JPL BLOGS
Inside Views on Outer Space
Hear from scientists, engineers and other experts as they offer a fascinating look at JPL missions, science and history.
Slice of History | July 29, 2014
Ranger 7 Spacecraft Model
Several different full-size and scale models were made of the Ranger spacecraft (Block I, II, and III configurations). Scale models were used by the projects at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at a time when there was no computer animation. Engineers and scientists used them to visualize the spacecraft and its orientation as it reached the moon or a planet.
Three members of the Ranger 7 television experiment team stand near a scale model and lunar globe. From left: Ewen Whitaker, Dr. Gerard Kuiper, and Ray Heacock. Kuiper was the director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) at the University of Arizona. Whitaker was a research associate at LPL. Heacock was the Lunar and Planetary Instruments section chief at JPL.
› Learn more about the Ranger 7 mission
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: RANGER, SPACECRAFT, MISSIONS, HISTORY, VISUALIZATION, EARTH'S MOON, SOLAR SYSTEM
Slice of History | July 1, 2014
Temperature Structure Radiometer
In 1979 there was a Clear Air Turbulence (CAT) Flight Test Program at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory that used a microwave radiometer to measure the temperature at various altitudes in order to map the inversion layers that can cause turbulence for aircraft.
In 1980 a new 55 GHz radiometer was developed by the Microwave Observational Systems Section (383) to passively measure the temperature of oxygen molecules in the air. The Temperature Structure Radiometer (TSR) was flown over the western United States on a NASA CV-990 aircraft based at Ames Research Center. It was mounted inside the cabin, with a view through a special microwave-transparent window. An HP 9825 desktop computer controlled the scan sequence, recorded raw data and converted the readings to an “altitude temperature profile” display. With the information provided by a CAT avoidance sensor, pilots would be able to navigate to a smoother altitude for greater safety and comfort. In this 1981 photo, Bruce Gary (senior scientist, Observational Systems Division, at right) and Jim Johnston (383 section manager) look at the new TSR.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, MISSIONS, SPACECRAFT, INSTRUMENTS
Slice of History | June 2, 2014
VRM/Magellan
This artist's conception of the Magellan spacecraft was created in about 1983, when it was known as Venus Radar Mapper (VRM). This kind of artwork was usually based on reports and drawings provided to the artist by the project staff. By the time Magellan was launched in May 1989 aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, the configuration had changed. It was not an uncommon occurrence for the design of a spacecraft to evolve over a period of months or years, based on input from the various instrument teams and engineers working on the project. It also happened when projects encountered funding problems and were scaled down in order to meet a budget.
One 1984 VRM project document explained, "The details of the configuration of the VRM spacecraft are changing continually as the spacecraft design matures. This illustration [a line drawing that matches the configuration shown in this artwork] shows the general configuration of the VRM spacecraft .... However several details of this illustration are out of date (such as the FEM length, altimeter antenna design and placement, and the amount of STAR-48 support structure retained after VOl)." Other, less detailed drawings were quickly added to the report to show the recent updates.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, MAGELLAN, SPACECRAFT, MISSION, VENUS, SOLAR SYSTEM
Slice of History | May 1, 2014
Advanced Lunar Studies Field Test
The last of the Surveyor lunar landers, Surveyor 7, was launched on January 7, 1968, and operated on the surface of the moon for about six weeks. Later that year, additional geoscience studies were carried out in the Mojave Desert using a spare surface sampler arm. A four-wheel-drive camper truck simulated an automated rover and was used to study the procedures and equipment necessary for remote geoscience. The truck was equipped with various sampler instruments, four TV cameras mounted on the top of the vehicle and one portable TV camera. Inside the camper was a simulated Space Flight Operations Center, with TV monitors, controllers for the cameras and instruments, and recording equipment. The field test observer (sitting in the camper) would survey the geology of the test area and carry out sampling operations remotely. Ritchie Coryell (System Design and Integration Section), Roy Brereton (Advanced Studies Office) and Earle Howard (Lunar and Planetary Instruments Section) all worked on this field test program.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, SURVEYOR, TESTING, MISSIONS, SPACECRAFT, EARTH'S MOON, SOLAR SYSTEM
Slice of History | March 4, 2014
Plasma Flow Research Lab
In February 1964, the Plasma Flow Research Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was completed. It was located in Building 112 by the East Gate in what was once rocket motor test cell B. It included a 7-foot-by-14-foot stainless steel cylindrical vacuum chamber with port holes on the sides to view and photograph the tests. In this photo, Gary Russell, a group supervisor in the Propulsion Research Section, discusses the plasma facility with JPL Director William Pickering, Deputy Director Brian Sparks, Assistant Director for Research and Advanced Development Frank Goddard, and Propulsion Research Section Chief Don Bartz.
