Thursday, August 26, 1971

Explorer 40

 1968-066B


The Injun V satellite, Explorer 40, was launched on 1968 Aug 8. It studied magnetospheric trapped particles.

On orbit mass was 71 kg including the ADE ejection hardware. It had a dry nitrogen gas despin system. The satellite was a hex cyl 0.74m high 0.76m dia with five booms. Span is about 5m? The satellite was built by SUI.

The satellite mapped out auroral precipitation patterns, made coordinated particle, VLF and E field observations and discovered trapped heavy nuclei. After NASA ended support the Iowa team carried out a short extended mission with German funding.


Injun 5 
 

DateTimeEventOrbit  

1968 Aug 8  2012:00 Launch by Scout  V SLC5 
 2013  Algol burnout T+1:16 
 2013  Castor burn T+1:18 
  T+1:56 Castor burnout 
 2014  Antares burn T+2:00 
 2014  Coast T+2:35 
  T+10:03 Spinup 
  T+10:04 Antares sep 
 2022:08  T+10:08 FW4S burn  
 2022:40  T+10:40 FW4S burnout 
 2040:04  T+28:04 AD inflation and sep from Injun 
 2110:03  T+58:03 Injun sep from FW4S 
1968 Aug 10    118.32 690 x 2520 x 80.7 
1970 Mar 4    118.30 679 x 2529 x 80.7 
1970 May 31   End of NASA operations 
1971 Feb 19   Begin extended mission 
1971 Jun 7   End extended mission 
1971 Jun 9    118.29 680 x 2527 x 80.7 

Payload:

  • LEPEDEA Low Energy Proton Electron Differential Energy Analyzer (SUI/Frank)

  • SSD Solid State Detector experiment (SUI/Krimigis), includes a proton-electron telescope and an alpha detector.

  • VLF VLF Experiment (SUI/Gurnett), 30 Hz-10 kHz

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