Apr 15 1982
From The Space Library
NASA said that it had turned off the SAGE (stratospheric aerosol and gas experiment) after the spacecraft's battery failed. A joint project of LaRC and GSFC, SAGE was the first to perform extensive vertical measurements of aerosols in the stratosphere and first to detect volcanic dust in that region, 9 to 40 kilometers (6 to 25 miles) above Earth's surface. Launched from WFC in February 1979 with a 1-year design lifetime, it had tracked plumes from five volcanic eruptions, including Mt. ;St. Helens, and had mapped ozone in the Earth's atmosphere from data taken during more than 13,000 sunrises and sunsets. Its orbit was not expected to decay until about 1984, when it would burn up during reentry. (NASA Release 82-59)
ESA said that it would begin a follow-on program with Spacelab. Financial contributions from member states for this purpose had reached 80% of the goal April 15, permitting work to start immediately. Part of the new program would be development of a European retrievable carrier (EURECA) to be launched and retrieved by the Space Shuttle as well as a core payload for the first mission consisting of microgravity research emphasizing material and life sciences, with first flight scheduled for the end of 1986.
Weighing about 1,500 kilograms, EURECA would have a design life of six months or more in orbit, providing services for its payload including electrical power and heat protection. Its low gravity-disturbance level would be essential to microgravity research. After deployment, an on-board propulsion unit would put it in a higher orbit with less drag on its large solar arrays. Once in orbit, its experiments, although highly automated, would be operated by remote control and monitored from the ground. It would reassume low orbit for recovery by the Shuttle and return to Earth for refurbishment. (ESA Info 12)
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