The scientific objectives of the Able‐5 Program

JAN 01, 1961

The Atlas‐Able rocket which exploded shortly after being launched at Cape Canaveral on the 15th of last month was intended to place a compact space station into a circumlunar orbit. The following discussion of the proposed scientific program, a project of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was prepared by five members of the staff of Space Technology Laboratories of Los Angeles, the organization which was charged with over‐all systems responsibility, including the development of the payload. Space Technology also designed some, although not all, of the experiments to be conducted.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3057327

Saul Altshuler

John Lindner

Felix Schweizer

Richard Wagner

Richard Condon

The intent of the ABLE‐5 program was to place a satellite into relatively close orbit around the Moon. The ABLE‐5 satellite has been designed as a 390‐lb scientific observatory to investigate some important aspects of the physics of space. It contains flux‐gate and search‐coil magnetometers, a set of radiation sensors (a plasma probe, scintillation counter, scintillation spectrometer, an ionization chamber and Geiger counter, cosmic‐ray telescope, and a solid‐state detector), and a micrometeorite counter. The general objective of these sensors is to acquire detailed information about the distribution of magnetic fields, the spectral density of charged particles, and meteoritic statistics.

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More about the authors

Saul Altshuler, Space Technology Laboratories of Los Angeles.

John Lindner, Space Technology Laboratories of Los Angeles.

Felix Schweizer, Space Technology Laboratories of Los Angeles.

Richard Wagner, Space Technology Laboratories of Los Angeles.

Richard Condon, Space Technology Laboratories of Los Angeles.