May 25, 1996
On the day you were born, the universe was already ancient beyond measure — and yet, in all those billions of years, it had never once...
The Shuttle Launches an Inflatable Antenna
Birthday · May 25, 1996
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APOD published May 25, 1996. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
High above the Earth the Space Shuttle Endeavor launches a new type of instrument - an inflatable antenna. The officially designated Inflatable Antenna Experiment was released Monday, May 20th, as part of a Spartan satellite - which contains many scientific experiments. The antenna is roughly the size of a tennis court and is even visible from Earth. At the end of the mission, the antenna will be jettisoned while the rest of the Spartan is recovered by the Shuttle. The function of an antenna is to broadcast radio messages, and the large dish at the end helps focus radio waves into a narrow beam which can be detected over long distances.