IN 1964, NASA was about to launch the first of six Orbiting Geophysical Observatories (OGO) which would have a number of different experiments on board and needed to manipulate the satellite to meet the needs of the 20 experiments. While the satellite itself was oriented towrds the earth, the solar-oriented experiments needed to be oriented towards the sun and the orbital-plane experiments oriented towards the orbital plane.
OGO 1 consisted of a main body that was parallelepipedal in form, two solar panels, each with a solar-oriented experiment package (SOEP), two orbital plane experiment packages (OPEP) and six appendages EP-1 through EP-6 supporting the boom experiment packages.
The aim was to study the Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere from 1964 to 1969.
The SC4020 could produce a film of 2 minutes length that showed 60 hours of the satellite's path and experiments with various changes of parameters could be used to judge the effectiveness of each set.
Orbiting Geophysical Observatories
The UAIDE paper Visual Presentation of the Motion and Orientation of an Orbiting Space Craft (OGO) (1964) gives further information with regard to the SC4020 animated films.
The FJCC paper VISTA - Computed motion pictures for space research (1967) gives further information suggesting future applications :
- VISTA, modified for real-time processing, would allow ground based observers to see docking maneuvers, rendezvous, or even a lunar touchdown
- Display of the orbit of a galactic probe
- Air traffic control in space