Dating from 1962, this historic NASA film explores the space program and discusses what NASA is trying to accomplish, and what benefits will be gained from the enormous expenditures planned today and in the future. Featured is the “Scout” booster rocket, images of mission control, the Mercury missions, and the TIROS and Echo 1 radio signal satellite missions as well as the Ranger lunar probe.
“Project Echo” was the first passive communications satellite experiment. Each of the two American spacecraft, launched in 1960 and 1964, was a metalized balloon satellite acting as a passive reflector of microwave signals. Communication signals were bounced off them from one point on Earth to another. NASA’s Echo 1 satellite was built by Gilmore Schjeldahl’s G.T. Schjeldahl Company in Northfield, Minnesota. The balloon satellite functioned as a reflector, not a transceiver, so that after it was placed in a low Earth orbit, a signal would be sent to it, reflected or bounced off its surface, and then returned to Earth.
During ground inflation tests, 40,000 pounds (18,000 kg) of air was needed to fill the balloon, but while in orbit, several pounds of gas were all that was required to fill the sphere. At launch, the balloon weighed 156.995-pound (71.212 kg) which included 33.34-pound (15.12 kg) of sublimating powders of two types.[2] The first weighing 10-pound (4.5 kg) with a very high vapor pressure, the second with a much lower vapor pressure. According to NASA, “To keep the sphere inflated in spite of meteorite punctures and skin permeability, a make-up gas system using evaporating liquid or crystals of a subliming solid were incorporated inside the satellite.”
Following the failure of the Delta rocket carrying Echo 1 on May 13, 1960, Echo 1A (commonly referred to as just Echo 1) was put successfully into a 944-to-1,048-mile (1,519 to 1,687 km) orbit by another Thor-Delta,[4][5] and a microwave transmission from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was received at Bell Laboratories in Homdel, New Jersey, on August 12, 1960.
Echo 1A was originally loosely estimated to survive until soon after its fourth dip into the atmosphere in July 1963 but possibly until 1964 or beyond but it ended up living much longer than these estimates and reentered Earth’s atmosphere, burning up on May 24, 1968.
TIROS, or Television Infrared Observation Satellite, is a series of early weather satellites launched by the United States, beginning with TIROS-1 in 1960. TIROS was the first satellite that was capable of remote sensing of the Earth, enabling scientists to view the Earth from a new perspective: space.[1] The program, promoted by Harry Wexler, proved the usefulness of satellite weather observation, at a time when military reconnaissance satellites were secretly in development or use. TIROS demonstrated at that time that “the key to genius is often simplicity”.
The 270 lb (122 Kg) satellite was launched into a nearly circular low earth orbit by a Thor Able rocket. Drum-shaped with a 42 inch (1.1 m) diameter, and height of 19 inches (48 cm), the TIROS satellite carried two six-inch (15 cm) long television cameras. One of the cameras had a wide-angle lens with an f /1.6 aperture that could view an 800 mile wide area of the earth. The other camera had a telephoto lens with an f /1.8 aperture and 10 to 12 power magnification[citation needed] compared to the wide angle camera.
The satellite itself was stabilized in its orbit by spinning like a gyroscope. When it first separated from the rocket’s third stage, it was spinning at about 136 revolutions per minute (rpm). To take unblurred photographs, a de-spin mechanism slowed the satellite down to 12 rpm after the orbit was accomplished.
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2K. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
