page_title: ATS-6
section_title: Launch
hierarchical_section_title: ATS-6 / Launch
caption_attribution_description: English: A test model of the Applications Technology Satellite (ATS) is seen during checkout activity in Chamber A of the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) to see if the satellite's 30-feet diameter umbrella-shaped antenna would unfold properly in a space vacuum. The antenna is in an unfolded (deployed) position in this picture. For the test, the 65-feet diameter by 120 feet high vacuum chamber in Building 32 was pumped down to an equivalent altitude of 255,000 feet (48 miles). The test model satellite is hung by cables from the chamber's dome. Engineers from the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) not only wanted to test the antenna mechanism itself, but the efforts of the unfolding action on the whole satellite. For the test, the 54-feet span solar array "paddles" for generating the satellite's electrical power were spread in the orbit flight position, while the parabolic antenna was folded into a donut-shaped package beneath the solar ray booms. The 3,000 pound ATS-F was launched in the spring of 1974 atop a Titan IIIC launch vehicle into a 22,000-mile high synchronous orbit, first above the United States and later above India. ATS spacecraft prime contractor to the GSFC, Greenbelt, Maryland, was Fairchild Industries, Germantown, Maryland. This view is from outside the chamber looking through the huge doorway.
context_page_description: ATS-6 was a NASA experimental satellite, built by Fairchild Space and Electronics Division It has been called the world's first educational satellite as well as world's first experimental Direct Broadcast Satellite as part of the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment between NASA and Indian Space Research Organisation. It was launched May 30, 1974, and decommissioned July 1979. At the time of launch, it was the most powerful telecommunication satellite in orbit. ATS-6 carried no fewer than 23 different experiments, and introduced several breakthroughs. It was the first 3-axis stabilized spacecraft in geostationary orbit. It was also the first to use experimentally with some success electric propulsion in geostationary orbit. It also carried several particle physics experiments, including the first heavy ion detector in geostationary orbit.
  During its five-year life, ATS-6 transmitted connection programming to various countries, including India, the United States and other regions.
context_section_description: ATS-6 was launched on May 30, 1974, by a Titan III-C launch vehicle. The spacecraft was inserted directly in the geosynchronous orbit. This reduced the on-board fuel requirements to less than 40 kg (for a total mass at launch of nearly 1400 kg). The highly accurate orbit insertion further lowered the amount of fuel required for final positioning to 9 kg. This enabled a life extension from the original 2 year to 5 years, even accounting for the premature failure of the electric propulsion subsystem (the station-keeping fuel requirement being around 1.6 kg/year).
caption: ATS-6 inside the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) during antenna deployment tests
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