APL's Space Department after 40 years: An overview

The APL Space Department came into being in 1959 to implement the APL-inven ted global satellite navigation concept for the Navy. The Transit System co mpiled unparalleled availability and reliability records. Space engineering "firsts" spawned by Transit have constituted standard designs for spacecra ft systems ever since. By the mid-1960s, missions were designed to perform geodesy investigations for NASA and, later, astronomy and radiation experim ents. In the 1970s, space science missions began to transform the Departmen t from an engineering to a science-oriented organization. The program for b allistic missile defense in the mid-1980s became the principal focus of the Department's work with overlapping engineering and applied science activit y, and lasted through the early 1990s, After the Cord War, science missions in both planetary and Sun-Earth connections plus experiments on NASA space craft shifted the projects from some 70% DoD to about 70% NASA. The unique blend of world-class science and instrumentation combined with innovative e ngineering represents a powerful combination that augurs well for the futur e of the Space Department.