SPACECRAFT RADIO CONTACT HOPES

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31003, 8 March 1966, Page 17

SPACECRAFT RADIO CONTACT HOPES

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) NEW YORK, March 7. A laboratory study by communications engineers indicates that astronauts may be able to ride their craft through the blazing re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere without losing radio contact with the ground, the “New York Times” news service reported. This would eliminate much of the suspense in one of the most crucial periods of any space mission. In all flights so far. no radio messages can be transmitted to or from the astronauts for about six minutes as the fnctpn of atmosphere

envelops the craft in a ball of hot, electrically-charged gases. The possibility of uninterrupted communications was held out by engineers of the Applied Research Laboratory of Sylvania Electronics Systems, Waltham, Massachusetts, which has been investigating the problems since 1962. The laboratory announced yesterday that it had been awarded a new 46.000-dollar grant from the Air Force to continue its study. Dr. Donald Row. manager of the radio physics department of Sylvania's laboratory, said that a number of possibilities for getting around the problem have been found promising.