Payload Assist Module

SBS-3 satellite with PAM-D stage being launched from the Space Shuttle Columbia
PAM-D stage in assembly

The Payload Assist Module (PAM) is a modular upper stage designed and built by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing), using Thiokol Star-series solid propellant rocket engines. The PAM was used with the Space Shuttle, Delta, and Titan launchers and carried satellites from low Earth orbit to a geostationary transfer orbit or an interplanetary course. The payload was spin stabilized by being mounted on a rotating plate.[1] Originally developed for the Space Shuttle, different versions of the PAM were developed:

The PAM-D module, used as the third stage of the Delta II rocket, is the only version in use today.

2001 re-entry incident

Saudi officials inspect a PAM-D module that re-entered the atmosphere in 2001.

On January 12, 2001, a PAM-D module re-entered the atmosphere after a "catastrophic orbital decay".[2] The PAM-D stage, which had been used to launch a GPS satellite in 1993, crashed in the sparsely populated Saudi Arabian desert, where it was positively identified.

External links

References

  1. ↑ "Payload Assist Module (PAM)". Global Security. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  2. ↑ "PAM-D Debris Falls in Saudi Arabia." The Orbital Debris Quarterly News. Vol. 6, Issue 2. NASA Johnson Space Center. Available online.