+ 1970 News Releases (7.6 Mb PDF file) - NASA

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The main scientific objective is to gain information on the Sun's
corona, the fiery outer envelope of the Sun, normally obscured by the
Sun's brightness. MSC also hopes to obtain information on the family
of faint comets predicted to be found near the Sun_ determine distribution
of the coronal radiation and of the sunlight scattered by the Earth's
atmosphere.
The MSC expedition, under the supervision of Dr. Robert Kovar, the
chief scientist_ traveled to _e×ico via truck convoy with 25 tons of
equipment and is currently setting up their cameras and telescopes. The
group will use eight telescopes (3 to 7 inch) and an assortment of 16mm
motion picture, 35mm and 70mm cameras in carrying out their experiments.
Others in the Y_C group are NASA contract experimenters_ representing
Lockheed Electronics Corporation and the University of Houston.
The experiments and their scientific objectives to be conducted by
the MSC team are as follows:
H-Alpha: This experiment is designed to separate the P-corona
(reflected corona) and K-corona (emission of ionized gases and plasma)
out to 3 degrees from the Sun. With information from this e_periment,
it is possible to determine the distribution of interplanetary particles
in the vicinity of the Sun. Dr. Robert P. Kovar of MSC is chief experimenter.
Polarization Experiment: This experiment is designed to separate the
F and K-coronae to three solar radii in order to obtain information on the
distribution of particles between the Earth smd Sun. Dr. Jack Reid of
Lockheed is chief experimenter.
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