LDEF

 1984-034B

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NASA-OAST's Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) was a large, 9280 kg passive satellite designed to provide a platform for materials exposure experiments. It was deployed from Space Shuttle Challenger on 1984 Apr 7 into a 94.2 min, 480 x 483 km x 28.5 deg orbit. Originally it was planned to retrieve LDEF within a few months, but the retrieval flight was delayed, and by 1989 Jul 11 LDEF was in a 92.75 min, 408 x 410 km x 28.5 deg orbit and starting to decay more rapidly. It was finally retrieved at 1516 on 1990 Jan 12 by Orbiter OV-102 Columbia on the STS-32 mission. At that time its orbit was 327 x 340 km x 28.5 deg.

Payload:

• Materials and Structures

• Power and Propulsion

• Science and Electronics

  • Interstellar gas collection
  • Cosmic ray experiment
  • Micrometeoroid experiments
  • Biological sample experiments
  • Crystal growth experiment

• Optics Filters, coatings, glasses, detectors, fibers

• S80-1 STP experiments

  • AFWL-701 Fiber optics in space

  • CRL-258 Trapped proton energy spectrum

  • NRL-702 Heavy ions in space

  • SD-802 Spacecraft materials

  • AFTAC-201 Space effects on electro-optical sensor components