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Show Athena H Scheduled For Friday Shot White Sands Missile Range, N.M., July 23 U. S. Air Force officials have announced the scheduled launch of an Athena H missile, Friday Fri-day night, July 27, from the range's launch complex com-plex at Green River, Ut. The Athena, a research re-search vehicle used to study reentry phenomena phenom-ena of space vehicles, will be programmed to impact on White Sands Missile Range in south central New Mexico. The launch will complete com-plete the Advanced Ballistic Bal-listic Reentry System test program at White Sands Missile Range. The program began in 1964, when plans for 20 Athena launches were announced. With Friday's Fri-day's launch. 141 Athe na missiles will have been fired. The U. S. Army will provide safety and data gathering support. The safety area north of Magdalena and Datil, south of Grants and between be-tween Helen and Blue Mesa, all in New Mexico, Mexi-co, will be evacuated beginning at 6 p.m., Friday, Fri-day, for a period not exceeding '12 hours. Roadblocks will be set on secondary roads about 11 miles north of Magdalena and just south of Mesita, beginning at 5:30 p.m., Friday. The 60-foot Athena is a three-stage, solid pro-pcllant pro-pcllant missile. The first stage is programmed program-med to impact in the safety area and the remainder re-mainder of the missile impacts on range. |