space:uk issue 35

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Summer 2012 Issue 35

Special issue: 50 years ofthe UK in space

From Ariel-1 to Solar Orbiter:celebrating half a century of space science

Fried by the bomb:the full story of Ariel-1s demise

space:uk 1962:pull-out supplement

Plus:

UK astronauts underwater challenge, scientists plan or mission

to Jupiter, innovation in space and postcards rom Saturn


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Front cover image: Enceladus hangs below Saturns rings whileTitan lurks in the background. A new image captured by the Cassini

spacecrat

Credit: ESA, NASA

Contents

01/09 NewsBuilding Europes Sun mission, money or Marsresearch, underwater astronaut and celebratingSaturn

10/15 50 years in spaceHow Solar Orbiter can trace its heritage backto Ariel-1

16/19 Ariel-1: the secrethistory

The story o the UKs rst satellite, rom itssuccessul launch to untimely demise

Education and Careers

20/21 Ask the expertsThe colour o planets, gol on the Moon and thejoys o space toilets

22 Teaching resources

24/25 The UK in spaceTimeline o UK space history

Pull-out section:space:uk 1962

The latest space news rom ty years ago

Follow us:@spacegovuk

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The UK Space Agency is an executive agency o the Departmentor Business, Innovation and Skills

space:ukis written and edited or theUK Space Agency by Bon Media

www.bonmedia.co.uk

space:ukis designed and produced byRCUKs internal service provider

www.jrs.ac.uk

From the editor

Ive been spending a lot o time with old documents over the past ewmonths. Its quite a thrill to lea through Government archives withSecret written in big letters across the ront. And its only now, 50 years

ater Ariel-1s historic ight, that the ull details o the satellites untimelydemise can be revealed. We tell the story on page 16.

The science and engineering that went into Ariel-1 sowed the seeds othe UK space industry. Now worth some 7.5 billion and still growing.

Today, the UKs expertise in building spacecrat is being employed ormissions to the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn, as well as themany satellites that study the Earth. The UK also builds some o theworlds most sophisticated communications and navigation satellites.You can read more about these missions throughout space:uk.

Weve also included a special supplement, imagining what a 1962 issueo this magazine would have been like. It was great un to put togetherbut made me realise that although space was exciting then, its just asexciting now.

Richard HollinghamEditor

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ASA

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UK to build Sun missionA spacecrat designed to get closer to the Sun than ever

beore, is to be built in Britain. Astrium UK has been

selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) as the

prime contractor or the Solar Orbiter mission, which

will make a detailed study o our nearest star and its

inuence on the Earth.

The 300 million contract was signed on the anniversaryo the launch o the UKs rst satellite, Ariel-1, as part o thecelebrations or the 50th anniversary o the UK in space. Oneo the worlds rst scientic satellites, Ariel-1 was also designedto study the Sun and its inuence on the Earth.

The prime contract or this mission is the biggest ever signedbetween the ESA science programme and a UK company, saidChie Executive o the UK Space Agency, David Williams. SolarOrbiter represents an important stage o the UKs ambition orgrowth and innovation and its a testament to the skills andexpertise o UK industry that we win such major contracts.

Solar Orbiter will orbit the Sun in an elliptical orbit where itwill capture detailed images o the star and study the solarwind the stream o charged particles the Sun ejects out intospace. These particles interact with the Earths magnetic shield

known as the magnetosphere and produce spectacular

auroral displays. Occasionally the Sun releases bursts o matter,along with high-energy particles. These Coronal Mass Ejectionscause surges o electrical activity around the Earth, damagingsatellites in orbit and even bringing down power grids.

Due or launch in 2017, this mission is extremely challenging.As well as enduring temperatures higher than 500 degrees,Solar Orbiter will have to cope with powerul bursts o energyand eruptions o high energy particles rom the Suns surace.As a result, the spacecrat will need to be equipped with aspecially designed heat shield and a new type o solar array.

I am delighted that Astrium has won Solar Orbiter, said Heado Astrium UK, Colin Paynter. This contract builds on ourunrivalled heritage in solar missions which includes the SOHOsatellite, which is still operational ater 17 years and providingvaluable data or solar scientists around the world.

The UK Space Agency has also announced a planned 11.5million investment to be shared between British institutionsor the development o our o the missions instruments.

Read more about Solar Orbiter and the legacy o Ariel-1

on page 10.

Artists image o Solar Orbiter Credit: Astrium

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Welcome to the summer edition ospace:uk, writes Emma Lord, Director o

Policy and Operations or the UK SpaceAgency.

I introduced the last issue by commenting on the busy yearwe were expecting and that has certainly proved to be thecase so ar.

On 26 April we celebrated the anniversary o 50 years o the UKin space when guests at a London conerence came togetherto recall the rst UK designed and operated satellite everlaunched, Ariel-1. The Secretary o State, Vince Cable, attended

the event as well as a number o UK space pioneers and peoplewho work in todays space sector. I wonder who would havepredicted in those early days how the sector in the UK wouldgrow and how many people it would employ by the 21stcentury. The last study o the industry showed almost 25,000are employed directly in the space sector with a urther 80,000

jobs supported by space. I hope that by the next issue ospace:ukwe will be able to update these gures with new data.

And talking o todays space sector workers, what otomorrows? Well some o them came together in Londonat an international event to celebrate the closing o Mission

X: Train Like An Astronaut. Mission X is designed by NASA toencourage school students, between 8 and 12 years old, tobe more physically active. It uses astronaut training to teachhow good ood and exercise play an important role in humanperormance in space and on the Earth. The UK is one o 16nations to have signed up to the challenge by organisingMission X educational programmes. There are likely to be evenmore next year.

I had a personal rst in May when I visited a local primaryschool as part o a prize or our design a Christmas cardcompetition, which we ran last year. This is the rst time I have

been ofered up as a prize and, as always, it was a pleasure tomeet so many young and enthusiastic children and teacherswho all listened intently to our talk and asked a number

Emma Lord,UK Space Agency Director oPolicy and Operations

Credit:SwindonAdvertiser

Two delegates take on ESA astronaut, Paulo Nespoli, during the Mission X event in April

Credit: UK Space Agency

o challenging questions. I this is the calibre o the nextgeneration o scientists, mathematicians and engineers thenI think we can say the UK heritage o developing world-leading technology is in sae hands. The real delight was inmeeting Angel-Lee Richardson, the winner o the competition.She is not only a rst class artist but a very modest and

generous girl who was only too pleased to share the limelighto local media interest with her classmates.

As I will continue to mention, the ESA Ministerial meetingtakes place at the end o 2012. This large project involvescolleagues across the Agency working with industry,academia, and government colleagues to prepare the UKposition. We are also spending an increasing amount o timeworking with European colleagues at the ESA headquartersin Paris as nations rom the 19 member states come togetherto build the space priorities or the coming years. I wish that itwere as glamorous as it sounds but in the current economic

climate the meetings involve dicult decisions and longworking days. Working with European partners is alwaysinteresting though and keeping my rather rusty French goingofers yet another element to a very varied job.

You can keep up to date with the latest news and events onour website or through social media such as Facebook and

Twitter. And dont orget the new blog or a more personalview rom inside the Agency.

www.bis.gov.uk/ukspaceagency

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UK frst or NASAUK space scientists and engineers have delivered the

rst completed instrument or Hubbles successor,

the James Webb Space Telescope. The Mid InraRed

Instrument (MIRI) took more than 200 people to build

and has resulted in a camera so sensitive it would be

able to see a candle on one o Jupiters moons.

