posted 07-15-2016 05:57 PM               

Space Cover 377: Viking-A "Turnaround" Rollout Convoy Carried Covers

Two Viking spacecraft soft-landed sophisticated robots on Mars' surface in 1976. The first Viking mission was successfully launched on Aug. 20, 1975 aboard Titan Centaur no. 4 and the second and last scheduled Viking to Mars was launched successfully on Sept. 9, 1975 aboard Titan Centaur no. 3. The Viking spacecraft were thoroughly checked and tested at Kennedy Space Center months before scheduled launch. All pre-launch Viking spacecraft testing was conducted at the Spacecraft Assembly Encapsulation Facility (SAEF) located in the KSC Industrial Area.

The Viking-A spacecraft was originally scheduled to be flown on the first Viking mission but during testing it was discovered that its orbiter batteries had to be replaced. Preparation of the Viking-A spacecraft fell behind schedule. For the first Viking mission, NASA decided to substitute the "on schedule" Viking-B spacecraft for the "behind schedule" Viking-A spacecraft. This switching of Viking spacecraft is referred to as "turn-around" activities.

The first Viking-A spacecraft turn-around rollout occurred early in the morning of Aug. 27, 1975. This was the first time the Viking-A spacecraft was mated to its launch vehicle. The rollout consisted of both the orbiter and lander enclosed in the Centaur shroud on a special transport vehicle with support convoy. The "move" began at 0040 hours from the SAEF building at KSC to Viking Titan-Centaur Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral. Rollout was completed at 0345 hours. Covers were carried (75 total) by the driver in the contractor RTG support vehicle that was directly behind the Viking spacecraft transport. After rollout, covers were taken to the KSC post office and hand cancelled on Aug. 27, 1975

A few days after the Viking-A spacecraft was mated to the Titan-Centaur launch vehicle, more problems were encountered during testing of spacecraft and launch vehicle systems at the pad. These could not be corrected at the pad before certain deadlines. NASA had to demate the Viking-A spacecraft from its launch vehicle and move it back to the SAEF building for more precise testing. Finally the problems were resolved and the next "turn-around" rollout was scheduled.

The second and last Viking-A "turn-around" rollout left the SAEF at KSC around 2230 in the evening on Sept. 5, 1975. The rollout was in progress for several hours reaching Complex 41 at 0120 hours early morning Sept. 6, 1975. Covers were carried (75 total) in the same circumstances as the first rollout convoy. Since Sept. 6 was a Saturday, the KSC post office was closed. Covers had to be posted (KSC hand cancels) on Monday, Sept. 8, 1975. The following day the Viking-A spacecraft was successfully launched on this country's second Mars landing mission.

posted 07-19-2016 03:39 PM               

It was just after the Apollo-Soyuz space feat in the summer of 1975 when there was much publicity and interest in the space agency's twin Viking missions to Mars, the world's first attempt to soft-land a space probe (2) on the Red Planet.

The rollout convoy covers depicted here by John was my second attempt in trying to arrange a "carried cover" project involving the near-by Florida space center.

It went off well, however, the first carried cover project was for the launch vehicle and spacecraft rollout of AS-210, the Saturn 1B rocket used for the U.S. Apollo-Soyuz launch from Complex 39B.

About 200 covers had been placed inside the rocket's Mobile Launcher #1 in "B" level of the instrumentation section. They made the 7-hour transport voyage from the Vehicle Assembly Building's high bay to the Apollo/Saturn launch pad on March 24, 1975.

To the best of my knowledge, it was the first time that a recorded space cover(s) had been located inside a mobile launcher platform during an actual space launch vehicle rollout operation.