Lab-Oratory, the JPL employee newspaper, covered the opening of this new facility, describing how plasma can be generated by bodies entering an atmosphere at high speed and in the plasma lab by electrical discharge. The plasma facility at JPL could create thermally ionized gases at temperatures up to 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Findings from the plasma program were to be applied to power and propulsion devices, and Earth re-entry problems (thermal protection, communication blackout and electrical breakdown). This was a $1.6 million JPL task – part of the larger NASA plasma research and development program.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY
Slice of History | February 18, 2014
Hailstone Research
In 1979, this test fixture was used to study how much damage would occur when a solar panel was hit with hail measuring 1/2 inch to 5 inches in diameter. The white tube is the hailgun barrel. Interchangeable barrels of various sizes matched the diameter of the “hail” or ice ball being tested. The solar panel was mounted on the ceiling of the test facility, and an air compressor provided the force to project hailstones upward at about the same velocity as a storm. In this photo, Lee Albers and Bill Peer of the Test and Mechanical Support Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory load an ice ball into the barrel.
Some of the same equipment was originally used to test possible hail damage in Deep Space Network antenna panels. In summer 1962, after similar tests were done at the South Africa Deep Space Station, a hailstorm simulation facility was developed at JPL to continue the study. The equipment included heated molds to form ice balls of various sizes and a chest freezer to keep them at 18 degrees Fahrenheit.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY, SOLAR PANEL
Slice of History | January 7, 2014
Cassegrain Transmitter Cone
December 24, 2013, marked 50 years since the official beginning of the Deep Space Network. On that date in 1963, JPL Director William Pickering sent out a memo announcing that the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility, or DSIF, Interstation Communications, and the mission-independent portion of the Space Flight Operations Facility would be combined and renamed the Deep Space Network, or DSN. At that time, the DSIF already included five large antennas in California, Australia, and South Africa, to provide complete communications coverage as the Earth rotates.
The DSIF began with mobile tracking stations that were used to track the Explorer spacecraft, and in 1958 the first 85-foot (26 meter) antenna was built in the Mojave desert, at the Goldstone Tracking Station. As new communications technology developed, new antennas have been added to the DSN sites and existing antennas enlarged or modified to increase their capabilities. This photo shows a Cassegrain cone 100-kw transmitter developed for the 85-foot antenna at the Goldstone Venus site (DSS-13) in Goldstone, Calif. It was placed on a cone test elevator in the high-voltage power supply building at Goldstone and raised up high enough that the radiating feed horn on top of the cone was above the roof line of the building during tests. Development and testing was completed in time for it to be used in communicating with the Mariner 4 spacecraft that went to Mars.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY, DEEP SPACE NETWORK
Slice of History | December 9, 2013
Spin Test
In August 1964, this test fixture was used by the Spacecraft Design Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to study spin stabilization of spacecraft - in this case, Rangers 8 and 9 (part of the Ranger Block 3 design). Many spacecraft had used spin stability for attitude control during acceleration or thrust, and it was found that a slower spin provided better stability for the coasting phase.
One method of decreasing the spin of a spacecraft, or de-spinning, was the deployment of yo-yo devices. Weights were attached to rigid or stretch cords, then released while the fixture was spinning. The cords would unwind, like the arms of a figure skater extending to slow a spin, and then the cords were released. In this photo, the cables and weights can be seen, attached to the outside of the white circle. The test fixture is surrounded by what appear to be bales of paper and trash to absorb the impact of the weights when they were released from the spinning test fixture.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL’s Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, RANGER, SPACECRAFT, MISSION, SOLAR SYSTEM, TECHNOLOGY
Slice of History | November 4, 2013
Ranger Impact Limiter
This photo was taken in November 1960 to show the lightweight balsa wood impact limiter that was to be used in the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Ranger Block II spacecraft design (Rangers 3, 4, and 5). The woman holding the sphere is Systems Design secretary Pat McKibben. The sphere was 65 cm in diameter, and it surrounded a transmitter and a seismometer instrument that was designed by the Caltech Seismological Laboratory. The sphere would separate from the spacecraft shortly before impact and survive the rough landing on the moon. The capsule was also vacuum-filled with a protective fluid to reduce movement during impact. After landing, the instrument was to float to an upright position, then the fluid would be drained out so it could settle and switch on.
Due to a series of malfunctions in 1962, these three Ranger spacecraft either crashed without returning data or missed the moon. In July 1964, the first successful Ranger spacecraft, Ranger 7, reached the moon and transmitted more than 4,000 images to Earth.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: RANGER, SPACECRAFT, HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY, MISSION,
Slice of History | September 3, 2013
Mariner 4 Television Experiment Team
Because the data return rate from Mariner 4 was very low, the Mariner 4 Television Experiment Team spent hours waiting for each new image to appear. In this photo they are waiting for the first picture from Mars. Mariner eventually returned 22 images. From left to right: Robert Nathan (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Bruce Murray (associate professor of planetary science), Robert Sharp (Caltech), Robert Leighton (principal investigator), and Clayton La Baw (JPL).
Murray had been a member of the Caltech faculty for about five years when this photo was taken in July 1965. He went on to replace William Pickering as Director of JPL in 1976, retired from that position in 1982, and returned to Caltech.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: MARINER, TV, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, MARS, SOLAR SYSTEM, MISSION, SPACECRAFT