MIRI was shipped in May to NASAs Goddard Space FlightCenter, where it will be put together with the three otherinstruments and the telescope itsel.

David Willetts, Minister or Universities and Science, was at the

handover ceremony between ESA and NASA at the Institute oEngineering and Technology in London.

MIRI is the impressive result o more than ten years o work,led by Britain in partnership with Europe, said Willetts. Withworld-leading space research acilities at the RutherordAppleton Laboratory, a host o excellent universities andstrategic direction rom the UK Space Agency, the UK is clearlywell placed to contribute to major global missions.

It is wonderul to be the rst to achieve this major milestone,said Gillian Wright, the European Principal Investigator or MIRI

based at STFCs Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh.We can now look orward to signicant scientic discoverieswhen it is launched in 2018.

MIRI complete and ready to go Credit: RAL Space

Bright ideas rewarded

Funding to investigate green spacecrat propellants has been won by a group includingReaction Engines Limited, the company behind the Skylon spaceplane

Credit: Reaction Engines Limited

Concepts to develop environmentally riendly

propellants or uture spacecrat and new high

perormance materials or satellites have beenrewarded with unding rom the UK Space Agency.

Other winners in the National Space Technology

Programmes (NSTP) latest competition include the

developers o a new type o spacecrat thruster and a

team designing highly sensitive detectors to observe

the Earth rom space.

The NSTP was set up to help maintain the success and growthrate o the UK space industry by investigating technologiesthat could be used in uture space missions. So ar, since itslaunch in 2011, the scheme has helped 50 hi-tech space

projects. The ten products selected in this latest competitionall showed potential to meet uture operational, commercialor scientic objectives in the global space economy.

The call or submissions or the NSTP has unearthed a rangeo marketable, innovative ideas which will hone the UKs spacetechnology capabilities, said Director or Technology, Scienceand Exploration at the UK Space Agency, David Parker. It isantastic or us to be able to invest in technical developmentsthat will have an economic impact into the uture.

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CryoSat: new results

Europes ice mission, CryoSat, has been used to produce the

rst detailed map showing the thickness o Arctic ice over anentire winter. The mission, which is led by a UK science team,

is using radar to build up a picture o the worlds ice cover and

how it is changing. Every year, the Arctic Ocean experiences

the seasonal ormation and melting o vast amounts o

oating ice. However, there is strong evidence that as a result

o climate change the area in the Arctic covered by ice is

shrinking.

Artists image o CryoSat Credit: ESA

Japan agreement

The UK and Japan have signed an agreement to work

closely on uture space missions. The deal commits the

two countries to cooperate on space research and identiy

potential commercial opportunities. One o the key areas or

collaboration is on Earth observation technology, such as

the UKs Disaster Monitoring Constellation. These satellites

provided vital data to assist with rescue eforts and damage

assessment in the atermath o the 2011 Japan earthquake

and tsunami.

CubeSat takes shape

Two o the ve experiments being

carried on the UK Space Agencys

rst CubeSat, UKube-1, mission

have been successully tested at

Clyde Space in Glasgow, where

the satellite is being put together.

CubeSats are smaller and much

cheaper to build than traditional

satellites, with the basic CubeSat

unit just 10cm across on each

side. UKube-1 is the size o threeo these units stuck together. Final

construction and testing o all the

component parts is expected to

take place over the summer.

The entire satellite is only 30cm long

Credit: Clyde Space

Jupiters rozen moonsThe Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is to become the

rst European-led mission to the outer solar system. The

spacecrat, which will launch in 2022 and arrive eight

years later in 2030, will also be the rst to orbit an icy

moon.

The ESA Science Programmme Committee gave JUICE the go-ahead at a meeting in Paris in May. JUICE will explore the gasgiant Jupiter and its three largest moons Europa, Ganymedeand Callisto, as well as y past the moon Io.

Its a abulous mission, said Proessor Andrew Coates rom

University College Londons Mullard Space Science Laboratory.The key jewel in this mission is going to the icy satellites andto be able to compare Europa, Ganymede and Callisto andlook at Io. These our Galilean satellites are all unique in theirown way.

Coates helped draw up the plans or the mission and is nowleading an international consortium to put together a suite oinstruments to y on board the spacecrat. Several universitiesand institutes in the UK and across Europe are now in theprocess o proposing experiments to study Jupiter and itsmoons in unprecedented detail.

Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are all thought to have oceansbeneath their surace and may even harbour the conditionsor lie. Examining the Jovian system will also help scientistsbetter understand planet ormation and how the Solar Systemworks. We will be working out in detail how the ormation othose moons happened and also looking at the habitabilitythere, said Coates. Im really excited about it!

JUICE will visit, rom let to right, the icy moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto Credit: NASA

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Money or Mars scienceThe UK Space Agency has awarded 2 million to

scientists to examine the atmosphere, geology,

chemistry and habitability o Mars as well as the

possibility o past and present lie on the red planet.

The UKs expertise in planetary science is internationallyrecognised. As a result, the standard o research being undedis not only high but also extremely diverse, reecting therange o scientic disciplines associated with space science.

The money is being shared between nine successul bids romthe Universities o Leicester, Kent and Edinburgh, UniversityCollege London, Imperial College London and the Open

University.

Two o the awards will have an immediate benet, helping UKscientists as NASAs Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) preparesto land its Curiosity rover on the Martian surace in August.Sanjeev Gupta, rom Imperial College London, is participatingin this mission and his work will analyse the evolution o theMartian surace.

UK-unded research on Martian meteorites has also resultedin NASA selecting John Bridges, rom Leicester University,and Simon Kelly, rom the Open University in Milton Keynes,

as MSL scientists. Their unding will allow them to study theinteraction between water and rock on Mars.

This will allow us to participate in what is, in my view, themost important and exciting robotic landing mission everattempted to date, said Bridges. MSL has the potential toreveal whether Mars was ever habitable or microbial lie anddetermine i there were standing bodies o water or longperiods o time.

This recently released image rom Europes Mars Express mission shows ice in the southernpolar region o Mars. One o the winning bids will study the potential o these polar regions to

support lie Credit: ESA

The Curiosity rover will start exploring Mars in August Credit: NASA

MSL isnt the only spacecrat within the planetaryneighbourhood. Mars Express, Europes rst mission to Marsinvolving a number o UK scientists, recently celebrated itseighth anniversary in space. The orbiter sent back superbimages o ice at the planets southern polar region. One o theaward winners, Axel Hagermann o the Open University, willuse his unding to study the Martian poles and the potential othese regions to support lie.

The search or lie elsewhere in the Universe is one o

mankinds key questions and astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell,rom the University o Leicester, was another o the successulbidders.

Im absolutely delighted with this award, said Dartnell, whowill examine the planet using a technique called Ramanspectroscopy. Raman is particularly exciting as it can spotsigns o extreme lie in the most hostile environments on Earth and has lots o other applications, like detecting drugs buthas not yet been deployed on a planetary mission.

The unding will enhance ESAs existing Aurora and science

programmes within the UK and continue the innovation andgrowth o the UKs space industry. The UK should be proudto have such a dynamic research community, said the UKSpace Agencys David Parker. We are delighted to supportresearchers at the oreront o exploring the red planet.

