Mar 25 1982
From The Space Library
MSFC reported HEAO 2, second in a series of three high-energy astronomy observatories launched in the late 1970s and the last to reenter, fell from orbit at 1:27 a.m. CST and burned up in the atmosphere. John Stone, project manager a MSFC, said that tracking stations indicated that it broke up over the South Pacific east of Australia. HEAO 1 had reentered in 1979; HEAO 3, in December 1981. HEAO 2 had not been operational for almost a year, as it had expended its control-gas supply in April 1981, so that it could not maintain attitude and had to be powered down.
Launched in September 1979 and nicknamed Einstein, HEAO 2 had operated for nearly 2½ years, carrying the largest X-ray telescope ever built. It had made detailed imaging and spectroscopic observations of about 300 known X-ray sources and discovered thousands of faint new ones. It also made the first X-ray photographs of supernova remnants, pulsars, galactic X-ray sources, and diffuse emissions from galactic clusters. Scientists said it would take three years longer to analyze the data from the HEAOs. (MSFC Release 82-31)
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