slough, England; the University of Oslo, Norway; the University of Bergen, Norway; the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment; and the University College, London, England.

The orbit planned for ESRO-1B is near-polar, inclined 86 degrees to the Equator, with an apogee of 435 kilometers (about 270 statute miles) and a perigee of 400 kilometers (about 248 statute miles). Orbit period will be 92 minutes. Scientific measurements made by the ESRO-1B will be concentrated over Northern Europe to enable correlation between ground-based polar ionosphere observations and measurements made simultaneously with sounding rockets launched from the ESRO launch site at Kiruna, Sweden.

Once injected into orbit, the ESRO-1B will be despun by means of a yo-yo system to about 1 RPM. Final stabilization will occur about 10 days after launch when the spacecraft locks onto the Earth’s magnetic field. This stabilization is achieved by means of a pair of magnets inside the satellite. To minimize oscillations, slender magnetic rods are also mounted inside the satellite.

And so on. On page 10 of the news release:

ESRO-IB FACT SHEET

Launch Window: 30-minute window which changes only slightly from day to day. The window opens at 3:29 p.m., (PDT), October 1, 1969.
Launch Site: Western Test Range, Lompoc, California, Pad SLC-5.
Launch Vehicle: Four-stage solid fuel Scout rocket.

Orbit:
Apogee: 435 km (about 270 statute miles)
Perigee: 400 km (about 248 statute miles)
Period: 92 minutes
Inclination: 86 degrees
Stabilization: Spacecraft is spin stabilized at about 148 rpm initially. Despun to one rpm by yo-yo mechanism and further despun by magnetic system which interacts with Earth’s magnetic field. Stabilization thereafter will be provided by a passive system consisting of two permanent magnets.

I find the inclusion of all the detail fascinating. But maybe that’s understandable, since I still am a would-be rocket scientist.

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Space Radar Mission, 1994

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Fifteen years ago today — September 30, 1994 — astronauts Michael A. Baker, Terrence W. Wilcutt, Thomas D. Jones, Steven L. Smith, Daniel W. Bursch, and Peter J. K. Wisoff launched from the Kennedy Space Center aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-68.


(STS-68 mission patch. NASA image.)

The mission carried the Space Radar Laboratory on its second flight, and imaged some of the same areas the SRL had imaged before.

Flying SRL during different seasons allowed comparison of changes between first and second flights. SRL-2 was activated on flight day one, and around-the-clock observations conducted by astronauts split into two teams. Besides repeating data takes over same locations as on first flight, unusual events also imaged, including erupting volcano in Russia and islands of Japan after earthquake there. Also tested was ability of SRL-2 imaging radars, Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) and X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (X-SAR), to discern difference between such human-induced phenomena as an oil spill in the ocean and naturally occurring film.

[BREAK, BREAK … BONUS SPACE HISTORY ITEM]

Normally I’d wait until next year to include this item, since I usually deal only in 5-year-multiple anniversaries, but this one is work-related.

I’ve been putting together aerospace history pages that focus on North Carolinians or people with connections to the state. It just so happens that four years ago today — September 30, 2005 — North Carolina astronaut William “Bill” McArthur launched on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, en route to taking command of International Space Station Expedition 12.

If you know any North Carolina teachers, direct them to the NC Aerospace Initiative’s Aerospace Education section, where we will link information on NC aerospace history that they can use in their classes.

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Water on the Moon, Slush on the Desk

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I was very excited to see the news about the latest results from lunar survey missions about the presence of water on the moon.

(Moon Mineralogy Mapper composite image. Click to enlarge. Left: Sunlight reflected off the near side of the moon. Right: Infrared image showing water and hydroxl molecule signatures near the poles. “The blue arrow indicates Goldschmidt crater, a large feldspar-rich region with a higher water and hydroxyl signature.” NASA image.)

The full story is here, but here are the highlights:

The observations were made by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, or M3 (“M-cubed”), aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and NASA’s Epoxi spacecraft have confirmed the find….

“When we say ‘water on the Moon,’ we are not talking about lakes, oceans or even puddles,” explained Carle Pieters, M3’s principal investigator from Brown University, Providence, R.I. “Water on the Moon means molecules of water and hydroxyl that interact with molecules of rock and dust specifically in the top millimeters of the Moon’s surface.

I have a personal reason for being excited about this finding, and since so few people look at this blog I assume all of you already know what that reason is. So let’s move on to the slush on my desk.

Literary slush — unsolicited manuscripts, proposals, and queries — moves on and off my desk in waves. Reading it can be mind-numbing, but it can also be interesting and sometimes even entertaining. It’s not often a source of inspiration, but my writing friend Jim Hines wrote an ode to the slush pile entitled “Slush Reading, Seuss Style” that is absolutely fantastic. Check it out!

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A Space Anniversary for the Cold Warriors

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Forty-five years ago today — September 24, 1964 — a Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile launched for the first time on a test flight from Cape Canaveral.


(Blast door at the entrance to Launch Control Center Delta-01. Image from the National Park Service.)

Hats off to all my missileer friends whose alert posture kept us safe during the Cold War and beyond — and deter nuclear aggression today. It was an honor to serve with you, even if my part was just to put together emergency action messages.