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Galileo checks out

The rst two satellites in Europes new satellite navigation

system, Galileo, have passed all their perormance tests inorbit. The heart o the satellites the navigation payloads

were developed and built by Astrium in the UK. The next

two satellites in this In Orbit Validation (IOV) phase are

due or launch later this year. Meanwhile, Surrey Satellite

Technology Limited has delivered the rst payload or the

ourteen remaining satellites in the Galileo constellation.

When its complete, Galileo will be the most accurate civilian

satellite navigation system in the world and will be completely

compatible with the American GPS and Russian GLONASS

systems.

This picture, taken in May, shows the ourth Galileo IOV satellite during testing in Rome

Credit: ESA

Rainorest dealA UK-built satellite is being used to help combat illegal logging

in the Amazon rainorest. A contract has been signed between

DMC International Imaging Limited and Brazils National

Institute or Space Research to monitor orest clearance as it

happens. The UK-DMC2 satellite will take pictures o the entire

Amazon basin every two weeks, so that the authorities are

alerted as soon as possible ater logging is detected.

When galaxies collide

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is on course to collide with its

neighbour the Andromeda galaxy. But dont panic just yet

because it wont happen or another our billion years. Thediscovery was made by studying data and images rom the

international Hubble Space Telescope. According to the

research, it is likely the Sun will be ung into a new region o

our galaxy but our Earth and solar system are in no danger o

being destroyed.

Artists impression o the night sky just beore the galactic collision Credit: NASA

Underwater astronaut

Tim Peake (let) with ellow aquanaut Steve Squyres Credit: NASA

British ESA astronaut Tim Peake has been taking part in

a mission to an asteroidbeneath the waves. Peakes

mission was undertaken in June as part o NASAs

Extreme Environment Mission Operations programme

(NEEMO) and involved spending two weeks living in a

special underwater habitat, Aquarius, of the Florida

coast.

These underwater expeditions are designed to give astronauts arealistic simulation o what lie will be like on a real long durationspace mission. Participants live in cramped quarters, conduct

experiments and go on excursions to simulate space walks.

NASA is currently planning to send a manned spacecrat to anasteroid in the 2020s and this particular mission NEEMO 16 included using small submarines as exploration vehicles andeven a time delay between the underwater base and missioncontrol on the surace.

During the mission the aquanauts posted a daily blog o theiractivities. In one o the entries Peake wrote that it was an anincredible experience. Describing two oodlit submersiblesappearing out o the gloom, he said: It really wasnt that hard

to remind ourselves that we were simulating an asteroidmission...the special efects have so ar been worthy o anaward!

The crew o NEEMO 16, Tim Peake is on the ar let Credit: NASA

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Fond arewell to EnvisatESA has declared the Envisat mission ocially at an end

ater losing contact with the environmental satellite

in April, only a ew days ater it celebrated ten years o

successully monitoring our planet. Envisat, the largest

Earth observation satellite ever built, was expected

to continue operating into 2014 and had already

lasted more than twice its original ve-year lietime.

Despite concerted eforts to re-establish contact with

the satellite, the operations team has concluded that

nothing urther can be done.

During its service, Envisat circled the globe more than 50,000

times with its ten instruments helping us keep a check on thehealth o our planet by monitoring the oceans, the ice caps,the land and the atmosphere. The data acquired has provedessential in enabling scientists to understand the long-termchanges happening to the Earth.

Several UK research teams are involved in collecting andanalysing results rom Envisat, with more than 1,200 scienticprojects rom all over Europe. UK companies and institutionshave also played leading roles in the manuacture o thesatellite, supplying the platorm and developing two keyinstruments: the Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer

and the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar.

Envisat was unique with all its instruments on one platorm,said Maria Adams, Head o Earth Observation Missions and

Technology at the UK Space Agency. Over the last ten years,it has provided a wealth o essential and continuous long-term quality data which have contributed to the betterunderstanding o Earths complex processes, such as climatechange.

One o the last images obtained by Envisat reveals a crack across Pine Island Glacier in West

Antarctica Credit: ESA

Missing matter mission

Artists impression o Euclid Credit: ESA

Scientists working on a new mission to investigate

the undamental mysteries o the Universe have been

granted 8.5 million by the UK Space Agency. The Euclid

mission will study dark energy and dark matter and UK

science teams are at the oreront o this ESA project.

Normal matter the stuf were made o only makes uparound 5% o our Universe. Most o the Universe is thereoreconsidered to be missing until scientists can nd out whatmakes up the remaining 95%. According to theoreticalphysicists, dark energy which would explain why theUniverse is expanding at an accelerating rate could accountor the missing 70%. Invisible dark matter would account orthe remaining 25%.

Euclid will use a telescope to study dark matter and darkenergy with great precision, tracing its distribution throughout

the Universe. The UK Space Agency grant will support thedevelopment o the missions two key instruments andUniversity College Londons Mullard Space Science Laboratoryand the Open University will lead the research groups.

This is a huge mission, said David Parker, Director oTechnology, Science and Exploration at the UK Space Agency.At the heart o the mission is one o the billion poundquestions o physics and the UK Space Agency is proud tobe unding the teams that are working to unlock some o thegreat mysteries o the Universe.

Euclid received nal approval in June and the Space Agencyis also providing unding to the consortium o UK institutionscoordinating the vast amount o data that the mission isexpected to generate.

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Postcards rom SaturnThe international Cassini-Huygens mission arrived in

orbit around Saturn in July 2004. Since then it has made

an extensive study o the ringed planet and its moons.

In January 2005, the Huygens probe landed on Titan therst part to touch the surace o this alien world was made inthe UK.

During its eight years in orbit, Cassini-Huygens has maderemarkable discoveries and captured some incredible images.

Here are just a ew o them:

(All credits: ESA, NASA)

The moon Mimas seen against the blue backdrop o Saturns northern latitudes.These true colours are exactly how Cassini saw them

Saturns rings in all their splendour

Saturns icy moon Enceladus expels around 250kg o water every second througha collection o jets at its south polar region

Looking down on Saturns rings

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The rst colour view o Titans surace sent back by the Huygens probe. Themoon is smothered in a thick atmosphere and there is evidence o methane rain,erosion, stream-like drainage channels and dry lakebeds

In this image Enceladus can be seen beneath Saturns rings. I you look very closelyyou might even see the plumes o water

Mountainous terrain reaches about 10km in height along the equatorial ridge o Saturns moon Iapetus

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50 years inspaceFrom Ariel-1 to Solar Orbiter: what do two space science

missions ty years apart have in common? As Richard

Hollingham discovers, the UK space industry owes a lot to

its pioneers:

Image above: View rom theInternational Space Station o the

UK and Ireland at night

Credit: ESA

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Its hot or goodness sake! exclaims AstriumUKs head o space science, Ralph Cordey, as heoutlines the challenges acing Europes latestmission to the Sun. Its going to a place whereitll be as i there are 13 suns in the sky.

Due or launch in 2017, Solar Orbiter will ycloser to the Sun than Mercury. In act the

spacecrat will y closer to our nearest star thanany previous mission, to monitor its surace andstudy the particles it spews out into the SolarSystem.

This is a unique mission, says Cordey, and amission that requires a unique design. Weregoing to use a specially designed heat shield,so it will be 500 degrees on the ront suraceand the equivalent o room temperature onthe back. This will protect the instruments andelectronics. Solar Orbiter will also need to be built

with special solar cells, designed to cope with theintense sunlight.

