Anybody know the name of this mission?

[enigma]

Hi all,

I'm trying to find information on this one mission (NASA AFAIK)...

They deployed a satellite which had two long wires extended in opposite directions.

The wires acted as a conducting path for charged particles in the Van-Allen belts and their motion generated electricity in the satellite main body.

I remember hearing about it, but I don't know if the mission was launched, was successful, ITS NAME, etc.

Any information would be grately appreciated.

 

[marcus]

here's a lead to something done in 1996 that generated
electricity in a long tether wire connecting two things
in orbit

http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/tether/tethers.html

It looks from the picture like it consists of a wire betwee the space shuttle and a small satellite several hundred meters away


http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/shuttle/sts-75/tss-1r/tss-1r.html

The name seems to be something like "Tethered Satellite System

 

[russ_watters]

Is that the shuttle mission where they played with a yo-yo? I think they did it twice - the first time it didn't work because the cable jammed. So they sent it up again and the second time it deployed but didn't do much of interest.

I think both missions happened within the past 2 years.

edit: too late...

 

[enigma]

Thanks all!

 

[marcus]

one more thing (no thanks required!)
the scheme or something like it was originally
thought up by Hannes Alfven.

http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/cosmology/alfven.html


Hannes Alfven (1908-1995) Swedish physicist who
won Nobel in 1970, proposed electric power generation using the electric and magnetic fields in space way back, maybe as early as the 1970s, possibly even earlier. He did creative work in many fields

Just to indicate the kind of man----around 1960 he
predicted the large filamentary structure of the
universe---the sort of cob-webby pattern of clusters of
galaxies---that
was discovered 30 years later