The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

484 wind tunnel
orbit, Wind provides continuous measurement of the
solar wind, particularly charged particles and magnetic
field data, and thus helps show how the solar wind affects
magnetospheric and ionospheric behavior. It also carries
the first Russian instrument to fly on an American spacecraft
since cooperation in space between the two countries
resumed in 1987.
Launch
Date: November 1, 1994
Vehicle: Delta 7925
Site: Cape Canaveral
Size: 2.0 × 2.4 m
Mass: 1,195 kg
Orbit: 48,840 × 1,578,658 km × 19.6°
wind tunnel
A device used to investigate the aerodynamic properties
of objects by passing a stream of velocity-controlled air
over them. The largest wind tunnel in the world is the
National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex at NASA
Ames. It is composed of a 40- by 80-foot section, more
than 50 years old, and a newer 80- by 120-foot section
that is large enough to test aircraft the size of a Boeing
737.
Winkler, Johannes (1887–1947)
A German engineer and the editor of the Verein für
Raumschiffahrt’s journal Die Raketewho on February 21,
1931, supported in his research by Hugo A. Huckel,
launched the first liquid-propellant rocket in Europe. The
60-cm-long, 30-cm-wide rocket, called the Huckel-
Winkler 1, was powered by a combination of liquid oxygen
and liquid methane. Launched near the city of
Dessau, the Huckel-Winkler 1 reached an altitude of
about 300 m. Unfortunately, its successor was not as
impressive. The Huckel-Winkler 2 took off from a site
near Pillau in East Prussia, on October 6, 1932, caught
fire, and crashed, having reached an altitude of just 3 m.
WIRE (Wide-Field Infrared Explorer)
ASMEX (Small Explorer) satellite whose primary purpose
was a four-month infrared survey of the universe,
wind tunnel Looking down the throat of the 40- × 80-ft wind tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center. NASA