| NASA Center: |
Goddard Space Flight Center |
|---|
| Image # : |
70-H-1489 |
|---|
| Date : |
12/02/1970
|
|---|
|
Title
Marjorie Townsend and SAS-1
Full Description
Marjorie Townsend discusses the X-ray Explorer Satellite's
performance with a colleague during preflight
tests at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Townsend, a
Washington DC native, was the first woman to receive an
engineering degree from The George Washington University. She
joined NASA in 1959 and later advanced to become the project
manager of the Small Astronomy Satellite (SAS) Program.
The satellite shown in the picture, SAS-1, was the 42nd in NASA's
Explorer series, a family of small, simple satellites sent to
perform important scientific missions for minimal cost. The
first Explorer satellite launched in 1958, months prior to the
formation of NASA, initiating a program of exploration that has
continued into the twenty-first century. SAS-1 continued the
tradition of crucial science projects by carrying the first set
of sensitive instruments designed to map X-ray sources both
within and beyond our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Also known as
Explorer 42 and the X-ray Explorer, it became the first American
spacecraft launched by another country when an Italian space
team launched it on December 12, 1970 from a mobile launch
platform located in international waters off the coast of East
Africa. It mapped the universe in X-ray wavelengths and
discovered X-ray pulsars and evidence of black holes. The satellite was named
Uhuru, which means freedom in Swahili, because it was launched from San Marco
off the coast of Kenya on Kenya's Independence Day.
In the 1970's the Italian Government made Townsend a Knight
of the Italian Republic Order for her contributions to the
United States-Italian space efforts. In 1990, Townsend joined
BDM International Inc., as the director of Space Systems
Engineering with the Space Science and Applications Division.
Keywords
Marjorie Townsend SAS-1 Explorer 42 Small Astronomy Satellite Program Women X- ray Uhuru Italy Kenya black holes pulsars San Marco
Subject Category
Space Probes, Women, Deep Space Studies,
Reference Numbers
- Center:
GSFC
- Center Number:
70-H-1489
- GRIN DataBase Number:
GPN-2004-00018
Source Information
- Creator/Photographer: NASA
- Original Source: Digital
| Resolution | Format | Width
(Pixels) | Height
(Pixels) | Size
(KBytes) |
Thumbnail |
JPEG |
28 |
35 |
1 |
Small |
JPEG |
201 |
250 |
20 |
Medium |
JPEG |
472 |
585 |
82 |
Large |
JPEG |
1 |
1169 |
241 |
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• NASA Headquarters
• NASA History Office
• NASA Image eXchange (NIX)
• NASA Multimedia Gallery
• NASA Human Spaceflight
Updated October 31, 2002
• History Questions: NASA History Office
• Responsible NASA Official: Steve Garber
• Author: Michael Hahn. Editor: Dwayne A. Day
• Curator & Technical Questions: Erin Needham
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