VEHICLE GLOW MEASUREMENTS ON SPACE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM FLIGHT-62

Spacecraft glows are primarily a result of satellite surfaces (and the ir gas clouds) interacting with the rarefied atmosphere in low Earth o rbit, Studies of glow were performed in March 1934 on Space Transporta tion System flight 62 as part of the Office of Astronautics and Space Technology payload objectives, Together the experimental investigation of spacecraft glow and the spacecraft kinetic infrared test instrumen ts made observations encompassing the far-ultraviolet, ultraviolet, vi sible, and infrared spectral regions, The experiment included the rele ase of N-2 that was expected to atom exchange with atmospheric O to fo rm surface reactive constituents N and NO. Emission measurements indic ate that ground state N-2 at orbital velocities does not atom exchange ;Is previously believed, Another key finding was the lack of N-2 Lyman -Birge-Hopfield emissions in the far ultraviolet, Thruster activity, p articularly in low elliptical orbit, is found to cause bright enhancem ents of OI 5577 and 6300 Angstrom emissions in the Shuttle environment . This investigation studied the effects of altitude, temperature, two paint materials (2306 black Chemglaze(R) and A276 white Chemglaze), r am-wake orientation, thruster gas clouds, and thruster effluent surfac e doping on the glow intensity and spectral character.