Apr 25 1984
From The Space Library
NASA announced that it and its Italian counterpart, the National Space Plan office of the Italian National Research Council (PSN/CNR), had asked scientists from around the world to submit their ideas for experiments to be performed on a joint U.S.-Italian program known as the TSS-Satellite that later in the decade could be reeled into and out of the Space Shuttle's cargo bay on a miles-long tether. NASA and PSN/CNR would evaluate scientists' proposals and decide what experiments would be performed on the system. NASA planned to carry the system aboard the Space Shuttle by sometime in 1987.
On its first flight the satellite, once the Shuttle was in orbit, would be deployed upward about 40 feet by an extendable boom. The satellite would be checked out while at the top of the boom and then released. As it moved up-ward away from the Shuttle, the reel would unwind until the satellite was at its proper distance for conducting electrodynamic experiments.
As the Shuttle passed through the space plasma, the satellite, with its con-ducting tether, could become a generator, much as a copper coil moving within a magnet on Earth can produce a flow of electricity. By drawing off the energy from the conducting tether and releasing it into space, scientists would be able to study magnetic lines of flux that surround the Earth. (NASA Release 84-54)
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