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A Brief History of MSAM/Tophat
Overview
TopHat in Antarctica
Links
1992 June - First flight of MSAM1
1993
1994 June - confirmation flight for MSAM1-92
1995 June - Additional sky coverage for MSAM1
1996 June - "The Endless Summer" Despite over three months residence in
Palestine, Texas, the launch for MSAM2 was attempted, but the weather
was not cooperative
1997 June - First flight of the MSAM2
1998

July - TopHat Test Flight 1 - first flight of a high-fidelity mockup of the top payload.

October - Second flight of a high-fidelity mockup of the top payload, combined
with the actual bottom payload that will be flown in Antarctica.

1999 Flight preparations for an Antarctic flight culminated in a system end-to-end test in Palestine, TX in August. Unfortunately, thermal-vacuum testing showed that the main bearing in the spinning mechanism ("lazy-Susan") was not reliable at cold temperatures. As a result, Antarctic flight was postponed in order to fix this problem.
2000 TopHat Antarctic flight
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