On this day in space: March 7, 1962: NASA launches Orbiting Solar Observatory

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On March 7, 1962, NASA launched the first Orbiting Solar Observatory.

On March 7, 1962, NASA launched the first Orbiting Solar Observatory.

a woman wearing thick rim glasses holds a scale model of a satellite in this black and white photo

Dr. Nancy Roman holds a model of the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO). (Image credit: NASA)

The sail contained solar panels and instruments that took measurements of the sun. The sail was mounted onto the wheel, which could rotate to make sure that the instruments were pointing in the right direction.

The satellites measured things like UV light, X-rays, and gamma radiation. The data was recorded on tape and transmitted to Earth via FM telemetry.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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