ISIS-I
|
|
ISIS I was launched in 1969 as the first in the ISIS or International Satellite for Ionosphere Studies series and the third in a series of Canadian satellites sent up to study the ionosphere, in the wake of Alouette 1 and Alouette 2.
As was the case for the Alouette satellites, the RCA Victor Company of Montreal was the prime contractor for ISIS I. Canada stopped using ISIS I on March 13, 1984 but Japan was authorized to keep on using it and did so until 1990.
Unlike the Alouette satellites the ISIS had complex navigational equipment and a tape recorder to record some experiments when they were out of communications range and play back the results when the satellites came over Canada again. Some other experiments were not recorded but data was sent in over several stations around the globe. It was launched by a Delta 1 rocket at the Western test range at Vandenberg AFB in California.