The Origins of Space Radio and Plasma Wave Research at the University of Iowa

Abstract

AbstractThis paper discusses my recollections concerning the origins of space radio and plasma wave research at the University of Iowa. My career in space research started when I was hired as a freshman engineering student by Prof. James A. Van Allen in April 1958, shortly after his discovery of Earth's radiation belts with Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite. My early work mainly involved digital data system designs for the University of Iowa “Injun” series of satellites, the first satellites completely designed and constructed at a university. It was on Injun 3 that, at the suggestion of Prof. Brian J. O'Brien, I developed one of the very first radio and plasma wave instruments ever flown on a spacecraft. This instrument made the first pioneering studies of a wide variety of space radio and plasma wave phenomena, such as whistlers, chorus, and auroral hiss. These early studies were soon followed by somewhat similar NASA‐funded Iowa radio and plasma wave instruments that were used to explore Earth's magnetosphere with the Injun‐5, S3‐A, Hawkeye, IMP, and ISEE satellites, the solar wind with the Helios 1 and 2 spacecraft, and the outer planets and interstellar space with the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. My discussions of this very early era in space research, and the key people involved, are limited to the time period before roughly 1980.