Miranda, also known as X-4, is a British satellite in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

. The satellite was launched in March 1974 as an engineering test bed of technologies in orbit. Miranda was named after a character in the Shakespeare play ''

The Tempest ''The Tempest'' is a Shakespeare's plays, play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, th ...

'', just like

Prospero (spacecraft) The ''Prospero'' satellite, also known as the X-3, was launched by the United Kingdom in 1971. It was designed to undertake a series of experiments to study the effects of the space environment on communications satellites and remained operati ...

and

Ariel 1 Ariel 1 (also known as UK-1 and S-55), was the first British-American satellite, and the first satellite in the Ariel programme. Its launch in 1962 made the United Kingdom the third country to operate a satellite, after the Soviet Union and the Un ...

Design

Operational

Miranda used propane

cold gas thruster A cold gas thruster (or a cold gas propulsion system) is a type of rocket engine which uses the expansion of a (typically inert) pressurized gas to generate thrust. As opposed to traditional rocket engines, a cold gas thruster does not house any co ...

s for attitude control.

Sensors

It contained a Canopus star sensor to determine the reflectivity and interference caused by the propane.

Launch

Miranda was due to be launched by a British

Black Arrow Black Arrow, officially capitalised BLACK ARROW,Gibson and Buttler 2007, . was a British satellite expendable launch system. Black Arrow originated from studies by the Royal Aircraft Establishment for carrier rockets based on the earlier Blac ...

rocket, but due to the project's cancellation the payload was instead launched on the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

-owned rocket

Scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement *Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement ** Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom ** Scouts BSA, sect ...

Mission

Designed as an engineering test bed for various technologies in orbit, Miranda carried various sensors and detectors.

Current status

The satellite is now non-active, but remains in low Earth orbit.

Notes

References

* * * Spacecraft launched in 1974 Satellites orbiting Earth Science and technology in the United Kingdom Space programme of the United Kingdom Satellites of the United Kingdom {{UK-spacecraft-stub