{"id":697,"date":"2011-12-08T01:43:42","date_gmt":"2011-12-08T06:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=697"},"modified":"2013-02-12T05:44:38","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T10:44:38","slug":"dual-launch-delta-ii-and-old-test-satellite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/dual-launch-delta-ii-and-old-test-satellite\/","title":{"rendered":"Dual Launch on a Delta-II, and an Old Test Satellite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago today — December 7, 2001 — a Delta-II launch vehicle carried two satellites into orbit from Vandenberg AFB.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(Artist’s conception of the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics [TIMED] satellite. NASA image.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\nJason-1<\/a> was a joint mission between the U.S. and France: an oceanographic satellite intended to monitor the level and wave heights of the ocean surface. The Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics, or TIMED, satellite<\/a> was designed to study “the physical and chemical processes acting within and upon the coupled mesosphere,” i.e., that portion of the atmosphere between 60-180 km altitude. This region of the atmosphere “is difficult to study because it is too high for even the largest research balloons and still dense enough to quickly cause a satellite to decay from orbit.”<\/p>\n

In earlier space history, on this date 45 years ago, Applications Technology Satellite 1 (ATS-1)<\/a> launched from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas Agena rocket. ATS-1 was a test platform for new spacecraft design concepts, particularly propulsion and attitude control, as well as a remote sensing satellite that collected meterological data and cloud cover images. ATS-1 also tested improved satellite communications.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago today — December 7, 2001 — a Delta-II launch vehicle carried two satellites into orbit from Vandenberg AFB. (Artist’s conception of the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics [TIMED] satellite. NASA image.) Jason-1 was a joint mission between the U.S. and France: an oceanographic satellite intended to monitor the \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[26,20,11,17],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","tag-launch","tag-remote-sensing","tag-space-history","tag-vandenberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":935,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions\/935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}