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Show THE DAILY SENTINEL Vol. LXXIV, No 310 Grand Junction. Colo. 14 Pages Friday, Sept. 29, 1967 lOc fiery A thena Missile Blazes Trails Across Utah Trio By GAYLORD KIRKHAM Sentinel Staff Writer :'•• GREEN RIVER, Utah-The 88th, 89th, and 90th Athena mis- • siles were fired Thursday night : and early today from the Utah v':;-Launch Complex near here to I .:White Sand Missile Range in ;.: New Mexico, E The 90th Athena blasted into | 'the clear night sky at 1:30 a.m., less than four hours after the 88th was launched at 9:45 p.m. No. 89 was launched about 11:45 p.m. Air Force officials termed the three firings successful and said all impacted on the New Mexico target range. They said there would be no firings Monday night. Had one of the three firings failed to go as scheduled, residents in the booster impact 'areas in the vicinities of La Sal and Monticello, Utah, and Mag-da lena and Da til, N. M., would have had to leave their homes again Monday night. , Conditions Thursday night - w-ere optimum for the first two |/..misi?iles, both of which carried t-flash cartriges for the aid of \~- optical instruments. j..'- Almost the entire flight of the th;;ee missiles was visible to ob-: servers in southeastern Utah. £ The missiles shot off their |; launching rails and became a fading speck of light in the sky _in a matter of seconds. The light brightened and faded again as the second stage ignited and burned. .The missiles were invisible for about three minutes as they coasted high above the atmos-pht.re while the White Sand computer made its decisions and issued commands. A. Muray Maughan, director of the Utah Launch Complex, said the missiles coast for 200 seconds after the second stage burns out. He said a mechanical bellows shoves the third and fourth stages out of the support tube and weights swing out to hdJt the missile's spin. Maughan said the fins on the missle are canted to cause it to spin like a rifle bullet and give it stability. But the spin must be halted to give the gyros a stable platform while the computer makes its decisions. At the start of the coasting portion of its flight, the missile is still aimed at the stars. Small motors on its side, commanded • by the computer, swing the missile into its re-entry attitude. Four minutes and nine seconds after launching, the Athena had assumed its re-entry attitude and the third stage fired. The fourth stage ignited 36 seconds, later, boosting the missile to a re-entry velocity of 22,000 .' feet per second. Next came the firing of the four, short-live flash cartridges. Then, each of the missiles could be seen making .their re-entry into the atmosphere over New Mexico as they heated up from the friction of the air. They were last visible as a dull red streak dropping under the horizon. Maughan said eah Athena shot costs about $1 million and may carry payloads for one of a half-dozen contractors or one of several universities. Objects of the tests are generally clas-' sifted. As a .result, Maughan said, "We don't fire unless everything is just right." He said the missilemen are learning to live with the wind, using a sophisticated Kentucky windage. He said missiles had been fired from Green River with a 170-mile displacement due to the wind, and still impacted on the 40-mile wide White Sands Missile Range 450 miles to the southeast. Unlike a rifle bullet, the missiles are aimed a bit down wind. Maughan said the missiles do some correcting for wind on their own. To fire upwind as you, would a rifle would only make them go further upwind, he said. |