The goals for ATS-3 included investigations of spin stabilisation techniques and VHF and C-band communications experiments. In addition to fulfilling its primary mission, it also provided regular communications service to sites in the Pacific basin and Antarctica, provided emergency communications links during the 1987 Mexican earthquake and the Mt. St. Helens disaster, and supported the Apollo Moon landings. The satellite also provided the first colour images from space as well as regular cloud cover images for meteorological studies. Spacecraft: Spin stabilised, drum solar array providing 175 W BOL, NiCd batteries. Payload: C-band and VHF communications packages, Earth imaging camera

Design Life: 3 years. Total Length: 1.5 m. Maximum Diameter: 1.5 m. Total Mass: 365 kg.

Communications tests.

• 2 - McDowell, Jonathan, The United Nations Registry of Space Objects, Harvard University, 1997. HTML when accessed: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/un/un.html
• 6 - JPL Mission and Spacecraft Library, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1997. HTML when accessed: http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/home.html
• 279 - McDowell, Jonathan, Launch Log, October 1998. HTML when accessed: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/log/launch.html