PAGEOS

PAGEOS
Type:	Balloon satellite
Country:	United States
Operator:	NASA
COSPAR-ID :	1966-056A
Mission dates
Dimensions:	55 kg
Size:	30 m diameter
Begin:	June 24, 1966, 12:12 UTC
Starting place:	Vandenberg SLC-2E
Launcher:	Thor / Agena D
Status:	burned up on July 12, 1975
Orbit data
Rotation time :	181.4 min
Orbit inclination :	87.1 °
Apogee height :	4271 km
Perigee height :	4207 km

Test inflation of a PAGEOS balloon satellite

The geodetic satellite PAGEOS (abbreviation for Passive Geodetic Satellite ) was a large balloon satellite that was launched in 1966 for the purposes of the global satellite network .

It had a diameter of around 30 m and a height of around 4000 km. Its thin shell made of mylar was inflated by chemical reactions in space and held its shape for several years despite early impacts by micrometeorites .

From 1969 to around 1972, thousands of direction measurements were carried out on photo plates , which were accounted for by 46 mobile photographic observatories (world network stations) and around 100 other satellite cameras . The global surveying network was built from over 100 terrestrial measurement lines between the 46 observatories, with two to four of these stations observing the PAGEOS satellite simultaneously. This special cutting method is called stellar triangulation .

Pageos was freiäugig clearly visible - initially of about 2  like (similar to the Pole Star ), like towards the end of 3 to 4 mag (already collapsing when the balloon envelope began). In July 1975 the satellite burned up in the high atmosphere .

The global satellite network (completed in 1973) connected all continents and some islands with an accuracy of around 5 meters for the first time , which was 10 to 20 times more accurate than previous earth measurements .

Web links

• NASA: The Fabrication And Testing Of PAGEOS I (English; PDF; 4.2 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Original orbit data according to PAGEOS 1 in the NSSDCA Master Catalog , accessed on September 6, 2012 (English).