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HEAO 2

This would normally have been the name for the #2 spacecraft in the HEAO Program series, but as far as I know was never used, the name being HEAO B before launch, and then "Einstein Observatory", probably in recognition of the outstanding improvement in performance of the focusing X-ray telescope over previous experiments.

NASA liked (& likes) to use a non-commital name prelaunch, and then give observatories more formal names once they are up and working. HEAO 1 & 3 were originally HEAO A and HEAO C before launch, which accounts for the instrument names in the program Wwheaton ( talk) 04:07, 28 March 2008 (UTC) reply

It is far more important to give the initial orbital altitude than to give its inclination:
The Einstein Observatory, HEAO-2, was launched on November 13, 1978, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an Atlas-Centaur SLV-3D booster rocket into a near-circular orbit with an initial altitude slightly above 500 km. Its orbital inclination orbit was 23.5 degrees.
The orbital altitude is a strong factor in the lifetime of the satellite, whereas, the inclination for an astronomy satellit doesn't mean too much at all. 74.249.82.221 ( talk) 18:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC) reply


request

one of the very fun things about LIGO is reading about the insane specification for how sensitive it is to changes in the distance between mirrors -iirc, something like a picometer (!!) over 3 Km (!!!!)

it would be really nice if this simnple and fascinating number were in this article, even if it is a provisional specification please note that a number that includes stain is not suited to a general encylopedia, much less some arcane jargon like 1/strain(Hz)^-1/2

thanks