Project West Ford (also known as Westford Needles and Project Needles) was a test carried out by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory on behalf of the United States military in 1961 and 1963 to create an artificial ionosphere above the Earth. [1] This was done to solve a major weakness that had been identified in military communications. [2]
At the height of the Cold War, all international communications were either sent through submarine communications cables or bounced off the natural ionosphere. The United States military was concerned that the Soviets might cut those cables, forcing the unpredictable ionosphere to be the only means of communication with overseas forces. [1]
To mitigate the potential threat, Walter E. Morrow started Project Needles at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1958. The goal of the project was to place a ring of 480,000,000 [3] [4] copper dipole antennas in orbit to facilitate global radio communication. The dipoles collectively provided passive support to Project Westford's parabolic dish (located at the Haystack Observatory in the town of Westford) to communicate with distant sites.
The needles used in the experiment were 1.78 centimetres (0.70 in) long and 25.4 micrometres (1.00 thou ) [1961] or 17.8 micrometres (0.70 thou) [1963] in diameter. [5] [6] The length was chosen because it was half the wavelength of the 8 GHz signal used in the study. [1] The needles were placed in medium Earth orbit at an altitude of between 3,500 and 3,800 kilometres (2,200–2,400 mi) at inclinations of 96 and 87 degrees.
A first attempt was launched on 21 October 1961, [6] during which the needles failed to disperse. The project was eventually successful with the 9 May 1963 [6] launch, with radio transmissions carried by the manufactured ring. However, the technology was ultimately shelved, partially due to the development of the modern communications satellite and partially due to protests from other scientists. [1] [2]
British radio astronomers, optical astronomers, and the Royal Astronomical Society protested the experiment. [7] [8] [9] The Soviet newspaper Pravda also joined the protests under the headline "U.S.A. Dirties Space". [10] The International Academy of Astronautics regards the experiment as the worst deliberate release of space debris. [11]
At the time, the issue was raised in the United Nations where the then United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson defended the project. [12] Stevenson studied the published journal articles on Project West Ford. Using what he learned on the subject and citing the articles he had read, he successfully allayed the fears of most UN ambassadors from other countries. He and the articles explained that sunlight pressure would cause the dipoles to only remain in orbit for a short period of approximately three years. The international protest ultimately resulted in a consultation provision included in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. [1] [7]
Although the dispersed needles in the second experiment removed themselves from orbit within a few years, [4] some of the dipoles that had not deployed correctly remained in clumps, contributing a small amount of the orbital debris tracked by NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office. [13] [14] Their numbers have been diminishing over time as they occasionally re-enter. As of April 2023 [update] , 44 clumps of needles larger than 10 cm were still known to be in orbit. [15] [1] [16]
| Satellite | Date | Launch site | Launch vehicle | Launched in conjunction with | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Westford 1 | 1961-10-21 | Va LC-1-2 | Atlas-LV3 Agena-B | MiDAS 4 [17] | |
| Westford-Drag | 1962-04-09 | Va LC-1-2 | Atlas-LV3 Agena-B | MiDAS 5 [ citation needed ] | |
| Westford 2 | 1963-05-09 | Va LC-1-2 | Atlas-LV3 Agena-B | MiDAS 6, [17] Dash 1, TRS 5, TRS 6 | COSPAR 1963-014 |
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. Satellites have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation (GPS), broadcasting, scientific research, and Earth observation. Additional military uses are reconnaissance, early warning, signals intelligence and, potentially, weapon delivery. Other satellites include the final rocket stages that place satellites in orbit and formerly useful satellites that later become defunct.
A geosynchronous orbit is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds. The synchronization of rotation and orbital period means that, for an observer on Earth's surface, an object in geosynchronous orbit returns to exactly the same position in the sky after a period of one sidereal day. Over the course of a day, the object's position in the sky may remain still or trace out a path, typically in a figure-8 form, whose precise characteristics depend on the orbit's inclination and eccentricity. A circular geosynchronous orbit has a constant altitude of 35,786 km (22,236 mi).
A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO), is a circular geosynchronous orbit 35,786 km (22,236 mi) in altitude above Earth's equator, 42,164 km (26,199 mi) in radius from Earth's center, and following the direction of Earth's rotation.
A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. Communications satellites are used for television, telephone, radio, internet, and military applications. Many communications satellites are in geostationary orbit 222,300 miles (357,800 km) above the equator, so that the satellite appears stationary at the same point in the sky; therefore the satellite dish antennas of ground stations can be aimed permanently at that spot and do not have to move to track the satellite. Others form satellite constellations in low Earth orbit, where antennas on the ground have to follow the position of the satellites and switch between satellites frequently.
The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) is an area where Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to Earth's surface, dipping down to an altitude of 200 kilometres (120 mi). This leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites to higher-than-usual levels of ionizing radiation.
