April
| Bottom view of the tele-command decoder board for the Czechoslovak MAGION 2-3 and Czech MAGION 4-5 satellites. All MAGION satellites studied the Earth's MAGnetosphere and IONosphere. |  |
| Bottom view of the tele-command decoder board for the Czechoslovak MAGION 2-3 and Czech MAGION 4-5 satellites. All MAGION satellites studied the Earth's MAGnetosphere and IONosphere and received tele-commands from the control and receiving station Panská Ves. | |
The TIROS-1 prototype on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
TIROS-1 (or TIROS-A) was the first full-scale weather satellite (the Vanguard 2 satellite was the first experimental/prototype weather satellite), the first of a series of Television Infrared Observation Satellites placed in low Earth orbit.
TIROS 1 was an 18-sided right prism, 107 centimetres (42 in) across opposite corners and 56 centimetres (22 in) high. Spacecraft power was supplied by approximately 9000 1 centimetre (0.39 in)- by 2 centimetres (0.79 in) silicon solar cells mounted on the cover assembly and by 21 nickel-cadmium batteries. A single monopole antenna for reception of ground commands extended out from the top of the cover assembly. A pair of crossed-dipole antennas (235 MHz) for transmission projected down and diagonally out from the baseplate. Mounted around the edge of the baseplate were five diametrically opposed pairs of small, solid-fuel thrusters that maintained the satellite spin rate between 8 and 12 rpm. The satellite was equipped with two 1.27 centimetres (0.50 in)-diameter vidicon TV cameras, one wide angle and one narrow angle, for taking earth cloud cover pictures. The pictures were transmitted directly to a ground receiving station or were stored in a tape recorder on board for later playback, depending on whether the satellite was within or beyond the communication range of the station. The satellite was spin-stabilized.
Over its 2 1⁄2-month lifespan, TIROS 1 returned 23,000 photos of the Earth, 19,000 of them usable for weather analysis. For the first time, it was possible to view large scale cloud patterns in their totality, and from this, identify storm regions. The satellite provided the first long-term observations of a developing storm from orbit, tracking the disintegration of a large cyclonic mass off the coast of Bermuda over the course of four days.
See also:
- TIROS 1, NASA
Source: Wikipedia contributors, "TIROS-1," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) is the first of the most important category of "large" (L-class) missions of the European Cosmic Vision programme. Understanding the system of the planet Jupiter and uncovering its history will give us a better insight into the formation and evolution of the gas giants and their moons. The main goal of the mission, which will reach Jupiter in 2031, is to characterise the conditions that may lead to the formation of habitable worlds including Jupiter's icy moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. The Space Physics Division participated in the development of the Low Frequency Receiver (LFR), which is part of the Radio and Plasma Wave Investigation (RPWI) instrument.
Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first held in 1970 and since then it raises awareness of the importance of long-term ecological sustainability. Earth Day points out growing environmental concerns, especially the threat of global warming and the need for clean renewable energy sources. In 2016 the international Paris Climate Agreement was emblematically opened for signatures on Earth Day
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian physicist and inventor of a successful wireless telegraph, or radio. In 1909 he received the Nobel Prize for Physics, which he shared with German physicist Ferdinand Braun. His systematic development of shortwave wireless communication forms stands as a basis of modern long-distance radio communication. He begun with a short distance and step by step worked on improving the system. In 1900 also, Marconi filed his now-famous patent No. 7777 for Improvements in Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy that enabled several stations to operate on different wavelengths without interference. His major achievement in December 1901, signals transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, was the starting point of the vast development of radio communications, broadcasting, and navigation services. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Guglielmo-Marconi)
Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician who contributed to number theory, the theory of functions, probability theory, geometry, geodesy or astronomy. He is also an author of the fundamental theorem of algebra, the least squares method, Gauss-Jordan elimination (for solving matrix equations), and the bell curve, or Gaussian error curve. Gauss made important contributions to the application of mathematics to gravitation, electricity, and magnetism. He also developed the fields of potential theory and real analysis. He is credited with inventing the fast Fourier transform algorithm. Gauss invented the heliotrope in 1821, a magnetometer in 1833 and, alongside Wilhelm Eduard Weber, invented the first electromagnetic telegraph in 1833. Gauss was interested in the temporal and spatial variation of magnetic declination, inclination, and intensity. Gauss carried out a "General Theory of Terrestrial Magnetism" (1839), where he predicted the existence of exactly two magnetic poles on the Earth.(doi:10.1007/BF00348431, https://ia600405.us.archive.org/20/items/gaussmemorial00walt/gaussmemorial00walt.pdf)