The 300 million deal to build this complexspacecrat was awarded to Astrium UK in April.Its the biggest ever contract signed betweenthe ESA science programme and a UK company,and came exactly hal a century ater the launcho the UKs rst satellite, Ariel-1. Solar Orbiterwill incorporate technology developed orESAs Mercury mission, BepiColombo, whichis currently taking shape in the companysStevenage actory. But it will also build on thelong legacy o UK successes in space science andengineering that started ty years ago.

Solar science

Named ater the sprite in Shakespeares Tempest a legendary or magical creature that couldappear at will Ariel-1 was not only the worldsrst international satellite but the worlds rstsolar mission. Built by NASA, the satellite ewsix UK experiments designed to investigate theinteraction between the Sun and the Earth.

Instruments on board made measurements osolar radiation and studied the ionosphere theband o charged particles surrounding the Earthin the upper atmosphere.

Four o the experiments were built by UniversityCollege London (UCL) and led by Harrie Massey,a key gure in the development o the UKs spacescience expertise. As a result o the mission,UCL established the Mullard Space ScienceLaboratory. Today scientists rom the lab areworking on Solar Orbiter.

The Chie Executive o the UK Space Agency,David Williams, says we owe a debt o gratitudeto the UKs rst space scientists. The UK enteredthe space age with a space science project andwe have remained at the oreront o spaceresearch and exploration, he tells space:uk.From this small satellite on the edge o ouratmosphere, weve had space missions that havegone urther rom the Earth and seen urther intothe universe than many believed possible.

These missions have included Giotto, thespectacular mission to rendezvous with a comet,Hubble, the space telescope thats transormed

Its going to

a place where

itll be as ithere are 13

suns in the

skyRalph Cordey,Astrium UK

Image below: A star is born

Hubble image o star ormation inthe Cygnus (swan) constellation

Credit: ESA, NASA

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Giotto

In 1985, the UK-built Giotto spacecratwas launched as Europes rst deep space

mission. Giotto was designed to help solvethe mysteries o comets by passing as closeas possible to the nucleus o Halleys Comet.It did this on 13 March 1986, sending backunprecedented images and data. By studyingits composition, Giotto conrmed Halley asa primitive remnant o the Solar System andbillions o years old. It also detected complexmolecules locked in Halleys ice that couldhave provided the chemical building blockso lie on Earth. Remarkably, Giotto survivedthe encounter with Halley, allowing it to

rendezvous with a second comet, Grigg-Skjellerup, in 1992.

The nucleus o Halleys Comet as seen by Giotto Credit: ESA

our understanding o the universe and Cassini-Huygens, the remarkable international missionto Saturn. But as well as space science expertise,Ariel-1 kick-started an entire industry: makingand using satellites.

Capability has expanded rom space science,says Williams, to providing Earth observationdata especially or weather orecasting aswell as communications, broadcasting andbroadband services that are revolutionising theway we lead our lives.

Small satellites

The rst satellite to be built entirely in the UKwas Ariel-3. Designed by space departmentat the Royal Aircrat Establishment andmanuactured by the British Aircrat Corporation,Ariel-3 was launched rom the United Statesin 1967. This scientic mission built on thework o its predecessors, with experiments toinvestigate the ionosphere. By the mid 1970s,the UKs commercial satellite industry was rmly

established building bigger and more powerulsatellites. But they were also getting morecomplex and expensive.

In 1979, a group o engineers at the Universityo Surrey, led by Martin Sweeting, decided theycould do space a lot cheaper. But they still turnedto the teams that had built the Ariel satellitesor guidance. The people and experience inthe Royal Aircrat Establishment and at British

Aerospace in Stevenage [now Astrium UK] werethe people I went to or advice and to use theirtest acilities, Sweeting recalls. They also donatedsome components that we were able to use toget underway.

Image top right: An image o a

solar are captured by ESAs Soho

spacecratCredit: ESA

Image bottom right: Martin

Sweeting (right) and his team withUoSAT-1Credit: SSTL

12 space:uk


50 years in space

continued


15/32

Space:UK 1962Now in colour!

Plus: UK scientists propose spaceplane and plans or rocket to the Moon

Successul launch o the United Kingdomsfrst satellite

European rocket project nears agreement

Britain in transatlantic satellite broadcast


16/32

Cover image: Artists impression of a future Moon

rocket Credit: David A Hardy

FROM THE EDITOR:It was only ve years ago that the

rst man-made satellite, Sputnik, was

launched into orbit. Now, the UK has

become the third country able to call

itsel a space-aring nation. This is

truly an exciting time and allows us

to speculate as to what the uture may

hold.

Ariel has proved that Britain has

the expertise to build world-class

scientic instruments. It is likely

that this collaboration with America

will continue and we understand

that engineers at the Royal Aircrat

Establishment are developing an all-

British satellite. Whilst many people

were saddened by the cancellation o

the Blue Streak missile programme,we also welcome the news that it

will orm the basis o a European

launcher. How long beore a British-

built rocket puts a British satellite

into space? Maybe even a British

astronaut!

The rst pictures rom the Telstar

satellite suggest that this technology

has great potential or beaming

historic events around the world.

Perhaps in the years to come, ootball

ans in other countries will be ableto watch our great British teams; or

maybe TV series, such as Coronation

Street, will be transmitted live to

American audiences! In the ar uture,

we could all have our own satellite

dishes to receive pictures rom around

the world.

1962 is certainly an exciting time

or the UK in space!

The historic launch of Ariel Credit: NASA

The Bell X-1, the rst plane to break the sound barrier. Could aeroplanes be the future of spaceight?Credit: NASA

SPACE PLANE PROPOSED BY UK ENGINEERS

Engineers at UK company Bristol Siddeley

Engines are proposing the developmento an air-breathing launcher. The

system would allow or larger satellites

to be carried at considerably lower

cost than conventional rockets. Early

designs seen by space:uk show a delta-

winged aircrat with rockets mounted

on the back. In a submission to theBritish Interplanetary Societys journal

Spacefight, the designers said that it

represented a revolutionary advance in

space technology.

TELEVISION FROM SPACE!

For the rst time in history, television

pictures have been beamed by satellite

across the Atlantic Ocean. The broadcast

rom the United States in July was relayed

by the Telstar satellite and received at

the Post Oces Goonhilly Earth station

in Cornwall. The rst pictures were

transmitted live on BBC television.

During a broadcast, the BBC showed

the engineers busy behind their consoles

at Goonhilly as the rst pictures came in.

BBC commentator, Raymond Baxter, said

the images and sound were as clear as a

bell. The historic broadcast included a

tuning signal and a speech rom an ocial

o the American Telephone and Telegraph

company.

Telstar was built by a team at Bell

Telephone Laboratories in the United

States. The satellite circles the Earth

approximately every two and a hal

hours, allowing or twenty minutes o

transatlantic communication during each

orbit.

SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH OF ARIEL

British scientists and engineers

have been celebrating ater the irst

international satellite, Ariel, was

successully loted into orbit on 26

April aboard a Delta rocket rom Cape

Canaveral in Florida. The launch o

Ariel represents a major milestone,

making the United Kingdom only the

worlds third space-aring nation.

The satellite carries six scientic

experiments, which have been designedand built by British space scientists. They

include instruments to measure solar

radiation and solar fares, investigate

cosmic rays and study the density and

temperature o charged particles in the

upper atmosphere. Four o the experiments

were conceived by University College

London, led by the British space pioneer

Proessor Harrie Massey.

Ariel was constructed in the United

States and is the rst satellite to be launched

under an American programme that oers

launches or scientic undertakings by

allied nations. The mission illustrates the

potential o international cooperation inspace. Ocials at Cape Canaveral report

that the satellite is operating well and is

expected to send back data to Earth or

several years.

