Optical environment of the Spacelab 1 mission

The passing of large orbital vehicles through the space environment often generates such emissions as glows on or near the vehicle surface and halos surrounding the vehicle. These induced emissions may affect observations made with the optical instrumentation carried by the vehicles. The glows' causative mechanisms appear to be a complex function of altitude, time in orbit, materials, insolation, and vehicular size and orientation. Attention is presently given to contamination environment data obtained for the instrument suite carried by the Spacelab 1 Space Shuttle mission.