Viking Flight Team Memoranda Collection, 1975-1979.

ArchivalResource

Snyder, Conway W., 1918. Viking Flight Team Memoranda Collection, 1975-1979.

Viking Flight Team Memoranda Collection, 1975-1979.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/733102071

The records in this collection are the Viking Administrative Support Office's master file of the Viking Flight Team's internal memoranda, covering the period from August 1975 through May 1979. The files commence just 5 days after the launch of Viking 1, and end approximately one year into the Viking Extended Mission. Each Flight Team Memorandum was issued a sequential number, and the documents are arranged in that Flight Team Memoranda sequential number order, beginning with 12849 through 22579. This places them in approximate, but not precise, chronological order because blocks of 16 memoranda numbers at a time were pre-assigned to Viking Project secretaries dispersed throughout the Laboratory in advance of issuance. Therefore, there is overlap in the dates of issuance from one office to another. The memoranda were sent to the ASO in numerical order in pressboard binders, 16 to a binder, in which they were maintained. File folders in this collection duplicate the original order of those binders. Each binder typically contained a one-page summary, prepared by the issuing secretary, listing all memoranda contained therein, enumerating the memorandum number, the originator, date, distribution, and subject. Those one-page summary sheets also have been included with each file folder in this collection. Each entry in this register's file folder list includes the name of the secretary responsible for that group of memoranda, and the location in which the secretary worked at JPL, if known. Some gaps in the memoranda number sequences occur. If the gap was caused by the end of a number series, that is indicated in the file folder list. The Flight Team Memoranda document the post-launch day-to-day operations of the Viking Project at JPL, covering a wide range of topics, such as from the issuance of parking passes and badges, UNIVAC computer use, mission contingency plans, and distribution of status reports. Some of the memoranda authors and groups represented in the collection include Conway W. Snyder, Director of the Science Analysis & Mission Planning Directorate (SAMPD), Peter T. Lyman, Director of the Spacecraft Performance and Flight Analysis Directorate (SPFPAD), M. S. Johnson, Director of Testing and Training (T & T), Ronald A. Ploszaj, Chief of the Orbiter Performance Analysis Group (OPAG), R. S. Sjostrom, Chief of the Lander Performance Analysis Group (LPAG), William J. O'Neil, Chief of the Flight Path Analysis Group (FPAG), N. L. Crabill, Mission Analysis and Design Manager, M. J. Alazard, Director of the Mission Control Directorate (MCD), and B. Gentry Lee, who worked at Martin Marietta Aerospace as Manager of Mission Operations & Design, and was later employed by JPL. Accompanying the physical Register in the Archives' research area is a 484-page Appendix. Each page corresponds to the 484 file folders in the collection. The Appendix pages provide a listing of all the Viking Flight Team Memoranda in the collection. The listing is by number, and includes author names, dates, the name of the person(s) to whom the memorandum was distributed, and the subject content of each memorandum.

16.2 cubic ft. (484 folders)

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Library and Archives