50 years of space science at Leicester

SL_1306

Kindly contributed by Barry Giles

Skylark_SL-1304

Kindly contributed by Barry Giles

Here is a place-holder for text on Ariel-VI.

mostly courtesy Jo Pounds

Physics at Leicester pre-1960 

1924/5 Physics and Chemistry Departments created with capital outlay of £30k.
A.C.Menzies appointed Lecturer. 

1925/6 10 `day students’, including 2 Physics Hons

1927/8 First Leicester higher degree awarded to C P Snow BSc, MSc (Physics)

1928/9 Public lecture by A S Eddington on ‘The Mystery of Time’

1930/1 DSIR grant of £200 over 2 years to allow Dr Menzies to recruit first RA, C O Pringle from Belfast. Royal Society grant of £45 to buy optical density meter. Used by Mensies and Pringle for Nature paper ‘Raman Spectra of solid Nitrogen Peroxide’

1932 Menzies to chair at Southampton, replaced by Dr L G H Huxley (from U C Nottingham)

1933 British Association meeting at Leicester

1934/5 U/G 24 (FT), 1 (PT)

1936/7 DSIR set up observation centre for atmospheric pollution (housed in Chemistry)
5 publications from Huxley, mainly on gas discharge experiments.

1937/8 Dr Rosenthal (Hamburg) appointed to honorary post in medical physics

1938/9 Free U/G places for refugees

1939/40 Huxley to Air Ministry, replaced by Dr Stewardson (in UK from post in China due to war)

1941/2 Winter Radio School for armed forces technical officers. Sub-department in Radio set up, with science and arts U/Gs from across UK.

1942/3 Physics one of few Leicester Departments to grow, with state bursaries for many of 47 U/G students

1944/5 First UGC grant to Leicester, for £12k. A E Jennings appointed Asst. Lecturer in Physics

1945/6 Jennings left, C Hayward and D M McColl appointed as Asst. Lecturers.
0.75 ton of radio and electrical equipment awarded by Wireless Personnel Committee

1946/7 Stewardson appointed to first Chair in Physics

1947/8 Appointments of A Hunter (L) and C G Wilson and J E Wilson (AL)

1949/50 E Matsuoka and Miss C Sinclair appointed as Asst. Lecturers. C G Wilson resigned. Research in nuclear physics and X-ray studies of rare earth metals.

1 MeV Van der Graaf accelerator and SXR Vacuum Spectrometer built.

1951 Royal Charter granted to Leicester. Physics U/G numbers restricted by lab Space in Fielding Johnson, 32 Hons, 114 GS

1953 W Spear appointed as Lecturer

1954 P Russell appointed as Lecturer

1957 University status granted. K Banyard to Asst.Lecturer

1957/8 Plans for new Physics Building approved

1960 K Pounds appointed Asst. Lecturer (Jan). J Underwood Res. Demonstrator.
B Cooke research student.
DSIR grant for £13006 (July) for research on X-rays from Space.
Also funding from Royal Society received for solar physics research (Ariel 1).
T B Jones appointed Asst. Lecturer (October).

1961/2 Move from F-J to new Physics Building.

1961 Skylark rocket launch from Woomera guided weapons test range in S. Australia
(July) puts first Leicester-built instrument into space. Start of a research programme to
explore the link between X- ray emission from the Sun and radio propagation in
the upper atmosphere.

1962 Launch of first British satellite, Ariel 1, from Cape Canaveral (now
(26April) Kennedy Space Center) on NASA Delta rocket. Payload included
solar X-ray detectors developed in collaboration with 20th Century Electronics.

1962 Discovery by US team of first cosmic X-ray source, Scorpius X-1, heralding
the start of a new branch of astronomy in which Leicester was to become a
leading international research group

1962 Solar X-ray detectors on Ariel 1 killed as a result of radiation damage
(June) caused by USAF nuclear test in the atmosphere over the S. Pacific
(such tests were subsequently banned, though not just for that!).

1964 European Space Research Organisation (forerunner of ESA) formed, with
ambitious programme of space science. UK initially the major contributor.

1967 Skylark rocket launch by Leicester scientists from Woomera carries out the
first search of the Southern skies for new cosmic X-ray sources.

