Feb 10 1976
From The Space Library
Atmosphere Explorer D, second in a series of 3 maneuverable unmanned spacecraft designed to explore a specific area of earth's outer atmosphere, had ceased functioning, spacecraft controllers at GSFC said.
AE -D had stopped working 29 Jan. when a power-supply electronics malfunction disabled its solar array. Launched 6 Oct. 1975, AE-O had transmitted important data on energy transfer in the upper atmosphere and on processes critical to the atmospheric heat balance; although it did not last its design lifetime of l yr, it did transmit a full set of lower thermosphere data on the daylight side from North to South Pole at constant times during its 4-mo operation. AE-C, launched in 1973, was still functioning normally, returning upper-atmosphere data in the region above 128 km; AE-E, launched in Nov. 1975, had a payload similar to that of the others but also carried equipment to measure earth's ozone layer between 20°N and S. (NASA Release 76-24)
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