NOTICE: Because the original page had grown so large (~168K), I have split it into 14 pages, including this page for mission acronyms beginnig with G and H. Some direct, named links will no longer work. If you cannot find information on the mission you are looking for, you may find some information on the General Information page.
Launched from STS-34 on October 18, 1989.
A Discovery mission.
GEOS-l, launched in April 1977, GEOS-2 launched in July 1978.
See also GEOSAT Follow-On.
Launched on 24 July 1992. NASA's contributions to Geotail, SOHO, and Cluster are referred to as the COSTR Program.
A 20 Kg. German-built laser geodetic spacecraft developed by Kayser-Threde. GFC-1 is scheduled to be spring-ejected from a Mir airlock on April 19, 1995. The spacecraft has 60 laser retro-reflectors on its surface. Ground stations will reflect laser beams from the spacecraft to obtain data on Earth's gravitational field. This measurement technique is like that used on LAGEOS. I just did a quick web search but I have not found a page that confirms this actually happened as scheduled.
The Wind and Polar missions are the two components of the GGS Program. NASA's GGS and COSTR Programs comprise the United States contribution to the ISTP science initiative.
The third Earth Observation (EO-3) mission under the New Millennium Program.
Launched in 1985.
The four Great Observatories are HST, CGRO, AXAF, and SIRTF.
NOAA assigns a letter to the satellite before it is launched, and a number once it has achieved orbit. For example, GOES-H, once in orbit, was designated GOES-7, GOES-G, which was lost at launch, was never assigned a number. GOES-I was launched on April 13, 1994, and has been officially renamed GOES-8. Earlier launches were: GOES-1, October 1975; GOES-2, June 1977; GOES-3, June 1978; GOES-4, September 1980; GOES-5, May 1981; GOES-6, April 1983; GOES-7, February 1987. See also SMS.
The DOD lauched the first of the production series of GPS satellites in 1989. The system was declared operational by the DOD on December 8, 1993 (for military use) and in February 1994 (for civil use). The system consists of 24 satellites in 11,000 mile high orbits. A GPS receiver uses the timing signals from the satellites to calculate the distance to the satellites. When a GPS receiver can collect signals from at least four satellites, it can determine its latitude, longitude, altitude, and the time.
For GPS-MET or GPS/MET see MicroLab-1.
GRANAT is the Russian x-ray sattelite, lanched in December 1989. It is still operating - 5 years after launch.
The second ESSP mission, planned for launch in the spring of 2001 on a Russian KOSMOS launch vehicle.
See CGRO.
VSOP was renamed HALCA after its successful launch on February 12, 1997 on the new ISAS M-V rocket from the Kagoshima Space Center. See also MUSES-B.
The VSOP (VLBI Space Observatory Programme) mission is being developed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, in collaboration with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. The first VSOP satellite, MUSES-B, was scheduled for launch in September of 1996, however in June 1996 the launch was delayed until January/February 1997 due to a problem with the new M-V rocket.
Launched April 26, 1978 on Scout 98 from WSMC (reentered December 22, 1981). Heat Capacity Mapping Mission to test the feasibility of measuring variations in the Earth's temperatures. See also AEM.
HEAO 1 launched August 12, 1977 on an Atlas Centaur rocket and operated until January 9, 1979.
See EO for HEAO 2.
Helios-1A launched July 7, 1995, from Kourou, French Guiana on an Ariane 40. Helios-1B: Planned for launch in 1999 or 2000.
See ESRO. HEOS- 1 was launched in December 1968 to study the interplanetary magnetic field. HEOS-2 was launched in January 1972 to continue the mission of its predecessor HEOS-1.
Apparently this was a mission to Mercury proposed or under study by JPL. The link is no longer working and I am not aware of any other on-line sources. Hermes is also the name or a proposed French Manned Spaceplane.
Now renamed HESSI.
I'm a little lost on this one, but I think this is what has happened. An earlier concept for HESP was renamed first HESI and then HESSI. However the long term need for development in this area means that HESP is still being used for the longer-term mission concepts in the SEC roadmap.
Previously know as HESI and HESP.
HESSI was selected in (April or) May 1995 through the first MIDEX Announcement of Opportunity (AO) as a possible alternate.
The Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus XL launch occurred November 4, 1996 at approximately 12:09 p.m. EST offshore from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA. The Pegasus vehicle achieved the desired orbit of 265 nautical miles by 297 nautical miles at an inclination of 38 degrees. Analysis of the launch shows that the Orbital Sciences Corporation's Pegasus XL third stage failed to separate from the satellites. HETE comprised one half of the rocket payload. The other half was the SAC-B satellite.
Launched in August 1989.
Japanese twin spacecraft launched toward the moon in August 1990. The MUSES-A satellite was renamed Hiten after its launch in 1990. (Hiten is the name of a figure from Japanese mythology.)
Radar spy satellite being developed by Germany.
HST, one of the four Great Observatories, is a 2.4-meter reflecting telescope that was launched on the space shuttle Discovery (STS-31) on April 24, 1990, and deployed in low-Earth orbit (600 kilometers) on April 25.
NICMOS -- Near Infrared Camera and Multiobject Spectrometer
PRESS RELEASES
HUBE was selected in (April or) May 1995 through the first MIDEX Announcement of Opportunity (AO) as a possible alternate.
Titan probe, carried to Saturn by Cassini.
Created September 19, 1996. Last major update: June 24, 1997 (limited update as recent as July 31, 2000). Please see my Disclaimer and Web Policy page. This page was maintained by Gordon Johnston. However, effective September 1997, I no longer work for the Office of Space Science. If you send me a correction, I will try to enter it on a time available, best efforts basis:
Gordon.Johnston@hq.nasa.govThe world wide web uniform resource locator (URL) for this page is:
http://ranier.hq.nasa.gov/Sensors_page/MissionLinks/mlgh.html
