Boudine Days, Orsay, October 2005

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Boudine Days, Orsay, October 2005

• SUNLAB
• the mission that almost was
• Alan Gabriel
• Institut dAstrophysique Spatiale, Orsay

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SUNLAB was born out of the solar payload flown on
the Instrument Pointing System (IPS) on Spacelab
2 in April 1985
The IPS carried four solar instuments, HERTZ
(Brueckner)SOUP (Title)SUSIM (Brueckner)CHASE
(Gabriel, Culhane)
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Key events

• April 1985 successful flight of Spacelab 2
• Autumn 1985 NASA decides to refly solar
  instruments on later Spacelab - named
  SUNLABSUNLAB included 3 of the instruments of
  Spacelab 2 plus the TRC of LPSP
• January 1986 Challenger accident perturbs
  Shuttle program
• October 1986 NASA puts SUNLAB on hold
• November 1987 NASA cancels SUNLAB

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SUNLAB was being planned jointly between RAL
(Bruce Patchett for CHASE)andLPSP (Boudine for
TRC)
Bruce was heard to say- I have to accept the
cancellation of SUNLAB, but I am really sad to
lose the chance to work with Boudine
Bruce with some of the CHASE team
(Bruce Patchett died prematurely on 12 September
1996)