NSSDCA ID: 1962-070A-02
Mission Name: S 55BThis experiment was one of five micrometeorite detectors aboard the spacecraft. Sixty foil gauge detectors, each in the shape of an equilateral triangle with a 11.60-cm base, were installed around the forward usable half of the fourth-stage launch vehicle support structure. Each detector consisted of a circuit obtained by an electrochemical deposition process, about 2.3E-3 mm thick attached to 0.025-mm Mylar and mounted on the underside of 304 stainless steel skin samples. Twenty-four of the skin samples were 0.025-mm thick, and four were 0.15-mm thick. The experiment utilized thin grids of conducting gold deposited on the bottom surface of three stainless steel sheets of different thickness to record micrometeoroid penetration. A particle penetrating the steel sheet would almost invariably break one of the current channels underneath, lowering its resistance level and recording the penetration. Six penetrations were recorded in the 25-micron stainless steel sheet, and one penetration was indicated in the 152-micron stainless steel sheet. The experiment functioned well in the 7 1/2 months in which the satellite transmitted useful micrometeoroid data. For more details, see E. C. Hastings, NASA TMX-810, 1963.
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Name | Role | Original Affiliation | |
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Mr. Elmer H. Davison | Principal Investigator | NASA Lewis Research Center |