Image opposite: David A Hardys impression of what a

future launch site at Woomera might look likeCredit: David A Hardy


17/32

PLANS FOR EUROPEAN ROCKET PROGRAMME

Final agreement is being sought or the creation o a European Launcher

Development Organisation. A recent meeting, jointly organised by the

governments o the United Kingdom and France, proposed an initial

programme o work or the development o a three-stage rocket. The

system will use Britains Blue Streak missile or the rst propulsion stage,

a French rocket or the second stage and the third stage will be developed

by West Germany. The rst ring o the new European launch system is

planned or 1965 at the Australian rocket testing range at Woomera. In a

statement to the press, the Minister o Aviation, Mr Peter Thorneycrotstated that: This is probably the biggest technological eort any group

o nations has attempted in history. The Blue Streak missiles were

manuactured by De Havilland in Hateld and Stevenage as part o the

UKs nuclear deterrence programme but the project was cancelled in 1960.A Blue Streak missile being tested at the Spadeadam

Rocket Establishment near Carlisle Credit: War Ofce


18/32

International news

SECOND US ASTRONAUT IN ORBIT

Americas second astronaut to orbit the planet, Scott Carpenter, has returned to Earth

ater an eventul mission. His fight in Aurora 7 lasted or 4 hours 54 minutes during

which time he navigated the spacecrat through three revolutions o the Earth, reaching

a maximum altitude o 164 miles. During the mission Carpenter carried out a serieso experiments, which included seeing how liquids behaved in weightlessness. He also

carried out tests on the Mercury capsules perormance in preparation or longer duration

missions.

The launch of Aurora 7 with astronaut Scott Carpenter on board. Any Moon rocket will have to be much larger than

this to escape Earths gravitational eld Credit: NASA

Scott Carpenter in his space suit Credit: NASA

ROCKET TO THE MOON

The National Aeronautics and Space

Administration (NASA) has approved

the development o a massive rocket toenable America to land men on the Moon.

The design calls or the development o

a three stage booster to place an Apollo

spacecrat in orbit. This would join with

a second spacecrat and be re-launched

rom orbit.

DOUBLE SOVIET SUCCESS

Two cosmonauts came just miles rom

each other in orbit during the fights o

the Soviet Unions latest missions. Thespacecrat Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 were

launched a day apart, making them the

rst simultaneous spacefghts. According

to a communiqu rom the Soviet news

agency, TASS, at one point in the joint

mission the two crat were just three miles

apart and the cosmonauts were able to talk

to each other over a radio link.

Fast orwardSadly, there was no real space:ukin 1962 but everything we have

written is based in act.

The optimistic tone o these pagesreects the excitement o spaceexploration at the time. By 1962 thespace race between the United Statesand Soviet Union was well underway.

The year also saw the world cometerriyingly close to nuclear conictwith the Cuban Missile Crisis.

So how did our stories turn out?

Only a ew months ater its launch,Ariel 1 was severely damaged by a highaltitude US nuclear test. Nevertheless,the satellite helped establish the highly

successul UK space sector and laid theoundations or international cooperationin space.

The Telstar satellite captured the publicsimagination there was even a hit recordmade about it ( Telstar by the Tornados).

The satellite was also damaged by the USnuclear test but nevertheless establishedthe potential o satellite broadcasting.

Technology, that today, we take orgranted.

The European Launcher DevelopmentOrganisation was indeed established.Although it illustrated the potential oEuropean space projects, the programmeitsel sufered a series o setbacks. TheBlue Streak section o the launcher

proved powerul and reliable but theother two stages ailed to perormand the programme was abandonedwithout a single successul launch.However, the expertise and experiencedid eed into the development oEuropes highly successul Ariane launcher.

The idea o spaceplanes was a runningtheme in 1950s and 60s science ction.

The US military continued to develophigh altitude aircrat and in the 1970sNASA built the Shuttle. Today, the

British Skylon is under development -which could nally make air-breathingspaceplanes a reality.

We are extremely grateul to artist David A Hardy or

allowing us to use some o his stunning images. Hiswebsite is:www.astroart.org

Crown Copyright. URN 12/69B1


19/32

Ariel-3

The curious-looking Ariel-3 was designed toinvestigate the space environment. It carriedve experiments, including instruments tostudy the ionosphere the electrically chargedarea o the Earths upper atmosphere andmeasure the oxygen ound at high altitude. The

project involved scientists rom the universitieso Sheeld and Birmingham as well as JodrellBank and the Met Oce.

An American Scout rocket launched Ariel-3on 5 May 1967 and two days later it sent backits rst useul data. The satellite perormedwell or the rst ve months o operation untilthe tape recorder began to malunction. Theinstruments continued to gather data or a

urther two years until Ariel-3 was switchedof in September 1969. It broke up in theatmosphere in December 1970.

Artists impression o the Ariel 3 satellite in orbit Credit: David A Hardy

or the frst

satellites, we

went downto B&Q at the

weekend to

buy the bits

to make our

cleanroomMartin Sweeting,University o Surrey

There was no money, he says. I you wantedto do something then you had to use yourimaginationor the rst satellites, we wentdown to B&Q at the weekend to buy the bits tomake our cleanroom!

But their persistence paid of and, in 1981, theUniversity o Surrey launched its rst satellite,

UoSAT-1. Four years later the University spun-outa company, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited(SSTL). Now the worlds leading small satellitecompany, it employs some 500 people withMartin Sweeting as its Executive Chairman. SSTLhas built and launched 36 satellites, including theDisaster Monitoring Constellation a pioneeringinternational satellite project. The company iscurrently building the payloads or Europes newsatellite navigation system, Galileo.

Sweeting now divides his time between the

University and the company he helped to create.We kept the university link very closely, heexplains, because we realized that we needpeople thinking up crazy new ideas like we did inthe 70s and 80s.

And perhaps its those crazy ideas, more thananything, that go to the heart o the UKs successin space. British space scientists and engineersmay not have had the biggest budgets, buttheyve never been short o ambition.

Can-do attitude

The UK has more o a can-do attitude thanmany o our counterparts in space, saysSweetings colleague, Chris Bridges rom SurreySpace Centre (SSC) at the University o Surrey.Looking at those missions the whole o Britishinnovation has an edge that other designs andsystems dont necessarily have. When you look ata British system, theres always something thatsunique and quite clever about it. Hopeully, werestill replicating that today.

A case in point is perhaps the two STRaND

(Surrey Training, Research and NanosatelliteDemonstrator) satellites, currently underdevelopment by both SSC and SSTL. The rst,now nearing completion, is powered by asmartphone, the second will employ

space:uk13


continues >


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Disaster Monitoring Constellation

The Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC)is a network o satellites designed to provide

detailed images o any part o the world intimes o need. The data is used to producemaps and inormation to assist relie efortsand ultimately to save lives. The satellites havebeen placed in a constellation that allowsdaily imaging o any given point on theglobe. Images rom the DMC have been usedollowing oods in the UK, Hurricane Katrinain the United States and earthquakes in Iran,Kashmir and South America.

Built by SSTL, the current constellation isowned by the UK (UK DMC-2), China (Beijing-1),

Spain (Deimos-1) and Nigeria (NigeriaSat-2 andNigerSat-X). For most o the time the satellitesare deployed by their owner nations tomonitor such things as land use, water supplyor agriculture. However, the DMC operateswithin the International Charter: Space andMajor Disasters and when disaster strikes, thecharter can be activated by the UN or nationalagencies to pull together inormation rom awhole range o satellites.

