Harvard Aloft

Before the end of the month scientists at Cape Canaveral will launch an Aerobee rocket carrying a forty pound box that belongs to Harvard University. If its equipment functions successfully the University's intensive participation in the national satellite program will be assured.

The current project began early in 1959, when the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was searching for a group of scientists "who would design and build instrumentation for observing the sun from artificial satellites." Two professors at Michigan, Leo Goldberg and William Liller, accepted the NASA invitation. When they moved to Harvard in the summer of 1960, the project moved with them.

The November Aerobee flight, the exact date of which is still secret, will last only for a quarter of an hour. During the five minutes when the rocket is at the peak of its flight, the observatory will received and analyze date from the ultra-violet spectroscope which will be placed on board. If the Harvard instrument proves operational under flight conditions, it will become part of a satellite called the "Orbiting Solar Observatory II" (OSO II). A Thor-Delta rocket combination will launch OSO II in the summer of 1963.

According to the scientists' plans, as the OSO II circles the earth, it will collect date on the sun and radio it to a control station on Florida. There the date will be processed and wired to Cambridge within an hour. Dr. Leo Goldberg will then make the final decisions as to which satellite experiments and instruments to keep in operation.

The ultra-violet spectroscope built by the University will be constantly looking at those short wave lengths of solar light which are normally absorbed by the earth's atmosphere. There are three reasons for this experiment.

First, astronomers expect to learn much about solar activity if they can see the sun in ultraviolet light. Since NASA's projected landing of three astronauts on the moon in 1967 coincides with a period of maximum solar activity, there is great danger that the astronauts might be killed by a burst of radiation from the sun.

The second aim of Harvard's instrument is to obtain information on the earth's ionosphere, the layer of the atmosphere used to bounce radio signals around the globe. By observing how the sun emits ultra-violet light, scientists may learn more about the mechanism of ionospheric interference with radio transmission.

Finally, the HCO device will simply look at the sun in wave-lengths of light we have never before really seen from the sun. The value of such an effort cannot be estimated until the results are known, but it is important to note that NASA is willing to support a project with no immediate relevance to the space race.

Although the University has worked in the past with the space program, and presently has an instrument on the satellite which will pass close to Venus, the forthcoming Aerobee signals the first time that Harvard has had a rocket flight of its own or played a major role in a satellite project. The HCO team, some members of which now virtually commute between Cambridge and Canaveral, is gaining the experience that will allow Harvard a permanent role in U.S. space research.