UMSF space history photo of the month |
UMSF space history photo of the month |
Guest_PhilCo126_* |
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#1
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Maybe we could make this a monthly item, in which we could look back at the history of Unmanned Space missions.
For January 2008 I've chosen an image showing the coverage of the Sun by early Pioneer 5-8 spacecraft. Pioneer 5 to 8, or Pioneer V to VIII using the system of Roman numerals in vogue during the early 1960s for spacecraft designations, were directed towards the Sun along the earth's orbit to monitor solar activity. Pioneer V was launched on 11th March 1960 and provided the very first space weather report 4 to 8 hours before a solar storm hit the Earth. Some of this Pioneer quartet, Pioneer 6-7-8 even provided updates on our Sun's activity during the early Apollo Moon landings in order to check the damaging potential of solar flares to affect the astronauts. |
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#2
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Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 ![]() |
The vanes were light-sail vanes, they were essentially an engineering experiment.
As I understand, shiny bright metal surfaces get about 10 times the light-sail pressure as solar-wind particle pressure... (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) My poorly documented understanding is that the vanes were ment to auto-adjust somehow the off-center solar pressure on the not-quite-symmetric spacecraft and so null out light pressure induced attitude drift, thus reducing use of attitude control gas. The vanes apparently were "sticky" and didn't adjust properly and didn't yield the expected benefit. THEY WERE NOT CARRIED ON MARINER 5. |
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