The Living Plume Shield or LIPS were a set of three satellites launched on

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

rockets as

secondary payloads Secondary payload, also known as rideshare payload, is a smaller-sized payload transported to orbit on a launch vehicle that is mostly paid for—and with the date and time of launch and the orbital trajectory determined—by the entity that con ...

, the primary payload consisting of NOSS Satellites. * LIPS I, launched on 8 December 1980 on

Atlas E/F The Atlas E/F (or SB-1A) was an American expendable launch system and sounding rocket built using parts of decommissioned SM-65 Atlas missiles. It was a member of the Atlas family of rockets. The first stage was built using parts taken from d ...

serial number 68E, failed to reach orbit. * LIPS II, launched on 9 February 1983 on

Atlas H The Atlas H was an American expendable launch system derived from the SM-65 Atlas missile. It was a member of the Atlas family of rockets, and was used to launch five clusters of NOSS satellites for the US National Reconnaissance Office. Two fli ...

serial number 6001H, is still operating. It carries a UHF single-channel transponder. * LIPS III, launched on 15 May 1987 on

serial number 6005H, is still operating. It weighs 138 pounds and has performed over 140 solar-cell experiments. Each of the satellites was designed and tested in less than a year by the

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. It was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, applied research, technological ...

Spacecraft Engineering Department at their Payload Processing Facility in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

As their name suggests, all three satellites were built by utilizing the plume shield that was used to deflect the exhaust of the upper-stage motor away from the primary payload and mounting experiments on the protected anterior surfaces.

References

1980 in spaceflight 1983 in spaceflight 1987 in spaceflight Secondary payloads {{US-spacecraft-stub