Year: 1972

Categories
Astronomy Science & Technology Uncrewed Spaceflight

Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 3: Copernicus

  • August 21, 1972

OAO-3NASA launches the third and final Orbiting Astronomical Observatory satellite, given the nickname “Copernicus” when it successfully enters service near the 500th anniversary of the birth of the famed astronomer of the same name. OAO-3 is a joint venture between NASA and universities in the U.S. and the U.K., again focusing largely on ultraviolet observation of the sky, and it is instrumental in the discovery and study of long-period pulsars. OAO-3 will remain in service through February 1981, its successful nine-year mission lending weight to the ongoing construction and planning of NASA’s Space Telescope project, later to be known as the Hubble Space Telescope.

Categories
Doctor Who Television

Doctor Who in the USA

  • August 21, 1972

Doctor WhoThe British science fiction series Doctor Who is broadcast in the United States for the first time on WPHL, an independent commercial TV station in Philadelphia. WPHL is among the first American stations to have purchased a syndication package of Doctor Who episodes, starrring Jon Pertwee as the third Doctor, from BBC Enterprises by way of Time-Life Television. The package includes the series’ first two color seasons, plus the first story from the 1972 season (the relatively recent Day Of The Daleks). The success of Star Trek reruns in syndication may well have indie stations convinced that Doctor Who is the next big thing…

Categories
Magellan Uncrewed Spaceflight

Venus Orbiter Imaging Radar

  • October 11, 1972

VOIRA working group of scientists and engineers at NASA submit an official proposal for a spacecraft using synthetic aperture radar to map the surface of the planet Venus. Conceived as a mission that could be launched from a Titan IIIe or from the space shuttle, both of which still exist only on the drawing board, Venus Orbiter Imaging Radar (or VOIR) is designed to offer extensive mapping of Venus at a resolution much better than the coarse resolution of radar signals originating from Earth-based radio astronomy facilities such as Arecibo, along with such cutting-edge technologies as stereoscopic imaging and solar electric propulsion. Work on this mission will continue through the early 1980s, at which point it is cancelled by NASA and replaced by a cheaper mission intended to achieve the same goals, Magellan.

Categories
Science & Technology Uncrewed Spaceflight Weather & Climate

NOAA-2

  • October 15, 1972

NOAA / ESSA satellite seriesNASA and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration launch NOAA-2, a weather satellite intended to operate in a near-polar low Earth orbit. NOAA-2 is based on the already-flown ITOS satellite design, and will function in orbit through October 1974, with a break of only a few months due to a failed vertical temperature profile radiometer instrument. NOAA-2 will be shut down in January 1975.

Categories
Mariner Uncrewed Spaceflight

Mariner 9: mission accomplished

  • October 27, 1972

Mariner 9The unmanned NASA/JPL space probe Mariner 9 concludes its mission to map the surface of Mars. After spending more than a year as the first human spacecraft to orbit another planet in the solar system, Mariner 9’s fuel supply has run out, but not before it has obtained over 7,000 images of the surface of Mars, discovering gigantic volcanoes and huge canyons in the process. The detailed photography returned by Mariner 9 is a vitally important tool for scientists and mission planners already hard at work on a potential robotic landing mission to Mars, to be launched later in the 1970s. Though inactive, Mariner 9 remains in orbit of Mars.