Syncom started as a 1961 NASA program for active geosynchronous communication satellites, all of which were developed and manufactured by the Space and Communications division of Hughes Aircraft Company. Syncom 2, launched in 1963, was the world's first geosynchronous communications satellite. Syncom 3, launched in 1964, was the world's first geostationary satellite.
Project Echo was the first passive communications satellite experiment. Each of the two American spacecraft, launched in 1960 and 1964, were metalized balloon satellites acting as passive reflectors of microwave signals. Communication signals were transmitted from one location on Earth and bounced off the surface of the satellite to another Earth location.
Haystack Observatory is a multidisciplinary radio science center, ionospheric observatory, and astronomical microwave observatory owned by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is in Westford, Massachusetts, in the United States, about 45 kilometers (28 mi) northwest of Boston. The observatory was built by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory for the United States Air Force and was called the Haystack Microwave Research Facility. Construction began in 1960, and the antenna began operating in 1964. In 1970 the facility was transferred to MIT, which then formed the Northeast Radio Observatory Corporation (NEROC) with other universities to operate the site as the Haystack Observatory. As of January 2012, a total of nine institutions participated in NEROC.
The Lincoln Experimental Satellite series was designed and built by Lincoln Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 1965 and 1976, under USAF sponsorship, for testing devices and techniques for satellite communication.
A number of space tethers have been deployed in space missions. Tether satellites can be used for various purposes including research into tether propulsion, tidal stabilisation and orbital plasma dynamics.
Explorer 27 was a small NASA satellite, launched in 1965, designed to conduct scientific research in the ionosphere. It was powered by 4 solar panels. One goal of the mission was to study in detail the shape of the Earth by way of investigating variations in its gravitational field. It was the third and last of the Beacons in the Explorers program. The satellite was shut off in July 1973 so that its transmission band could be used by higher-priority spacecraft.
Explorer 22 was a small NASA ionospheric research satellite launched 9 October 1964, part of NASA's Explorer Program. It was instrumented with an electrostatic probe, four radio beacons for ionospheric research, a passive laser tracking reflector, and two radio beacons for Doppler navigation experiments. Its objective was to provide enhanced geodetic measurements of the Earth as well as data on the total electron content in the Earth's atmosphere and in the satellite's immediate vicinity.
Lincoln Experimental Satellite 1, also known as LES-1, was a communications satellite, the first of nine in the Lincoln Experimental Satellite program. Launched by the United States Air Force (USAF) on February 11, 1965, it pioneered many then-advanced technologies including active use of the military's SHF band to service hundreds of users. LES-1 did not have a successful operational life due to being placed in a suboptimal orbit, and it ceased transmissions in 1967. After 45 years of inactivity, LES-1 spontaneously resumed transmissions in 2012 making it one of the oldest zombie satellites.
Lincoln Experimental Satellite 2, also known as LES-2, was a communications satellite, the second of nine in the Lincoln Experimental Satellite. Launched by the United States Air Force (USAF) on 6 May 1965, it demonstrated many then-advanced technologies including active use of the military's SHF band to service hundreds of users.
FR-1 was the second French satellite. Planned as the first French satellite, it was launched on 6 December 1965—ten days after the actual first French satellite, Astérix—by an American Scout X-4 rocket from the Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The scientific satellite studied the composition and structure of the ionosphere, plasmasphere, and magnetosphere by measuring the propagation of very low frequency (VLF) waves and the electron density of plasma in those portions of the Earth's atmosphere. FR-1's VLF receiver operated until 26 August 1968. FR-1 remains in orbit as of 2023.
Lincoln Experimental Satellite 3, also known as LES-3, was a communications satellite, the third of nine in the Lincoln Experimental Satellite. Launched by the United States Air Force (USAF) on 21 Dec 1965, it was stranded in a Geostationary Transfer Orbit rather than its planned circular high orbit. Despite this, LES-3 returned good data on communications propagation in the UHF band.
Lincoln Experimental Satellite 4, also known as LES-4, was a communications satellite, the fourth of nine in the Lincoln Experimental Satellite, and the first of the series designed for operations at geosynchronous altitudes. Launched by the United States Air Force (USAF) on 21 December 1965, it demonstrated many then-advanced technologies including active use of the military's SHF band to service hundreds of users.
Llewelyn Robert Owen Storey is a British physicist and electrical engineer who has worked and lived most of his adult life in France. He is known for his research on the Earth's atmosphere, especially whistlers—very low frequency (VLF) radio waves caused by lightning strikes—and the plasmasphere. He was the first person to prove whistlers are caused by lightning strikes and to deduce the plasmasphere's existence. He was heavily involved in designing scientific instruments for FR-1, a 1965 French-American satellite, and subsequent studies and experiments using data FR-1 collected.
STARAD was a radiation-monitoring satellite used to track the artificial radiation belt created by the Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test.
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