Dec 19 1980
From The Space Library
LaRC announced successful demonstration of the world's first gas laser powered directly by sunlight. Conventional laser systems required intermediate energy conversion to achieve lasing: LaRC's device without conversion components reduced system size, weight, complexity, and cost. Researchers J.H. Lee and W.R. Weaver directed light from a solar simulator onto a quartz tube filled with gaseous iodide; the light excited the iodide, causing lasing and emission of a 5-W burst of concentrated light waves.
NASA plans for lasers included use of a space-based system powered by sunlight to direct a laser beam at remote space operations; at the operations site, the laser would change to conventional energy such as electricity or heat. A laser might propel a special space engine to provide economical transfer of payloads in orbit. (LaRC Release 80-96; NASA Release 80-196)
NASA noted that Pioneer 6 had completed 15 years of circling the Sun and returning solar data, longest operating life attained by an interplanetary spacecraft. Original Pioneer specifications had called for a working life of six months.
Pioneer 6 was first to measure the interplanetary medium in detail, sometimes over a half-billion-mile distance. It measured the Sun's corona, returned data on solar storms, and measured a comet's tail. It acquired data on solar cosmic rays, the solar wind, and the solar magnetic field, all three of which extend far beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
Launched in December 1965, the 140-pound (64-kilogram) drum-shaped TRW built craft was 35 inches (89 centimeters) high and 37 inches (94 centimeters) in diameter, covered with solar cells, and carried three booms 120° apart. With Pioneer 7, Pioneer 8, and Pioneer 9, its sister craft, it constituted a network of solar weather stations circling the Sun millions of miles apart. All current Pioneers (6 through 11, and the Pioneer orbiter at Venus) were still operating; mission manager Richard Fimmel said that Pioneer 6 was so good "that we may get another 10 years out of it." (NASA Release 80-194)
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