Alan Gabriel Boudine Days Orsay, October, 2005

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Boudine Days, Orsay, October 2005

SUNLAB

the mission that almost was

Alan GabrielInstitut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Orsay

Alan Gabriel Boudine Days Orsay, October, 2005

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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)

Alan Gabriel Boudine Days Orsay, October, 2005

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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 “SUNLAB”SUNLAB 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

Alan Gabriel Boudine Days Orsay, October, 2005

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SUNLAB was being planned jointly between:

RAL (Bruce Patchett for CHASE)andLPSP (Boudine for TRC)

Bruce with some of the CHASE team

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 Patchett died prematurely on 12 September 1996)