Description : This mission employed the second stage of the Delta launch vehicle for the Nimbus 7 spacecraft to provide telemetry command, data storage, and housing for the four barium and one lithium release cannisters. The primary objective of the investigatin was to study the magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions by observing the dynamics of neutral and ion clouds released at ortibal velocities near the earth.

Four successive thermite barium releases at an altitude of 965 km over polar cap invariant latitudes 84 to 76 deg near magnetic midnight were conducted from the orbiting second stage of the vehicle that launched Nimbus 7 the releases were made as part of the CAMEO (Chemically Active Material Ejected in Orbit) program. This was the first opportunity to observe the behavior of conventional barium release when conducted at orbital velocity in the near-earth magnetic field. The principal unexpected characteristic in the release dynamics was the high, 1.4 to 2.6 km/s, initial Ba expansion velocity relative to an expected velocity of 0.9 km/s. Attention was also given to neutral cloud expansion, initial ion cloud expansion, convective motion, and the characteristics of field-aligned motion. The possibility of measuring parallel electric fields over the polar cap by observing perturbations in the motion of the visible ions was assessed.

Vandnebergh post stamp and scientific satellite CAMEO.

USA 1193

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Space Event :

CAMEO (SATELLITE) · DELTA 2910