Radio and space research at Slough 1920-1981

The investigations conducted are concerned with problems of radio propagation and upper atmosphere research, dating back to the formation in 1920 of the Radio Research Board of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The years from 1925 to 1927 were of great importance to the science of geophysics because it was in that period that the existence of a reflecting layer at a height of about 100 km was proved. The outbreak of war in 1939 accelerated the evolution of the Ionospheric Forecasting Service to supply predictions of parameters to aid long-distance communications. Attention is also given to developments related to the invention of radar, postwar directions, the International Geophysical Year, ionospheric and tropospheric research in the space era, space science, and satellite instrumentation.