Science: Trial Satellite

The first satellite that the U.S. will try to place in an orbit around the earth has apparently been downgraded by about three-quarters. Last week Washington officials of Project Vanguard admitted, with some cross-contradiction, that the first try will be made with a sphere 6.4 in. in diameter weighing about 4.5 lbs. The original plans called for a 20-in. sphere weighing 21.5 lbs. and packed with instruments and radio transmitters. The reduced satellite will carry practically nothing beyond minimum radio equipment to allow it to be tracked through space.

Reliable sources report that the Department of Defense is afraid that the Russians may beat the U.S. in the satellite race. According to this theory, the Russians are probably working on a satellite just big enough to be tracked. It may carry a small radio transmitter, or it may inflate a balloon of aluminized plastic film. Expanded in space by a whiff of gas, it might reach a size that would be brilliantly visible at dusk or dawn. This bright Communist star, rising in the west every 90 minutes and streaking rapidly eastward, would win enormous prestige for its Soviet launchers. To head off such a possibility, Project Vanguard may be reducing its own first satellite to the bare minimum too.