Establishing the university’s role in space research

The model established at the beginning of the Space Age by the University of Iowa and several other universities clearly set the pattern for vigorous direct participation in space research by the academic community. Before the highly successful first U. S. satellites, some believed that only larger governmental and industrial laboratories would be able to build the scientific instruments. However, our cosmic ray instruments in Explorers I, II, and III provided an early demonstration that universities could handle the task in a very competent manner.

In addition to building those first individual instruments, the expanded university role on the Explorer IV and V project demonstrated that universities could handle entire satellite projects. Satellite S-46 was a more ambitious multi-instrument payload that was designed and largely built there. After that, the first in a series of Iowa-built Injun satellites, launched on 29 June 1961, transmitted useful space radiation data for nearly two years. Injun 2, a launch failure, was followed by fully successful Injun 3 on 13 December 1962, which operated for nearly a year. Injun 4 (Explorer 25) orbited on 21 November 1964, and Injun 5 (Explorer 40) was launched on 8 August 1968. Hawkeye 1 followed seven years later in June 1975.

Injun 5 represented the first fully all-university built and operated satellite. Al­though some data from the earlier Iowa satellites were recorded locally, NASA’s worldwide network carried the primary burden for satellite operation and data recep­tion. For Injun 5, however, the University of Iowa built and operated a major command and data acquisition station atNorth Liberty, several miles north of Iowa City. To make orbit-wide data recovery productive by that single station, Injun 5 (as had Explorer III) employed an onboard tape recorder. From a control center on the campus, the univer­sity students and staff were fully responsible for satellite operation and data recovery.

Iowa’s leadership role in conducting space experiments has continued to the present day. A 2004 tabulation prepared for the celebration of Van Allen’s ninetieth birthday lists 73 instruments that the laboratory had produced up to that time.

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

Thus, Iowa, along with the university laboratories at Wisconsin, Chicago, Minnesota, and Stanford, played a major role in establishing the principle that universities could be relied upon to provide space hardware.