Survey satellite to map high‐energy sources

The first in a series of High Energy Astronomy Observatory satellites, HEAO‐A, will be inserted in June into a low circular orbit about the Earth from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The new satellite will spend its six‐month mission lifetime surveying and mapping x‐ray sources throughout the celestial sphere, and also measuring low‐energy gamma‐ray fluxes; its purpose is to amass experimental data related to radio galaxies, neutron stars, pulsars, quasars, stellar explosions and supernovas. The HEAO‐A carries a payload of four experiments. In 1978 and 1979 NASA expects to launch other High Energy Astronomy Observatories to complete the $237‐million, three‐mission HEAO program.