A pall o smoke spreads across the Niger delta in this image captured by the DMC Credit: DMCii

We owe

a debt o

gratitude

to the UKsfrst space

scientistsDavid Williams,Chie Executive,UK Space Agency

Top image: Martin Sweeting with

NigeriaSat-2

Credit: SSTL

14 space:uk

50 years in space

continued



21/32

identical twin 30 cm long satellites and utilisecomponents rom the XBOX Kinect gamescontroller to allow the satellites to join-up inspace. Like space building blocks.

It may seem ar-etched, but our low costnanosatellites could dock to build large andsophisticated modular structures such as space

telescopes. Unlike todays big space missions,these could be recongured as missionobjectives change, and upgraded in-orbit withthe latest available technologies.

For Sweeting, its ideas like this that give the UKan edge on competitors. Industry has to ocus itsattention on operational missions customerscome along, they want to buy a satellite to do a

job o work reliably. So, having university groupsthat are unconstrained, and when they are goodideas, we can inject them into the industry

product line and that gives us innovation in theUK.

So how about the uture? The UK has a spaceindustry worth some 7.5 billion. It is currentlyinvolved in current and uture space sciencemissions to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiterand the Rosetta mission to land on a comet.UK scientists are leading experiments on spaceobservatories studying the Sun, the galaxyand answering undamental questions aboutthe universe. Satellites made in the UK provideglobal communications and navigation servicesand Earth observation missions, like Cryosat, areled rom the UK. That, and the act that satellite

manuacture in the UK encompasses everythingrom Solar Orbiter to STRaND, gives David

Williams rom the UK Space Agency grounds oroptimism.

I think we have a remarkable road ahead, hesays. Weve set out a number o major goals orthe UK space sector, including taking 10% o theglobal space market by 2030. UK businesses andinstitutions are currently involved in some o themost advanced and innovative space projectsbeing developed anywhere in the world.

And all o that, says Williams, can be traced backto a small satellite, launched ty years ago.I expect that, in ty years time, we will havemany more great stories to tell!

Image top right: Solar Orbiter will

employ technology developedor ESAs Mercury mission,

BepiColomboCredit: ESA

Image below: The launch oGiove-A. Built by SSTL, this was the

rst test satellite or Europes newsatellite navigation system, Galileo.

The company is now building the

payloads or the nal systemCredit: ESA

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22/32

Ariel-1: thesecret historyRecently declassied papers have revealed detailed

discussions between Britain and the United States over the

accidental destruction o Ariel-1 the UKs rst scientic

satellite. Sue Nelson reports on this ascinating insight into

the beginnings o the UKs space industry:

Artists impression o theAriel-1 satellite

Credit: NASA

16 space:uk


23/32

The yellowing Oce o the Minister or Sciencepaper is stamped SECRET in red capital letters.It is the cover page o le number 92/6/04,entitled Anglo-American Satellite, and containsthe communication, conusion and eventualclarication o what happened to the worlds rstinternational satellite.

The le contains numerous condential minutes,telegrams and correspondence between theBritish and American governments rom 13 Julyto 7 December 1962 about the loss o Ariel-1.Everything is there: rom Prime Minister HaroldMacmillans typewritten letters and handwrittencorrections to the wonderully unny andorid prose o the then Science Minister, LordHailsham.

For lovers o history and space, it is a genuine

delight. Ater all, its not every day that a globalsuper power unintentionally destroys a satelliterom its own national space agency and one oits allies.

Launched rom Cape Canaveral on 26 April 1962,Ariel-1 made history. It was a welcome successater the United States was beaten by the SovietUnion with the worlds rst articial satellite,Sputnik, ve years earlier.

The shock [o Sputnik], particularly in America,

was intense, says Doug Millard, curator or spaceat Londons Science Museum. The Eisenhoweradministration made clear that they wanted tohelp their allies launch space experiments ontheir satellites and Ariel-1 was the rst exampleo an international collaboration, in this casebetween the US and the UK. So this was all parto the Cold War and the space race.

NASA provided the rocket and the satellitestructure or Ariel-1. The UK supplied six scienticinstruments that were designed to examine the

relationship between the ionosphere, solar andcosmic rays. Leicester Universitys newly ormedspace research group, together with UniversityCollege London, built one o them: a solar X-raymonitor.

Everything went well rom launch or severalweeks and we were getting very interesting data,says Leicester Universitys emeritus proessoro space science, Ken Pounds, who was in histwenties at the time. We showed how the X-rayux rom the Sun changed dramatically whenthere was a solar are. That was cutting edgescience at the time and was a kick of to solar

weather, which is now a mini industry.

But then everything changed. Suddenly withoutany warning our X-ray count rate went of thescale. Everything went wild, recalls Pounds. Weknew there was something strange going on butour initial suspicion was that our detector wassufering rom electrical breakdown.

The cause o the problems was on a scale noone could have imagined it was as a result o amassive nuclear explosion.

Radiation cloud

On 9 July, as Ariel-1 was orbiting above NewZealand, the US Air Force detonated a highaltitude nuclear test on the other side o theplanet. The test, part o project Starsh, brieycreated a new radiation belt around the Earthand or a short period o time no one not evenNASA knew it had taken place.

It seems incredible now that they carried out

atmospheric nuclear tests, says the UK SpaceAgencys David Parker, but the huge cloudo radiation and particles created was spreadall around the Earth and afected quite a ewspacecrat, including Ariel-1. Basically it degradedAriel-1s ability to generate its electric power romits solar generators, so it began to behave badlyand eventually died.

Image top let: The cover o the

previously secret Ariel documentsCredit: HM Government

Image bottom right: Atmospheric

nuclear tests were carried out

until 1963Credit: Fotolio

Image below: Memo rom Prime

Minister Harold Macmillan

Credit: HM Government

space:uk17


continues >


24/32

Even though

Ariel-1 was

short lived,

I think it has

a signifcant

place in thehistory o

space scienceKen Pounds

The other instruments were also experiencingunusual readings, says Pounds. We discoveredater just a ew days that there something strangegoing on because there were these mysteriouscommunications rom the other side o the Atlantic.

There was a call that came through to the UK siterom NASA asking rather enigmatically have youseen anything strange lately?

It wasnt an immediate discovery that theStarsh tests had caused the problems withAriel-1, says Parker. The ocial papers startof suggesting otherwise. So it was only over aperiod o time, as problems got worse with thesatellite, that the Americans realised that thisis what had happened and that there was anexplanation or this and problems with severalother spacecrat.

The UK Space Agency and the Science Museumorganised the recent 50 Years o the UK in Spaceconerence in April. What I didnt know untilthat meeting, says Pounds, was that NASAwasnt aware either that this bomb was goingto be let of. In act they launched the Telstarcommunication satellite the day ater Starshhad occurred, into a dreadul environment andthey did that quite innocently not realising what

the US Air Force had been up to. So it was keptsecret not just rom us but rom rest o Americaand NASA in particular.

Wounded satellite

The newly released documents reveal a greatdeal o to-ing and ro-ing over the cost o losingAriel-1. As NASA had spent $2 million comparedwith the UKs 200,000, America carried the brunto the nancial burden.

The documents also reveal the delicate

negotiations required about the lack o internalcommunications in America about a nuclear test,at a time when there was widespread ear aboutthe our minute warning o an imminent nuclearattack.

