[X] My Assistant

[GregM]

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[edstrick]

"... The Proton satellites, some weighing 16 tons, were designed to study super-energetic cosmic rays..."

My impression/recollection/understanding was that the Proton satellites were "boilerplate" high-mass spacecraft basically used as proof-of-capability payloads for the orbital test fligths of the Proton booster, with instrumentation added behind the heavy shielding for genuine science return that would not normally have been flown.

The Pegasus micrometeoride experiments on the last 3 <i think> Saturn 1 test flights were bolt-on instrumented payloads on the S-IV upper stage, using the stage much as the Agena's on some Atlas boosters were used as spacecraft (for Gemini targets, and for Seasat <I think>, as examples). They used the "heavy lift for free" to do some enormously valuable science: the first really good meteoride data in space with really useful statistics.

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

My impression/recollection/understanding was that the Proton satellites were "boilerplate" high-mass spacecraft basically used as proof-of-capability payloads for the orbital test fligths of the Proton booster, with instrumentation added behind the heavy shielding for genuine science return that would not normally have been flown.

That could well be. The Proton satellites were unique scientific experiments, somewhat similar in scale to some of the HEAO satellites flown many years later. The scientific experiments onboard were massive.

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The rightmost photo is probably the best view of the device contained in Proton-1 and -2. There was a gamma-ray telescope (2) a low-energy particle detector (1) and an electron spectrometer (9). But the primary experiment was a giant detector to investigate the mysterious super-energetic cosmic rays, measuring up to 10,000 GeV. Section 4 was a graphite filter, which rotated 90 degrees every 12 hours, covering and uncovering the primary detectors for shielding comparisons. Below that (5,6,8) are two identical detectors.

How do you measure a particle of 10**14 eV? Interesting problem, because simple detectors cannot measure that high and in fact they cannot even really absorb very much of the energy of a particle that passes through at that speed. What the Russians did was stack alternating 2-inch thick layers of iron and scintillator plastic, so the cosmic ray would dump a large amount of its energy in the creation of particle showers. 15-inch diameter photomultiplier tubes (7) measured the total light emitted from the scintillator layers.