1967 ESRO-2, Europe’s first space science satellite, fails to reach orbit as US Scout
rocket malfunctions in launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California

1967 NASA successfully launch OSO-4, an advanced mission to study the Sun, with
equipment from Leicester. The launch begins an unbroken period
during which at least one instruments developed at the University is
operating in orbit.

1968 Re-launch of ESRO-2, with Leicester solar X-ray equipment on board,
reaches Earth orbit to begin a successful 2-year study of solar activity and its effects on the Earth.

1969 NASA launch OSO-5, a further science mission to study the Sun. On board
is an X-ray telescope from Leicester which, for the next 6 years, provides
the scientific community with daily images of solar activity. This research
was a fore-runner of ’solar weather forecasting’, now a major international
research effort.

1971 The most precise location of a cosmic X-ray source (still a record to-day) is obtained by a Leicester University team who observed the distant star from a Skylark rocket above Woomera, just at the moment the source was eclipsed by the Moon. The operation required the launch to be timed to a few seconds. 

1972 University equipment goes into orbit on board NASA’s Copernicus (Aug) satellite, the first orbiting spacecraft designed to study cosmic X-ray sources.

1973 Geography Dept. reading room ceiling collapses (12 June), followed by school hall in Camden a day later. Pre-streesed concrete problem requires re-structuring of Physics Building over following year.
Professor Stewardson dies (August).

1974 Leicester University’s most ambitious space project is launched from (15 Oct) a former oil platform off the coast of Kenya. The launch site allows the Ariel 5 satellite to operate from an orbit over the equator, an ideal location for viewing the whole sky.

1975 An international conference at Stamford Hall in Oadby features major (Aug) discoveries from the Ariel 5 satellite. Daily observations received at the University add to the excitement. In a remarkable coincidence, Ariel 5 discovers a new X-ray source which grows brighter as the conference proceeds, reaching a level never before seen.

(That X-ray source, known as ‘A0620 minus zero’, was for a few weeks the brightest X-ray source ever seen. It was subsequently identified with a burst of star material being swallowed by a black hole)

1978 The 62nd Skylark rocket carrying Leicester-built equipment is launched from Woomera bringing to an end a pioneering phase in the British space research programme.

1979 Ariel 6 is launched from Wallops Island in Virginia, becoming the last British space science satellite of the century. On board is equipment from several UK university teams, including Leicester.

Article in LM refers to damage to university research and teaching by funding cuts of new Conservative government. Recent XRA Group feature on Horizon programme referenced

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.

1990 ROSAT launched (June 1). ROSAT’s payload included the main (German) X-ray telescope operated in the soft X-ray band with an EUV capability provided by the Leicester-led ROSAT EUV telescope and Wide Field Camera. [added by MGW]

1991 The Japanese X-ray Observatory, GINGA, carrying the largest-ever X-ray (31 Oct) camera, designed and built in Leicester, re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere to-day, after 4 and a half years of near-perfect operation.

1993 Second National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) held at Leicester

1993 Leicester University scientists report on observations of the Hyades Star Cluster, a group of stars only a tenth as old as the Sun, with the ROSAT X-ray satellite. Their findings suggest the Sun would have been much more active when younger, making life on the inner planets (including the Earth) impossible.

1999 University scientists receive a major boost with the successful launch on Ariane 5 (10 Dec) of the world’s most powerful X-ray Observatory. The 3-tonne ESA mission named XMM-Newton is equipped with 3 large telescopes and sensitive X-ray cameras, the latter built in Leicester.

2000 First light for XMM-Newton EPIC cameras (January)

2004 Swift (US-Italian-UK mission) launched from KSC on Delta rocket (November 20)

2005 First localisation and redshift of a short Gamma-Ray Burst GRB050509B at z=0.225

2006 National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) held at Leicester

2007 2XMM catalogue of serendipitous X-ray sources detected in XMM-Newton observations
released (August). 2XMM becomes the largest X-ray object catalogue ever compiled.

2008 First naked-eye GRB080319B – most distant object visible to the naked-eye

2009 Swift discovers most distant object in Universe:  GRB 090423 at z=8.2

(please suggest some more highlights!)