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This is a sample of skin from the ECHO 2 satellite. ECHO 2 was an improvement on ECHO 1, and consisted of a 135-foot diameter inflated, more rigidized (the advantage over the much thinner ECHO 1) sphere. It was composed of aluminum, mylar, bonding adhesive, a special coating and an additional coating of black ink on the inside surface. Together the material is a mere seven-thousandths (.0007) of an inch thick. A test of the ECHO 2 satellite can be seen at right in a NASA photo from 1961. ECHO 2 was launched in 1964 and was the third and last ECHO satellite (the first failed to reach orbit). |
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