1958 Delta

Since the unseen fiery deaths of Sputniks I and II, the edge of space near the earth had belonged to three small U.S. satellites, playing like baby bluefish in an ocean. Last week the Russians launched a shark: a cone-shaped satellite weighing 2,925 Ibs., not counting the empty rocket casing on a separate orbit.

The orbiting mass of Sputnik III (official name: 1958 Delta) may not be more than dog-carrying Sputnik II, which remained attached to its rocket. The Russians gave the weight of Sputnik II's payload as 1,120 Ibs., but the whole assembly, including the rocket, was about 84 ft. long, and U.S. scientists believe that it may have weighed 7,000 Ibs. Sputnik III is probably as heavy all told, but may not be heavier.

The Russians have not told the thrust of the first-stage rockets that tossed their Sputniks off the earth, and U.S. authorities do not agree about this detail. Major General John B. Medaris, the Army's missile chief, says that the booster of Sputnik III would need 500,000 Ibs. of thrust. Dr. Herbert York, chief scientist of the Defense Department's Advance Research Projects Agency, thinks that as little as 200,000 Ibs. might be enough. German-born Dr. Walter R. Dornberger, of Bell Aircraft Corp., compromises for 440,000 Ibs. This is not far above the thrust (360,000 Ibs.) of the Air Force's still unproven Atlas and Titan missiles.

No Organism. For an unexplained reason, the Russians did not announce Sputnik III until it had been on orbit 14 to 16 hours, long enough to make eight circuits around the earth. When they did start talking, they gave a good deal of information. Sputnik III carries no man, dog or other experimental organism, and it is not designed to return to earth. Writing in Pravda, Academician L. I. Sedov said that it could have carried a man, but "such an experiment would be premature." Professor Evgeny Fedorov, an official spokesman, said that Sputnik III had been launched with "customary chemical fuels," not with atomic energy, and the launching technique was about the same as with the earlier Sputniks.

Sputnik III, said Fedorov, is an automatic spaceborne laboratory capable of making observations of many kinds. Its instruments, which account for 2,129 Ibs. of its weight, are "considerably improved" over those of the earlier Sputniks. They are mainly in three groups. One group observes conditions in the earth's atmosphere, including composition, pressure, ionization, electrical phenomena and the earth's magnetic field. Another observes nonearthly phenomena, such as cosmic rays, meteorites and solar radiation.

The third group of instruments serves the first two groups, regulating temperature, turning apparatus on and off at the proper times and transmitting data to earth. Like its predecessors, Sputnik III transmits on two frequencies, 20.005 and 40.002 megacycles. It has chemical batteries and also solar batteries like the U.S. Vanguard satellite.

The new satellite is circling the earth at an angle of 65DEG to the plane of the equator, which carries it over most of the earth's inhabited territory. Its apogee (high point) is about 1,170 miles above the earth. The Russians did not give the perigee (low point), but Dr. Fedorov predicted that the satellite would live longer than Sputnik II, which orbited for 5 1/2 months before plunging into the lower atmosphere and burning out. Since length of life depends largely on the height of the perigee, this indicates that Sputnik III keeps farther away from the earth than its predecessors did. The U.S. Air Force's radar telescope at Westford, Mass. got a good fix and estimated that its perigee is about 150 miles above the surface.

Dif Dah Dit Dit. Soon after the Russian announcement. Sputnik III was seen in various parts of the earth, its carrier rocket preceding it by several hundred miles and tumbling over and over on a six-second cycle. The radio broadcasts came through loud and clear, sounding like the letter "L" in international code (dit dah dit dit). The signal varies in several ways, showing the passage of coded information over the satellite's nine telemeter channels.

After duly admiring the Russian achievement of putting on orbit an automatic laboratory as heavy as a Studebaker, U.S. satellite experts began to wonder why the great weight was necessary. Some experts believe that the Russians are not so good at making lightweight electronic instruments as they are at shooting rockets into space. They may need more weight for both the instruments and their power supply. Other experts point out that the Russians may not have mentioned all the equipment on Sputnik III. There is plenty of weight-carrying capacity for a TV camera to watch the earth below.

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