50 years of space science at Leicester

mostly courtesy Jo Pounds

1980 A Japanese delegation visits the University to invite collaboration in their ASTRO-C satellite project. Given the termination of the Skylark rocket programme and the Ariel satellite series this new opportunity is very timely. 

Dr Jeff Hoffman, former researcher in the X-ray Astronomy Group, is selected as a NASA astronaut to fly on the Space Shuttle.

Ariel 5 ceases operation as control gas runs out, completing a highly successful 6-year mission.

1983 EXOSAT, Europe’s first mission in X-ray astronomy, with major involvement from Leicester, is successfully placed into a deep-space orbit on a US Delta rocket. The late decision to switch from the as- yet-unproven Ariane launcher to a Delta rocket was pushed by Leicester.

1987 First Anglo-Japanese satellite ASTRO-C is successfully launched from the (5 Feb) Kagashima Space Centre on board an MS 2 rocket, and re-named GINGA in orbit. The main payload is a sensitive X-ray camera designed and built at Leicester University.

1988 Leicester University wins a leading role in the first major space science collaboration between Western Europe and the former Soviet Union. The Leicester team will work with scientists from Italy to build the JET-X Telescope for the Spectrum-X mission, an early outcome of ‘glasnost’, and the ending of the cold war.