Beskrivning : The magnetically aligned spacecraft GRS-A, launched into a near-polar orbit in November of 1969, was a product of a joint effort by NASA-GSFC and the German Bundesministerium fur Wissenschaftliche Forschung (BMWF) and had as its primary purpose the acquisition of terrestrial radiation belt data.
After about 24 hours in orbit, a command system instability developed and persisted intermittently throughout the flight. The tape recorder failed on December 8, 1969. Prior to this failure, the German project office estimated that 85-90% of the expected data had been obtained. All experiments were operating normally until the spacecraft telemetry system malfunctioned in early July 1970.