#tbt: Some space history from 1996

[nanila]

[Image of a fluxgate magnetometer in its housing with its frayed MLI-coated cable curled round it. The destroyed connectors can be seen. The whole assembly is sitting on top of an antistatic envelope. The sensor housing reads: "CLUSTER-FGM SENSOR 08 FM1", where FM means "flight model".]

I gave an outreach talk at an open day this morning, to about a hundred A-level students, their parents and their teachers. The talk was focused on the Cassini end-of-mission science, but I managed to sneak in this bit of space history when explaining what a magnetometer does.

The fluxgate in the photo above actually went into space for a few brief seconds. It got about 5 km up before it was unceremoniously returned to the Earth. The Ariane 5 rocket that launched the spacecraft whose payload it was part of had exploded, showering the swamps of French Guiana with wreckage.

This sensor sat in that swamp for a good few weeks before a French Foreign Legionnaire fished it out.

I'm afraid that being blown up and mouldering in a tropical pond was, in fact, enough to kill it, but it's still a pretty cool object, and the students seemed to like seeing it very much.

Comments

[quoththeravyn]

Now that is a space artifact. I've seen flight spares, and (successfully returned) shuttle payloads. Also a little UV telescope once flown on the X-15. But this...

[nanila]

I mean, it's not the Apollo 10 command module, but it's still pretty cool. :)

[st_aurafina]

That is so cool. And somehow, landing in a swamp and getting found by a legionnaire makes it even more cool.

[nanila]

I like to picture the legionnaires hunting around for exploded spacecraft bits. There must have been a lot of swearing and muttering about how I didn't sign up for this...

[cmcmck]

Industrial archaeology of a sort and you know me and industrial archaeology! :o)

[nanila]

I did think you'd like this! :)

[lurkingcat]

That is a very cool little piece of space history.

[nanila]

Glad you enjoyed it. I have more! I'm planning to share them as #tbt posts.

[mysterysquid]

Ooh, awesome.

Also, how good is Grimes? And she's what - twelve?

[nanila]

:D Glad you thought so.

She's rather gloriously talented.

[pheloniusfriar]

I'm totally geeking out! Very, very cool! Doubly so that it has such an unusual history...

[nanila]

It's scheduled to go the London Science Museum for an exhibition in a few months. :)

[tree_and_leaf]

Very cool!

[nanila]

Yes! Also, a bit sad. However, the second lot of spacecraft reached orbit safely in 2000, and hence formed the currently running Cluster II mission.

[silveradept]

Neat SPACE object there! Maybe that helped show off the coolness of STEM to several of the women and girls in the crowd.

[nanila]

Thanks! I certainly hope so. I reckon it was a pretty soft sell to the students in that crowd, at least, as they were touring the campus/department because they were either considering applying or already have an offer to attend.

[paw_prints]

It looks well reserved given what it went through. (Not that I know anything about fluxgate magnetometers!)

[nanila]

It's a pretty robust instrument, especially when sealed in an aluminium box, mostly because they're small and don't have moving mechanical parts. :)

[jesse_the_k]

I am unreasonably pleased that a flux magnetometer is a true thing, given the iconicity of the "flux capacitor" in SF (Back to the future movies; it was the MacGuffin enabling time travel).