Explorer mission
- With love- A scientist.
- 2 oct 2022
- 1 Min. de lectura
Actualizado: 2 oct 2022
Launch date: January 31st, 1958
Place of launch: Atlantic Missile Range, Florida
Mission objective: Radiation measure
Accomplishments: First U.S. satellite in orbit using data analysis instruments and sent the first ever radiation data about earth from space.
Partners: NASA, State University Iowa; Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Alabama.
The primary science instrument on Explorer 1 was a cosmic ray detector designed to measure the radiation environment in Earth orbit. Once in space this experiment, provided by Dr. James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, revealed a much lower cosmic ray count than expected. Van Allen theorized that the instrument may have been saturated by very strong radiation from a belt of charged particles trapped in space by Earth's magnetic field. The existence of these radiation belts was confirmed by another U.S. satellite launched two months later, and they became known as the Van Allen Belts in honor of their discoverer.
As the first instrumented satellite mission, there were a total of 5 explorer launches, only 3 of them were successful, numbers 1,3 and 4, the two remaining failed at launch.
The first launch was the 31st of January, 1958 with the next four taking place in the same year until August 24th. The main goal of this mission was the compilation of global radiation data. The overall exploration proved the existence of radiation belts now know as the Van Allen Belts in honor of their discoverer.
Explorer 1
January, 1958.
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