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- Alouette-1 was a small ionospheric space based observatory instrumented with an ionospheric sounder (radio transmitter), a VLF radio wave receiver, an energetic particle detector, and a cosmic radio noise experiment. EXTERIOR EQUIPMENT: Extended from the satellite skin (shell) were two dipole antennas (45.7-meter and 22.8-meter long, respectively) which were shared by three of the experiments on this spacecraft. SPACECRAFT ROTATION (SPIN): The satellite was spin-stabilized at about 1.4 rpm after antenna extension. After about 500 days in orbit, the ALOUETTE-1 spin rate slowed more than had been expected, to about 0.6 rpm when satellite spin-stabilization failed. It is now believed that the satellite gradually progressed towards a gravity gradient stabilization with the longer antenna pointing earthward. Attitude information was deduced from a single onboard magnetometer only, and aided by temperature measurements on the upper and lower heat shields. DATA ACQUISITION: Alouette-1 was an early space era satellite, and there was no onboard tape recorder so data were available to the ground stations only from the immediate vicinity of the telemetry stations. The ground telemetry stations were located to provide primary data coverage near the 80 degrees West meridian and in areas near Hawaii, Singapore, Australia, Europe and Central Africa. Initially, data were recorded for about 6 hours per day. In September 1972, spacecraft operations were terminated. Group: Platform_Details Entry_ID: ALOUETTE-1 Group: Platform_Identification Platform_Category: Earth Observation Satellites Platform_Series_or_Entity: ALOUETTE Short_Name: ALOUETTE-1 End_Group Group: Synonymous_Platform_Names Short_Name: ALOUETTE-A Short_Name: 00424 End_Group Group: Platform_Associated_Instruments Short_Name: TELEMETER Short_Name: MAGNETOMETERS Short_Name: PARTICLE DETECTORS End_Group Creation_Date: 2007-08-22 Online_Resource: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1962-049A Group: Platform_Logistics Launch_Date: 1962-09-29 Primary_Sponsor: NASA End_Group End_Group
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