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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0539.PDF
FLIGHT International, 12 April 1962 537 Mr M. 0. Robins UK Project Manager Prof]. Severs Birmingham University Prof H. Elliot Imperial College, London Dr R. L F. Boyd University College, London Missiles and Spaceflight Anglo-American Satellite THE launch of the National Aeronautics and Space Administra tion's first international spacecraft, the S-51 satellite carrying British instruments to investigate the ionosphere and cosmic rays, was due to take place by Delta vehicle from Cape Canaveral this week. The 1321b satellite was scheduled to attain a 55° orbit with a perigee of about 200 miles and apogee of about 600 miles. An operating lifetime of approximately one year was expected. The design, fabrication and testing of the spacecraft structure, power supply, telemetry, command receiver, temperature control and data storage has been the responsibility of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. Langley Research Center provided a 62ft vacuum test sphere for system test and check out of the payload. The British scientists have in general been responsible for the design, fabrication and testing of all flight sensors and their asso ciated electronics up to the telemetry and coder input. Data analysis and interpretation will also be handled in this country. NASA was responsible for all spacecraft subsystems except the experiments, and for launching the satellite into orbit by means of the three-stage Delta. Tracking, data acquisition and data processing will be handled by the Goddard Center, with the Winkfield Minitrack station near Windsor assisting in the acquisi tion of telemetered data from the satellite. Other Minitrack stations in the USA, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, South Africa, Australia and Newfoundland are also co-operating in the project. Under UK project manager M. O. Robins, the British groups responsible for the scientific experiments are: University College, London: electron temperature, solar ultra violet emission (Lyman-Alpha), solar hard X-ray spectrum and ionosphere composition experiments, and payload aspect sensor. University of Birmingham: electron density experiment. Imperial College, London: cosmic ray experiment (in conjunction with aircraft measurements of secondary cosmic ray intensity). University of Leicester: participation in the x-ray experiment. The satellite and its development programme will be the subject of a detailed description, illustrated both in black-and-white and in colour, ia next week's issue. Some of the British and American scientists engaged in the programme are pictured above. US Project Manager Robert Baumann (right), working at Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, with Dr A. P. Willmore (left) of University College, London, and Mr Alastair Durney of Imperial College Artist's impression of the international satellite
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