Sep 22 1976
From The Space Library
Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory successfully used a computer system to orient sensors on high-altitude balloons orbiting the earth on observation flights of up to 100 days, NRL announced. The long-duration missions were required to monitor high-energy solar flares, cosmic gamma-ray bursts, and transient x-ray sources. The NRL system, designed for superpressure balloons flying at 40-km altitude, used a microcomputer programmable for as many as 32 observation tasks, which could be modified in fight by ground command. An L-band telemetry link from the balloon permitted receipt and recording of data on position and sidereal time, used by the microcomputer to orient the detector. Data could be relayed through geosynchronous satellites, using the computer to orient a high-gain antenna toward the satellite. Realtime long-duration monitoring by balloons could offer a low-cost and frequently more sensitive alternative to satellite experiments, NRL stated. (NRL Release 44-7-76B)
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