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Explorer I, the first U.S. earth satellite, was successfully launched on February 1, 1958 (0348 Greenwich Mean Time) from
the Cape Canaveral missile center. The cosmic ray instrumentation package
on this satellite was designed by Dr. George Ludwig, who was studying at
that time at the University of Iowa in the Cosmic Ray Lab under the
guidance of Dr. James Van Allen. The Explorer I instrumentation payload
used transistor electronics, consisting of both germanium and silicon
devices. This was a very early timeframe in the development of transistor
technology, and represents the first documented use of transistors in the U.S. earth satellite program. In this Oral History, Dr. Ludwig provides a very informative
and highly readable account of the transistor electronics carried aloft in
the Explorer I satellite, and the details of Dr. Ludwig’s work with these
early semiconductor devices provides a truly unique perspective on these
historic events. In addition to the historic use of transistors, the
Explorer satellite instrumentation package achieved another major
scientific breakthrough – the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts. [1]
[2]
Go
To Ludwig Oral History, Page 2
Ludwig
Historic Audio Recordings
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