FREESTAR, which stands for Fast Reaction Experiments Enabling Science Technology Applications and Research, was a payload of six separate experiments on the Space Shuttle Columbia

Space Shuttle Columbia

Space Shuttle Columbia was the first spaceworthy Space Shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. First launched on the STS-1 mission, the first of the Space Shuttle program, it completed 27 missions before being destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 near the end of its 28th, STS-107. All seven crew...

.

It was mounted on a crossbay Hitchhiker

Hitchhiker Program

The Hitchhiker Program was a NASA program established in 1984 and administered by the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Marshall Space Flight Center . The program was designed to allow low-cost and quick reactive experiments to be placed on board the Space Shuttle...

 Multipurpose Equipment Support Structure in the shuttle's payload bay during the STS-107

STS-107

-Mission parameters:*Mass:**Orbiter Liftoff: **Orbiter Landing: **Payload: *Perigee: *Apogee: *Inclination: 39.0°*Period: 90.1 min- Insignia :...

 flight, which ended with the disintegration of Columbia during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Although data was lost in the re-entry, much of the data collected while in space, such as that from MEIDEX, had already been transmitted to ground stations.

Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment (MEIDEX)

The primary mission of the MEIDEX payload was to study the temporal and spatial distribution and physical properties of atmospheric desert dust over North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Sahara

Sahara

The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...

n regions. The aim was achieved by a remote sensing experiment operated by the astronauts aboard the shuttle. Also, MEIDEX accomplished diverse secondary science objectives by performing slant visibility observations, sea-surface reflectivity observations, desert surface observations and observations of Transient Luminous Events, better known as sprites.

Shuttle Ozone Limb Sounding Experiment-02 (SOLSE-02)

SOLSE-02 was an imaging spectrometer

Spectrometer

A spectrometer is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify materials. The variable measured is most often the light's intensity but could also, for instance, be the polarization...

 that demonstrated a new technique to measure the vertical distribution of ozone

Ozone

Ozone , or trioxygen, is a triatomic molecule, consisting of three oxygen atoms. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope...

 in the atmosphere. Once proven over a wider range of viewing conditions, the SOLSE-2 technique will be used to routinely measure ozone by the next generation of weather satellite

Weather satellite

The weather satellite is a type of satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be either polar orbiting, seeing the same swath of the Earth every 12 hours, or geostationary, hovering over the same spot on Earth by orbiting over the equator while...

s.

Critical Viscosity of Xenon-2 (CVX-2)

The Critical Viscosity of Xenon-2 Experiment measures the viscous behavior of xenon

Xenon

Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. The element name is pronounced or . A colorless, heavy, odorless noble gas, xenon occurs in the Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts...

 – a heavy, inert gas used in flash lamps and ion rocket engines – at its critical point.

The data from the CVX-2 experiment was believed lost in the disaster. The hard drive that carried its data, a Seagate

Seagate Technology

Seagate Technology is one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard disk drives. Incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology, Seagate is currently incorporated in Dublin, Ireland and has its principal executive offices in Scotts Valley, California, United States.-1970s:On November 1, 1979...

 ST9385AG 2.5" hard drive with 400 MB storage capacity, was found and believed to be melted beyond recognition. In 2008, however, a data recovery specialist cleaned the hard drive's storage platters and rebuilt them into a new hard drive. They were able to recover 99% of the data, saving the experiment.

Solar Constant Experiment-3 (SOLCON-3)

The SOLCON instrument is designed to accurately measure the solar constant

Solar constant

The solar constant, a measure of flux density, is the amount of incoming solar electromagnetic radiation per unit area that would be incident on a plane perpendicular to the rays, at a distance of one astronomical unit...

 and identify variations in the value during a solar cycle

Solar cycle

The solar cycle, or the solar magnetic activity cycle, is a periodic change in the amount of irradiation from the Sun that is experienced on Earth. It has a period of about 11 years, and is one component of solar variation, the other being aperiodic fluctuations. Solar variation causes changes in...

. SOLCON measures the solar irradiance

Irradiance

Irradiance is the power of electromagnetic radiation per unit area incident on a surface. Radiant emittance or radiant exitance is the power per unit area radiated by a surface. The SI units for all of these quantities are watts per square meter , while the cgs units are ergs per square centimeter...

 in space to avoid perturbations

Perturbation (astronomy)

Perturbation is a term used in astronomy in connection with descriptions of the complex motion of a massive body which is subject to appreciable gravitational effects from more than one other massive body....

 by the atmosphere of the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

. It is also used as a reference to construct a long-duration time series of the solar irradiance. This data will ensure continuity of the solar constant level obtained by instruments mounted on free flyers, over climate time-scale duration.

Space Experiment Module (SEM)

The SEM is made up of 11 separate student experiments from schools across the United States and is the 14th flight of a SEM on the space shuttle

Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...

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Low Power Transceiver (LPT) experiment

The Low Power Transceiver

Transceiver

A transceiver is a device comprising both a transmitter and a receiver which are combined and share common circuitry or a single housing. When no circuitry is common between transmit and receive functions, the device is a transmitter-receiver. The term originated in the early 1920s...

is a compact, flexible device that can be configured to perform custom communications and navigation functions in terrestrial, airborne and space applications.

External links

• NASA.gov, STS-107 SN DTV Configuration for FREESTAR (MEIDEX)
• NASA.gov, Flight activity requirements
• NASAN.gov, SOLSE Lost - Saturday, February 1, 2003
• NASA.gov, STS-107, Crew Worked Directly With Goddard Team
• NASAN.gov, Sprites and Elve from MEIDEX
• NASA.gov, Interactions of mineral dust and sea salt with clouds; some results from the MEIDEX campaign