NASA to build 'small explorer' satellites.NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. to build 'Small Explorer' satellites Less than a year ago, NASA announced it would start working on a series of small, relatively inexpensive scientific satellites that it could develop in a far shorter time than the decade or more sometimes needed for elaborate projects such as interplanetary missions. This week, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Md., hosted a group of scientists just selected to work with the first four satellites in the series. Each satellite should cost only about $30 million and weigh barely 400 pounds so that it can be launched on an inexpensive Scout rocket. Time is also a key factor: NASA started right out telling potentially interested scientists that there would be "less than three years elapsing from the start of the detailed design and hardware development phases until launch of the mission." A primary reason for the rapid development: "So it will be possible to address a topic while it's hot," says David A. Gilman of NASA in Washington, D.C. Another factor, says Small Explorer program
The Explorer program was the United States's first successful attempt to launch an artificial satellite. manager Nickolus O. Rasch, is to "allow critical training opportunities for the next generation of scientists and engineers." First on the list is the Solar, Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer, scheduled for orbit in mid-1992 to study "anomalous" cosmic rays cosmic rays, charged particles moving at nearly the speed of light reaching the earth from outer space. Primary cosmic rays consist mostly of protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms), some alpha particles (helium nuclei), and lesser amounts of nuclei of carbon, nitrogen, and timed to work during the current solar-cycle maximum. Next comes a Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite The Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) was an astronomical observatory launched on December 5, 1998 as part of NASA's Explorer program. Investigators at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Goddard Space Flight Center designed the telescope and the spacecraft, in mid-1993, aimed at helping decipher how molecular clouds collapse to form stars and planetary systems. This "survey" mission will take the first overall look at the sky in submillimeter wavelengths. "We could never have done this before," says Gilman, "because there weren't enough opportunities to fly it." The Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer The Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer (FAST) launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on board a Pegasus XL rocket on August 21, 1996. One in the series of NASA's Small Explorer (SMEX) spacecraft, FAST was designed to observe and measure the plasma physics of the auroral phenomena should fly late in 1993, followed by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer The Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) is a satellite instrument for measuring ozone values. Of the five TOMS instruments which were built, four entered successful orbit. (TOMS), addressing concerns about Earth's ozone layer. NASA wants TOMS in orbit so badly that it may fly the satellite either as a Small Explorer or in another series of satellites called Earth Probes. The agency is even negotiating about a possible ride for TOMS on a Soviet weather satellite. |
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