If you’re planning to visit South Dakota, you might consider adding the Minuteman Missile National Historical Site to your travel itinerary.

And 10 years ago today, in 1999, an Athena rocket launched the Ikonos-2 remote sensing satellite from Vandenberg AFB. Ikonos-2 was a non-military reconnaissance satellite, and the first of a “new generation” of high-resolution (1 meter) commercial imagers.

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A Difficult Space Anniversary: Mars Mission Failure

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A Difficult Space Anniversary: Mars Mission Failure

Ten years ago today — September 23, 1999 — the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft fired its main engine to go into orbit around Mars. The maneuver was unsuccessful, however, due to a navigation error. The spacecraft was lost.

The “navigation error” — i.e., the root cause of the failure — was contention between English units and metric units in the ground-based navigation software. It was a glitch in the program, and could be considered a systems engineering failure or a configuration management failure in that the error crept in because two different teams — the Colorado-based spacecraft team and the California-based mission navigation team — used two different measurement systems.

The spacecraft had been launched on a Delta-II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on December 11, 1998.

___

While I’m at it, and for no better reason than that I’m pleased with the work I did on it, here’s a link to the newly-updated North Carolina Aerospace Initiative web site.

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Studying the Planet Mercury, Then and Now

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Thirty-five years ago today — September 21, 1974 — Mariner-10 made its second flyby of the planet Mercury.


(Mosaic of Mariner-10’s images of Mercury. NASA image from http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980906.html.)

Mariner-10 was the first spacecraft to examine Mercury up close. Today the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) spacecraft is studying Mercury, and its next flyby is scheduled for next week. Read more about MESSENGER here and here.

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Apollo Test Launch, 45 Years Ago, and Lunar Mapping Today

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Forty-five years ago today — September 18, 1964 — NASA launched a Saturn-1 booster from Cape Canaveral in mission SA-7, also known as Apollo “Boiler Plate 15.” The launch demonstrated the Launch Escape System (LES) for the first time.

Anything Apollo-related of course reminds me of the moon, but I’ll skip the shameless plug in favor of some exciting news about the current LRO mission:

After two months of checkout and calibration, NASA’s $504 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was maneuvered into a circular 31-mile-high mapping orbit Tuesday and scientists said Thursday the spacecraft’s instruments are delivering intriguing clues about the possible presence of water ice.

The exciting news and “intriguing clues” are indications that hydrogen deposits may exist not only in permanently-shadowed craters near the south pole, but elsewhere on the moon as well — perhaps buried under lunar soil. Whether they’re water, or ammonia, or methane, or something else is unclear, but there appears to be something there, and probably something useful. Read the whole Spaceflight Now report here.

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Of X-Planes and Moon Rocks

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Fifty years ago today — September 17, 1959 — Scott Crossfield made the first powered flight in an X-15, dropped off the wing of NASA’s B-52 flying out of Edwards AFB, CA.


(Cutaway drawing of the X-15. NASA Photo E62-7893.)

Here’s a NASA story commemorating the first flight, and a nice feature on Crossfield and his career.

And forty years ago today, the Smithsonian Institution unveiled the first lunar rock ever put on public display: brought back by Apollo-11, of course. Today I wonder if we have the national will to go back to the moon, or to go anywhere; the recent Augustine Panel noted that it’s technically feasible, but by damn it better be technically feasible by the 2020s if we did it back in the 1960s. It’s all a matter of money, and whether we see it as a cost or as an investment.

For the moment we have to content ourselves with the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, due to smash into crater Cabeus-A in about three weeks to try to verify if the hydrogen concentrations detected on the moon are in the form of water ice.

I hope LCROSS finds water, and more than expected . . . but even if it doesn’t, that’s only one spot in one crater. It will take other investigations to prove whether the moon is completely devoid of water. (Why I care: The characters in my novel collect ice that’s been dredged up microgram by microgram out of the bottom of Faustini crater, and since Faustini was on the “short list” of possible LCROSS impact points [according to a graphic shown during the 11 September press conference] I think my fictional world is still plausible for now.)

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National Aerospace Day

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Happy Aerospace Day to one and all!

That’s right: September 16, 2009 was designated National Aerospace Day by resolutions passed in the House and the Senate. (See this Reuters article.) Key passages of the resolution say,

  • “… the United States aerospace industry is a powerful, reliable source of employment, innovation, and export income, directly employing 831,000 people and supporting more than 2,000,000 jobs in related fields”
  • “… aerospace education is an important component of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education and helps to develop the science and technology workforce in the United States”
  • “… aerospace innovation has led to the development of the Global Positioning System, which has strengthened national security and increased economic productivity”
  • “… the aerospace industry assists and protects members of the Armed Forces with military communications, unmanned aerial systems, situational awareness, and satellite-guided ordinances”

and the resolution “recognizes the contributions of the aerospace industry to the history, economy, security, and educational system of the United States.”

I’m happy to bring you this announcement, and to be part of the growing aerospace industry in the state of North Carolina as the Associate Director of the North Carolina Aerospace Initiative. If you know anyone working in aerospace in North Carolina, or a young person interested in an aerospace career, send them my way and let them know we’re here to help!

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