Marshall Highlights for 1976

The Marshall Center opened the Bicentennial year with a fitting tribute to a closing era and turned to new fields of endeavor aimed at making the world and space a better place during the third century.

Throughout the year, attention was concentrated on a new era of space exploration, encompassing Space Shuttle, Spacelab and its multiple payloads, space processing, space industrialization, and new launch vehicles and orbital transfer vehicles for the Space Transportation System.

In January, a flight-type Skylab spacecraft was moved to the new National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., to remain there as a monument to the nation's first pioneering efforts toward space habitation.

Sharing the spotlight with space exploration programs were Earth-bound projects in solar energy applications, improvements in coal mining operations, new fire-fighting equipment and protective clothing and many other areas in which space technology is being transferred to the private sector.

The center also took time out to observe the 200th birthday of the nation by participating in the Bicentennial Exposition at the Kennedy Space Center, dedicating the Redstone Test Stand as a Historical Site, and celebrating Marshall Center's 16th anniversary at the annual employees' picnic.

Six rockets carrying Marshall Center Payloads were launched during 1976. The launches, all unmanned, included two major projects, the Laser Geodynamic Satellite (Lageos) and the initial Gravitational Redshift Probe (GP-A). Three Space Processing Applications Rocket (SPAR) missions were flown and the Skylark X-Ray telescope was launched from Australia.

The first Space Shuttle Orbiter 101, was unveiled at Palmdale, Calif., and President Gerald R. Ford officially named it the "Enterprise." Three full-scale mock-up main engines, built by Marshall Center's engine development contractor, were mounted on the Shuttle prior to its roll-out.

In anticipation of the Orbiter 101 arrival at Marshall Center in 1978 for ground vibration tests alterations were started to the Dynamic Test Stand and work was begun at the Redstone Airstrip on modifications to accommodate the Boeing 747 that will ferry the Orbiter from the NASA-Dryden Flight Research Center.

The first tests of the Space Shuttle Main Engines were conducted in April at the NASA-National Space Technology Laboratories, Bay St. Louis, Miss., and tooling up operations began at the Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans, for External Tank assembly.

A Spacelab Payload Project Office was established early in the year at the Marshall Center to carry out management of projects involving Spacelab payloads, and since has been assigned responsibility for management of payloads for the first three flights. In September of 1976. six Marshall Center personnel were assigned to posts in Europe to support the Spacelab program within the European Space Agency.

In April, 1976, Marshall Center hosted a Symposium on Space Industrialization, defined as space activities undertaken primarily for the production of goods and services that are of major economic benefit. This was followed up in May by a request for proposals for studying the broad concepts of future research and development activity in this area.

Other significant studies conducted during the year at the Marshall Center include Space Telescope, a space construction base, solar power generation in space, large space structures, Solid Spinning Upper Stage, Zero-G Cloud Physics, heavy lift launch vehicles and advanced propulsion systems.

The Solar Heating and Cooling program at Marshall Center broadened considerably during the year. The center awarded 37 development contracts amounting to about S27.5 million and accepted management responsibility for 32 contracts, amounting to about $10 million, awarded by the Energy Research and Development Administration in the Commercial Demonstration Program.

A new solar energy test facility was completed in December where all of the hardware procured in the development contracts will be tested prior to acceptance for installation at operational test sites throughout the country.

Two inter-agency agreements, in addition to the ERDA support agreement, were signed. One of these, with the Department of Interior, was for Marshall Center assistance in the research and development of sensors to improve coal mining operations. The other, with the Department of Commerce, is for assistance to the nation's firemen in transferring technology from the space program to improve fire fighters' clothing and equipment.

Two major test facilities were constructed during the year, one at Marshall-Huntsville and the other at the MSFC Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

An X-ray Test Facility, the only one of its size and type and the largest and one of the most significant construction jobs at the center in the past 10 years, was completed in April. It is used for verification testing and calibration of X-ray mirrors, telescope systems and instruments.

The first facility constructed exclusively for the Shuttle External Tanks was completed at Michoud in August. It was used to perform proof and leak tests of the; liquid hydrogen tank.

Dr. William R. Lucas, center director told employees.:
"In a time in which low cost and applications are as important as initial exploration, the Marshall Center has become a multi-project scientific and engineering center. We have maintained our expertise in rocket propulsion, systems engineering and integration, but at the same time we have developed excellence in several areas of space science and applications in preparation for the new roles of the late 1970s and 1980s. "We intend to continue, despite the austerity of resources, our dedication to excellence in this diversity of important assignments."

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