You will have seen rom the telegram we havejust sent you about Ariel, that the Americansdid not consult us beore announcing that theirhigh altitude nuclear experiment last month putAriel out o action, reads one o the condentialmissives sent rom the Foreign Oce on 21August to the British Embassy. It is not merelythe case that they did not consult us about theannouncement; they had not even told us thatthey had come to this conclusion themselves

It is clear, the communiqu continues, that theyhave now come to the conclusion that their ownexperiments were responsible or the damageto Ariel, and we think it is really rather remiss othem not to have told us o their conclusionsbeore announcing them to the world Would

you please have a word with the Americansabout this, more in sorrow than in anger, andseek some explanation o this surprising lapse ontheir part.

The matter soon came to the publics attentionbut even that was not straightorward, as the USAir Force put out a press release explaining whathad happened without permission rom NASAor the British Government. This put a number onoses out o joint on both sides o the Atlantic.

But it is the personalities that really come to lieduring the correspondence. Both Parker andMillard particularly enjoyed the tone and style oScience Minister Lord Hailsham. The languageused was wonderully Shakespearean, saysMillard, who has set up a temporary exhibitiondedicated to Ariel-1 at the Science Museum.

Thank you or your minute o 3rd September onAriel unortunately damaged by Caliban as hegirdled the earth, writes Lord Hailsham to PrimeMinister Macmillan on 10 September 1962. Wehave got a great deal out o him during his lie(short, but neither nasty nor brutish), in the shapeo a large number o data, not yet ully analysedbut said to be important.

Image top right: Ken Pounds, who

worked on instruments or Ariel-1

Credit: University o Leicester

18 space:uk


Ariel-1: the secret history

continued


25/32

Although badly wounded in his solar paddles(the organ which recharges his ability to speak)he is not quite dead. He still utters intermittently sometimes intelligibly and is listened to byour monitors with respect.

Even though Ariel-1 was short lived, I think ithas a signicant place in the history o spacescience, says Pounds. First o all it was therst international satellite and the act thata competitive cutting edge science payload

was put together in less than two years onan international project was a remarkableachievement. You couldnt imagine it happeningnowadays.

Scientically, the impact was obviously limitedby the act that we only had a ew weeks o gooddata. Nevertheless I think it did trigger some

important areas o science or the UK. It was therst solar space mission that the UK was involvedin. It was important or kicking of a number oareas o space science and it gave a great boostor space science or universities in the UK.

Parker agrees and is also ull o praise or LordHailsham and his colleagues battling or UKspace science under dicult conditions. Its agood testament to those people, the oresightand that we carried on and built Ariel-2 and

Ariel-3, says Parker. Our entire space programmenow builds on oundations that were establishedback then.

You can hear more about the previously secret

documents in the May edition o the space bofns

podcast: audioboo.m/spacebofns

Top image: Ariel-1 was launched

in the same year as NASAs rstmanned orbital ight. John Glenn is

seen here getting into the capsulethat will take him around the Earth

Credit: NASA

Image below: Aurora seen rom the

International Space Station. LikeAriel-1, Solar Orbiter will be used to

study the interaction between the

Sun and the EarthCredit: ESA

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26/32

education &careers

Ask the expertsQuestions this time come rom Year 8 students at Marlborough Science

Academy in St. Albans:

How ar could Tiger Woods hit a gol ball on the Moon?

The Apollo 14 mission saw humanitys rstlunar golng activities. Commander AlanShepard, teeing of one handed due to thelack o exibility in his suit, used a six-iron headattached to a lunar sample scoop handle.

This enabled him to hit the ball or miles andmiles. In actuality it ew around 200 metres,accompanied by a joke rom mission controlThat looked like a slice to me, Al.

So how ar could Tiger Woods, unencumberedby a bulky space suit, hit the ball? Tiger candrive the ball with an average speed o 200kilometres per hour. His longest drive in atournament is 425 yards, or 388.6 metres. Atall times, the surace gravity o the Earth pulls

the ball downwards as it travels and it ollows acurved path until impact with the ground. And,o course, air resistance plays a major limitingrole in the distance that his gol ball can travel.

However, the Moon has considerably less massand thereore about 1/6 the surace gravityo the Earth. A soaring gol ball on the Moonhas six times less gravity pulling it down andshould travel six times urther than it wouldon Earth.

This still neglects the efect o air resistance.With no atmosphere to provide riction withthe ball, i we assume that Tiger could hit theball at a perect 45 angle and with 1/6 thesurace gravity o Earth, that same drive wouldgo nearly two kilometres.

And as or Alan Shepardwhile he may nothave the best swing in the world, he still has

the best swing on the Moon!

Alan Shepard plants the US ag on the Moon. There are no still images o him playing gol but NASAs recording o the live TV transmission can beseen on YouTube Credit: NASA

Sophie Allan

National Space Centre,

Leicester

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27/32

Why are the planets diferent colours?

Why is anything the colour it is? Its all to dowith absorption and reection o light. Awhite top in hot weather will reect sunlight,whereas a blue one will absorb all colours othe spectrum except blue - which it reects.

Thats why it appears blue. Under red light itwill appear black because there is no blue lightto reect.

So when we think about the planets, theircolour is to do with what their atmosphere isor i there is very little atmosphere the rockysurace below.

Mars, the red planet, is covered with rusty rocksand these give Mars its red/orange colour. ForMercury we see the rocky surace o grey and

no cloud cover. This is diferent to Venus, whichgets its lightish yellow colour rom clouds osulphuric acid and carbon dioxide.

With the our gas giants Jupiter, Saturn,Uranus and Neptune their colour is romthe clouds in their atmospheres. For Jupiter,white bands are rom clouds o ammonia andthe orange rom ammonium hydrosulphideclouds. Saturn has a pale yellow colour withhints o orange. Its outer atmosphere is mostlymolecular hydrogen and helium with clouds oammonia crystals. Uranus is a bluish green romthe methane clouds. You may have seen a brightgreen picture rom the y past o Voyager 2but that colour was articial. Neptune has icy

bright blue methane clouds that move aroundthe planet at speeds o more than 1100km/h.

So what o the Earth, the blue planet as seenrom outer space? Sunlight is scattered by smallparticles in the atmosphere to give us blue sky.Apollo 17 astronauts amously described theEarth as a blue glass marble.

A true colour image o Jupiter taken by the Cassini spacecrat. Jupiters

moon, Europa, is casting the shadow on the planet Credit: ESA, NASA

Mars gets its colour rom its rusty rocks Credit: ESA

When astronauts use the toilets in the InternationalSpace Station, where does the urine and aeces go?

Urine goes into the water recycling system.Believe it or not, ater sucient processing, thewater in the urine is drinkable!

Faeces are stored in bags inside the commode.Ater use, there is a small outlet to the vacuumo space, so the liquid content evaporates.When the bag is ull, it is put in the trash.

When a Progress, ATV or HTV supply vehiclevisits the space station, ater all the supplies

are unloaded, the vehicle is lled with trash,including the vacuum-dried aeces. The supplyship is then deorbited and burns up in theatmosphere. Changing the urine tank on the International Space Station all in a

days work or a busy astronaut Credit: ESA, NASA

Becky Parker

Director, Langton Star

Centre, Kent

Jef Hofmanormer NASA astronaut

and now lecturer at the

University o Leicester

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education &careers

Teaching resources

Top image: The ESERO library at the

National STEM CentreCredit: ESERO

The National STEM Centre in York hosts theUK space education (ESERO-UK) oce. It alsohouses the largest open collection o resourcesor teachers o science, design and technology,engineering and mathematics (STEM) in the UK.Alongside contemporary resource materials wehave a growing archive collection, showcasingseveral decades o curriculum development.

