Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated 16 September 1954, reports on a September meeting of the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Research Panel at the Naval Research Laboratory, Anacostia, chaired by James A. Van Allen. It summarizes briefings on the capabilities of research rockets such as the Viking and Aerobee and on a three-phase earth satellite program. It also covers Project Orbiter planning and funding for the International Geophysical Year. The author concludes that a satellite could likely be orbited by that year given high government priority.
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the unarmed instrumented vehicle (These 2), he said that the main problems will be development of small reliable power plants; television, the technical design of which is already well along; orientation of the vehicle itself and of the instrumentation carried; and constant reduction of weight of the equipment to be carried. He stated that the altitude at which the vehicle should orbit will depend upon the purpose envisaged. Theoretically, an altitude of 1,000 miles at a speed of 5 miles per second would be ideal. This would provide a 2-hour orbit. the next presentation, concerning with altitude vehicle projects with which GIS is concerned. GIS has three main projects in this field, the first of which is the development of a named conventional aircraft to operate at a maximum altitude of 300 miles. The designs are present under consideration - the Douglas 553 and the Douglas 553. The former is designed to have an altitude of 700,000 feet. (Note: this field of study is covered in import R-207-186(01), "High Altitude and High Speed Study" by Douglas Aircraft Corporation. GIS-18671L). The second (all project is development of a named high altitude balloon to operate at 100 to 200,000 feet. The system would be based on the "Skyhook" polyethylene balloon carrying a console equipped to sustain one or two men. The third project is for named space flight and the study of this is being conducted at the Aero Jet Laboratory. The first phase of this latter project is called F103, the purpose of which is to place on TV in orbit at an altitude of 200 miles in order to measure meteorological and atmospheric data at that level as the first step toward higher altitude work. Project F103 has been extensively corroved by the Navy and GIS is going ahead with it in conjunction with the Army. It is now also being coordinated with the air force at a very high level. The project calls for the use of the Army firestone missile (see para. 3 below) as the first major with the Loki cluster (see para. 9 below) providing the second and third stage. Under Aero Jet leadership, four subsidiary studies are planned to be undertaken as follows: (1) A Viability Study to determine the size and weight of the vehicle required at an altitude of 200 miles. It is hoped that Mr. Fred Whipple will be the leader of this. (2) In critical study to determine the power required, the guidance system, etc. It is hoped that Ir. S. Fred Singer of the University of Maryland will lead this. (3) A trajectory Study to determine the final design and the claging requirements.
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 5 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.