These aluminum tubes act as a set of collimators to restrict the field of view of a proportional counter that is one of the flight spares from the SAS-1/Uhuru satellite. The Uhuru satellite, launched in 1970, was the first earth-orbiting spacecraft dedicated exclusively to X-ray astronomy.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory transferred this counter to NASM in 2002.
This object is not on display at the National Air and Space Museum. It is either on loan or in storage.
United States of America
INSTRUMENTS-Scientific
American Science & Engineering, Incorporated
Uniform Tube Company
3-D (Tubes): 14 × 0.8 × 0.8cm (5 1/2 × 5/16 × 5/16 in.)
3-D (Plastic Box): 17.8 × 7.6 × 3.8cm (7 × 3 × 1 1/2 in.)
Aluminum
Copper Alloy
A20020296000
Transferred from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
National Air and Space Museum
Usage conditions apply
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