How are space probes labeled?

As a collective whole, the human race has been sending probes into space for
several decades now. We've got landers on the moon, Venus, Mars, and even
Titan. We've got hardware orbiting the sun, Venus, Mars, etc. And of
course stuff headed for interstellar space.

My question is this: Are these probes labeled in any way, so that anyone
finding them in the future will be able to read a label that says, "Surveyor
7," or "Mars 2," or "Mariner 10" or "Voyager 1"? How about Apollo hardware
that is still in lunar or solar orbit? How difficult would it be to
identify a particular item?

Some of the spacecraft have formal plaques installed, such as Pioneers
10 and 11. Later spacecraft, such as Galileo, had beta cloth logos
stiched into the insulation. There is a full-fidelity Cassini
spacecraft mockup at the California Science Museum's Aerospace annex,
and it has a unique logo placed on it that houses the CD rom inside. It
is a circle with a triangle and a fountain pen made from kapton and
beta cloth.

I did a study a couple of years ago as I was trying to figure out a way
to put the ISSAT logo on the ISSAT telescope. I found that oridinary
paints, pigments and inks will not work in the harsh environment of
space as the inks slowly sublimate in the vaccum. Colors get ruined by
the UV radiation, too.

So it is difficult to get any markings on the spacecraft that will
last, besides, who is around to see them?

Matthew Ota

Matt J. McCullar wrote:
As a collective whole, the human race has been sending probes into space for
several decades now. We've got landers on the moon, Venus, Mars, and even
Titan. We've got hardware orbiting the sun, Venus, Mars, etc. And of
course stuff headed for interstellar space.

My question is this: Are these probes labeled in any way, so that anyone
finding them in the future will be able to read a label that says, "Surveyor
7," or "Mars 2," or "Mariner 10" or "Voyager 1"? How about Apollo hardware
that is still in lunar or solar orbit? How difficult would it be to
identify a particular item?



Many probes carried pennants, signs, medallions, etc.

Here are some items placed on early Soviet lunar and planetary probes:
http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Pennants.htm

The NASA Pioneer plaques:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclo...eerplaque.html

The Voyager golden record:
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html
http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/voy...er-record.html

NASA Mars Spirit probe plaque:
http://www.planetary.org/mars/images...ue_330x404.jpg

Plaque carried on Apollo-Soyuz:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/mirrors/...P/10076505.jpg

Of course the Apollo lunar module descent stages from Apollo 11 through
17 had a plaque listing the astronauts names and in some cases, the
Apollo mission, and/or the President's name.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ue-replica.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:A12-plaque.jp
Apollo 13 replacement plaque with John Swigert's name added:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...a13.plaque.jpg
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apol...4_PlaqueFS.gif
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apol...5_PlaqueFS.gif
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...6-72-H-425.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:A17-plaque.gif


-Rusty

Apollo 12 plaque (working link):
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apol...2_PlaqueFS.gif

-Rusty

In article .com,
Matthew Ota wrote:
I did a study a couple of years ago as I was trying to figure out a way
to put the ISSAT logo on the ISSAT telescope. I found that oridinary
paints, pigments and inks will not work in the harsh environment of
space as the inks slowly sublimate in the vaccum. Colors get ruined by
the UV radiation, too.

I was told -- by one of the people involved -- that the "Canada" and flag
on the first Canadarm were added at the last minute, using ordinary
hardware-store paint (although I suspect they did at least a quick
outgassing test first), after a badly delayed high-level decision finally
got made.

And yes, NASA privately had conniptions over it.

And the markings did slowly fade as time went on and they racked up more
in-space time. For the later arms, and presumably for refurbishment on
the first, the job was done properly with more durable materials.

Sometimes it doesn't even take UV to make things fade. The ESA logo on
Huygens, bright and conspicuous in ESA photos taken just before the probe
shipped to the US, had somehow faded almost to invisibility in NASA photos
of the Cassini-Huygens assembly taken only a week or two later.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In article ,
Matt J. McCullar wrote:
My question is this: Are these probes labeled in any way, so that anyone
finding them in the future will be able to read a label that says, "Surveyor
7," or "Mars 2," or "Mariner 10" or "Voyager 1"? How about Apollo hardware
that is still in lunar or solar orbit? How difficult would it be to
identify a particular item?

As others have noted, although some probes carry plaques and such, there's
no systematic, uniform labeling convention. In cases where there's more
than one candidate, confusion would easily be possible. Only a couple of
decades after the stuff was put out to rust, it took significant detective
work to establish just which remaining Saturn V stages *on Earth* were
which -- not only was there no definitive labeling, but the records
weren't well kept either.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

I know that the serial and part numbers on the space shuttle's tiles
are made with muffler paint. But now I wonder what the Canadians used
for thier Canadarms as their more durable and permanent materials. I
never was able to find out what was the best kind of paint or pigments
to use for space applications. I even went as far as reseraching the
LDEF data sets, but I found nothing there.

Matthew Ota

Were the apollo bolier plate capsules serial numbered? Theres a REAL
boilerplate near me, it would be nice to identify which one it is....

I wonder how many probes were signed or had other stuff added by the
builders?

Hey I will etch my name or something on this part which is going out of
the solar system

wrote:
Were the apollo bolier plate capsules serial numbered? Theres a REAL
boilerplate near me, it would be nice to identify which one it is....

I wonder how many probes were signed or had other stuff added by the
builders?

Hey I will etch my name or something on this part which is going out of
the solar system


Remember the dollar bill found in Liberty Bell 7? At least one was
found autographed, and wrapped around wiring bundles in the recovered
spacecraft. It had been placed there by somone on the launch crew.

Rusty

In message . com, Rusty
writes

wrote:
Were the apollo bolier plate capsules serial numbered? Theres a REAL
boilerplate near me, it would be nice to identify which one it is....

I wonder how many probes were signed or had other stuff added by the
builders?

Hey I will etch my name or something on this part which is going out of
the solar system


Remember the dollar bill found in Liberty Bell 7? At least one was
found autographed, and wrapped around wiring bundles in the recovered
spacecraft.

Not the wiring for the explosive bolts on the hatch, I hope :-)