SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGKAM — HAYES 283 



the program was geared for 18 months, that is, for the period of the 

 IGY; no one made specific plans for the program to continue after 

 December 31, 1958. This meant that equipment contracted for by 

 the Observatory did not need to be designed and built to function 

 efficiently beyond that date. It is a tribute to the skillful planning 

 of the scientists and technicians and to the manufacturing abilities of 

 the firms involved that most of the instruments and buildings are still 

 in good working condition as this is written. Second, the program 

 was geared to track only one or two satellites on the assumption that 

 of the six "earnest tries" made by Vanguard not more than two would 

 succeed. Few seem to have taken seriously the possibility that Russia 

 would also launch several satellites during the IGY and that the 

 Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory might have the responsi- 

 bility for tracking them optically. 



THE IGY AND THE SMITHSONIAN 



Late in 1955 the National Academy of Sciences and the National 

 Science Foundation, acting for the U.S. National Committee of the 

 IGY, assigned to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, through 

 the Institution in Washington, the responsibility for the optical track- 

 ing of U.S. artificial earth satellites launched during the period from 

 July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. 



It had been evident from the first that the tracking of satellites was 

 a job for astronomers. It must never be lost sight of that a satellite, 

 once launched, is neither a missile nor a rocket, but an object basically 

 similar to the kind that astronomers have for centuries been observing 

 and studying. The satellite is, as far as the optical tracker is con- 

 cerned, a point of light on the celestial sphere. It requires the kind 

 of accurate positioning and clocking for which, through their parallax, 

 double-star, and other programs, astronomers had worked out the 

 optical teclmiques. No other group was capable of this type of work. 



Although Dr. Wliipple was convinced that optical tracking of 

 satellites was possible, he had only the precedent of the Harvard 

 Meteor Project to guide him, as well as, of course, his profound Imowl- 

 edge of astronomy. Virtually all phases of the satellite-tracking 

 program were fundamentally new. No one could say with certainty 

 that some redesign of the super-Schmidt camera would be able to 

 photograph an orbiting satellite. No one could say with surety 

 that an organization of amateur astronomers would show the diligence 

 and dedication required to make "Moonwatch" a success. No one 

 could define precisely the qualifications of the observers needed at 

 the Baker-Nunn camera stations ; and no one knew the exact means 

 by which mathematicians and astronomers would determine the orbit 

 of a satellite and prepare predictions. 



