Word: orbiters
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Explorer VI windmilled into orbit just 18 months after the U.S. had orbited Explorer I, its first space satellite, in belated reply to the Soviets' Sputnik challenge. The difference between the two marked the steady acceleration of the U.S. space program. Explorer I, still riding in space, is a 30.8-lb. cylinder that reaches an apogee of 1,600 miles. Explorer VI, weighing 142 Ibs., is more complex and reaches higher than anything ever orbited around the earth-26,400 miles, with ellipses to a low perigee of 157 miles. Its aluminum skin encases scores of miniaturized scientific instruments...
...Explorer VI, shot into orbit from Cape Canaveral last week (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), was the most sophisticated satellite the U.S. has launched. Rigid arms like paddle wheels, whirling through the sunlight of empty space, were its most spectacular feature, designed to test the possibility of capturing enough energy from the sun to send messages across millions of miles (TIME, April 27). Such a durable source of energy is crucial to proposed space probes to Venus or farther planets, for there is little point in sending out space probes unless their transmitters can send information back to earth...
...based solar cells mounted on a thin plastic honeycomb (an elaboration of the light-collecting window in Vanguard I, which still draws in enough energy to keep the tiny satellite busily broadcasting 17 months after it was launched). At 22,000 m.p.h., the new 142-lb. satellite went into orbit (rotating 171 times a minute), and the cells began to convert sunlight into electricity...
Other Tasks. But Explorer VI had more to do than absorb energy from the sun. Purposely programed for the most eccentric orbit ever achieved by an earth satellite, it settled almost exactly into its planned path, first reached its record apogee some 26,400 miles straight out into space from the Cape of Good Hope, its perigee a narrow 157 miles over Singapore. With so great a range of altitude, it will pierce both of the newly discovered Van Allen radiation belts (TIME. May 12, 1958 et seq.), collect comprehensive data on phenomena ranging from the earth's ionosphere...
...accomplish these tasks, Explorer VI's 1/161n. aluminum skin shrouds the most intricate and talented collection of scientific instruments yet sent into space -all in a 29-in. by 26-in. ball that moves through its complete orbit once every twelve hours. One hoped-for result is the first relatively detailed map of the Van Allen belts, which present a formidable barrier to interplanetary flight. Previous earth satellites have not gone high enough to examine the enormous breadth of the Van Allen radiation. Pioneer IV obtained valuable information, but made only one trip through the belts before falling into...