Satellite Tests

A Navy Aerobee-Hi research rocket climbed last week to 126 miles above White Sands Proving Ground, N. Mex. Besides conventional instruments for upper-air research, it carried in its nose a precious but expendable pay load: the electronic guts of a satellite. In an aluminum can 10 in. long and 5 in. in diameter were instruments and circuitry as complicated as six TV sets.

During the 51 seconds while the rocket's fuel was still burning, its own telemetering equipment sent radio reports to earth, but when the fuel was gone and the rocket had climbed above most of the atmosphere, its main transmitter piped down. An automatic device took charge, poked a retractable antenna into the near vacuum, and told the instruments in the can to go on the air. The satellite transmitter took over and reported in code the readings of the satellite instruments, including such space esoterica as the impacts of primary cosmic rays and micrometeorites. It will take a long time to evaluate the data, but the instrument setup appears to have worked well.

This test is only one of many that will be run in the near future to test components of the satellite and its launching vehicle. At the Missile Test Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla., the satellite's first-stage rocket (a modified Viking) is about to be launched with the small third-stage rocket sticking out of its nose. This combination is nothing like the complete launching vehicle. The second-stage rocket will contain the most subtle guiding instruments, and its omission will make the flight a comparatively crude affair. But valuable information can be gathered about the performance of the third-stage rocket, whose purpose is to start firing about 300 miles above the surface and reach the necessary speed (18,000 m.p.h.) to stay in an orbit around the earth.

When the first satellite is finally fired, probably sometime next year, it will take off from the Missile Test Center in total secrecy. That, at least, is the Navy's present plan. Rear Admiral Rawson Bennett, chief of naval research, concedes that the satellite is not supposed to be a military weapon. His stated reason for secrecy is that the presence of reporters, photographers, TV cameras and other representatives of the public's interest may rush his men into launching the satellite before they are completely ready or when the weather is not completely favorable.

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