Mission Results
The discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt by the Explorer satellites was considered to be one of the outstanding discoveries of the IGY.
Explorer 3 was placed in an orbit with a perigee of 186 kilometers and an apogee of 2799 kilometers having a period of 115.7 minutes. Its total weight was 14.1 kilograms, of which 8.4 kg was instrumentation. The instrument section at the front end of the satellite and the empty scaled-down fourth-stage rocket casing orbited as a single unit, spinning around its long axis at 750 revolutions per minute.
Instrumentation consisted of a cosmic ray detection package and a ring of micrometeorite erosion gauges. The Explorer 3 spacecraft was spin-stabilized and had an on-board tape recorder to provide a complete radiation history for each orbit. Data from these instruments was transmitted to the ground by a 60 milliwatt transmitter operating on 108.03 MHz and a 10 milliwatt transmitter operating on 108.00 MHz.
Transmitting antennas consisted of two fiberglass slot antennas in the body of the satellite itself and four flexible whips forming a turnstile antenna. The rotation of the satellite about its long axis kept the flexible whips extended.
The external skin of the instrument section was painted in alternate strips of white and dark green to provide passive temperature control of the satellite. The proportions of the light and dark strips were determined by studies of shadow-sunlight intervals based on firing time, trajectory, orbit, and inclination.
Electrical power was provided by nickel-cadmium chemical batteries that made up approximately 40 percent of the payload weight. These provided power that operated the high power transmitter for 31 days and the low-power transmitter for 105 days.
Because of the limited space available and the requirements for low weight, the Explorer 3 instrumentation was designed and built with simplicity and high reliability in mind. It was completely successful.
Explorer 3 decayed from orbit on June 27, 1958, after 93 days of operation.
A replica of the spacecraft is currently located in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Milestones of Flight Gallery.
Read more about this topic: Explorer 3
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