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Author
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Topic: Reviving Prospero, first UK-launched satellite
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minipci
Member Posts: 365
From: London, UK
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 09-06-2011 05:52 PM
  
The BBC reports that scientists and engineers are working on a project to revive Prospero. When the Prospero spacecraft was launched atop a Black Arrow rocket on 28 October 1971, it marked the end of an era. A very short era.Prospero was the first UK satellite to be launched on a UK launch vehicle; it would also be the last... Now, a team led by PhD student Roger Duthie from University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Surrey is hoping to re-establish communications in time for the satellite's 40th anniversary. "First, we have to re-engineer the ground segment from knowledge lost, then test the communications to see if it's still alive," Duthie told the Space Boffins podcast. |
Jay Chladek
Member Posts: 2272
From: Bellevue, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted 09-07-2011 09:58 AM
Awesome project. I am wondering even if they were to reestablish contact as to what state it would be in though. Forty year old solar arrays don't quite perform exactly the same as they did when new.Does anyone know what the record is for the longest lived solar powered satellite in orbit? |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3120
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 10-28-2011 01:48 PM
Forty years ago today, on October 28th, 1971, a Black Arrow rocket launched from Woomera in Australia placed the first and only all-British satellite into orbit. The satellite, "Prospero", is still up there. I well remember being annoyed by the modest coverage in the press and on TV. Apparently some other event hogged the headlines: something about a vote in Parliament to join some European project. I think it was called the European Economic Community. It won't last as long as Prospero! | |
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