Resources or use with early years to post-16students are reely available as physical andeLibrary collections. The eLibrary currentlycontains over 4,300 teaching resources or STEMsubjects, o which over 200 have a space theme.

These materials include:

Print, multimedia, interactive and practicalteaching materials

Digitised archive resources drawn rom recent

decades Research publications with bearing on

classroom practice

Cross-curricular resources to aid innovativeSTEM teaching approaches

The ESERO-UK collection o space educationresources

New services

Playback Schools is a new service rom theNational STEM Centre and gives ree access tothe 3,500 videos produced by Teachers TV. Thesepopular resources allow teachers to step insidereal classrooms to share good practice and ideas.

To oster colleagues work with the resourcecollections, a ree online community is availableto support the development o collaborativeprojects. Community unctions include optionsor teachers and technicians to collate links toresources rom the eLibrary (or elsewhere on theweb) and share their own materials and ideas.

The ESERO-UK team has produced lists oresources that use space as a context to enrichthe teaching and learning o STEM subjects.

These include a list o several exciting videoresources and a list o resources or use byteachers in primary schools. This contains the Isthere anyone out there? resource eatured in thespring edition ospace:uk.

To access these lists, register on the NationalSTEM Centre website and search all lists. Youcan also try the quick search terms: Eggnaut or

the primary list and Light Show or the PlaybackSchools list.

Alongside the library, the centresaccommodation includes meeting rooms, eventsacilities, overnight accommodation and hot-desk space or colleagues rom STEM partnerorganisations. The Centre is also an ideal venueor schools and colleges to hold departmentalaway-days, cross-curricular planning events andwhole-school STEM training.

For urther inormation, to access the eLibraryand to register with the National STEM Centrevisit www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk

Meet the team:

Allan ClementsESERO-UK manager

Tom LyonsESERO-UK TeacherFellow

Alice CoatesSTEM Project ocer,National STEM centre

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Made in the UKUK space research laboratory RAL Space also celebrates its 50th anniversary

this year. RAL Space is part o the STFC Rutherord Appleton Laboratory in

Oxordshire andspace:ukmet its Director Richard Holdaway:

Richard Holdaway

Director, RAL Space

How long have you worked at RAL?

A very long time! I started on Ariel-5 in 1974and have worked on many projects over theyears, rst as an engineer, then as a projectmanager and nally as Director o this antasticorganisation.

What goes on at RAL Space?

RAL Space undertakes space research, developsspace instruments, operates space acilities anddata archives and supports the wider spacecommunity both nationally and internationally.We have also spun-out ve technologycompanies in recent years and have undertakena large portolio o outreach programmes.

What do you consider is RAL Spaces

speciality?

One o the science areas that we have been mostnoted or over the years is Solar Physics, and ourscientists have helped lead a number o ground-breaking missions such as SOHO, STEREO and the

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

On the current SDO spacecrat, RAL Spacebuilt the primary part o the our cameras thatproduce the amazing photos o the Sun attemperatures between 50,000 degrees and2 million degrees.

On a wider ront, RAL Space is involved in Earthobservation space science missions, leadingthe world on the development and science osea surace temperature and its importance to

weather orecasting.

What has been the greatest change within

UK space science over the last 50 years?

Given that the UK space community is generallyregarded as punching above its weight, probablythe greatest change has been securing themoney to be involved in so many missions, and

to make such an impact scientically.

In more recent times the economic and societalimpact has been a major actor too. This is anargument that the Treasury seems to haveaccepted as a result o the hard work o the UKSpace Agency and its partners in industry andacademia.

RAL Space has contributed to 200 space

instruments, what missions are you working

on now?

We are currently involved in over 30 upcomingmissions. These include ESAs new Solar Orbiterprogramme, ESAs Sentinel-3 mission andproviding two privately unded cameras orUrthecast on the International Space Station.

What do you consider RAL Spaces greatest

achievements?

Almost everything we do is in partnership withindustry and university groups. So, much o oursuccess is down to our ability to support (andlead where appropriate) those other groups

in the community. Oten we are able to bringuniquely innovative technologies to theseprojects, but beore even that happens wecan provide the initial twinkle o an idea thateventually leads to a new mission.

Image top let: Richard Holdaway,Director RAL Space

Credit: RAL Space

Image bottom let: An image o the

Sun taken by the Solar DynamicsObservatory

Credit: NASA

Image top right: The camera or the

UKs TopSat satellite under test in acleanroom at RAL Space

Credit: RAL Space

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The UK in space: some o the

Picture credits: ESA, NASA, DMCii, ISRO, UK Space Agency

Launch o Ariel-1, the rst satellitewith UK instruments on board

962

First all-British satellite, Ariel-3,is successully launched

British Prospero satellitelaunched on a British BlackArrow launch vehicle

1972

Launch o Ariel-5, designed tomonitor X-ray sources in spacesuch as pulsars

European Space Agency(ESA) established, with theUK as a ounder member

Launch o Meteosat-1, Europes rstweather satellite

1982

UK-built Giotto spacecrat intercepts HalleysComet


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key missions rom ty years

International Hubble SpaceTelescope launched

Britains rst astronaut,Helen Sharman romSheeld, blasted intoorbit

1992

Launch o international SOHO spacecraton a mission to investigate the Sun

Launch o Cassini-Huygensspacecrat to Saturn

Launch o worlds largest Earthobservation spacecrat, Envisat

Launch o rst UK-built DisasterMonitoring Constellation satellite

2002

Mars Express arrives at the redplanet and releases the Beagle2 probe but the signal rom thelander is lost

Huygens probelands on Saturnsmoon, Titan

Launch o Giove-A, therst satellite in the Galileoglobal positioning system

Launch o the HerschelSpace Observatory andPlanck Surveyor satellites

First signals received rom the UK-builtully operational Galileo satellites

UK company Astrium selected asthe prime contractor or ESAs SolarOrbiter mission

2012


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Telstar

Credit: BT Heritage

Launched 50 years ago in July 1962, the Telstar communications satellite

captured the worlds imagination. The satellite enabled the rst high-

quality live television pictures to be broadcast across the Atlantic rom

Maine in the United States to Goonhilly Downs in Cornwall.

Telstar was built by US phone company AT&T and launched by NASA on a Delta rocket rom CapeCanaveral. Only around one metre across, the satellite was covered in solar panels and equipped witha valve amplier. Orbiting the Earth once every 158 minutes, it was designed to receive and transmitsignals making it the worlds rst active communications satellite.

The Post Oce satellite communications station at Goonhilly was a key part o the network o groundstations built or the experimental transmissions. The station used a British-designed dish-shapedaerial this 26 metre wide parabolic dish was the rst o its type.

Live TV pictures were rst received at Goonhilly on 11 July 1962 and broadcast on the BBC. Reactionto the event was spectacular and a major news story around the world. Telstar by the Tornadosbecame the bestselling record in the UK that year and was the rst British hit to reach the top o thecharts in America.

Although the satellite only operated successully or a ew months, the project was considered amajor technical success. Telstar proved the potential o satellites to transorm global communications.Fity years on with satellite dishes bolted to the sides o our houses and the ability to call anywherein the world we take this technology or granted, but it can all be traced back to Telstar.

SPA

CEPION

EERS

space:uk issue 35

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