eciffOgnitnirPtnemnrevoG.S.U,stnemucoDfotnednetnirepuSehtybelasroF

0081-215)202(aeraCD;0081-215)668(eerfllot:enohPvog.opg.erotskoob:tenretnI

notgnihsaW,CCDIpotS:liaM4012-215)202(:xaF 1000-20402CD,

ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4

I S B N 978-0-16-080191-4

9 7 8 0 1 6 0 8 0 1 9 1 4

9 0 0 0 0

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

NASA History Division 

Office of External Relations 

Washington, DC 

2008 On the 

FROnt COveR 

“On Location—Sketch 

3,” pastel drawing by Bruce 

A. Aiken.this drawing, third in 

a series of field studies, was done in 

the early morning with a closer look at 

the nASA White Sands Ground terminal. 

June 1986. (86-hC-236) 

ABOUt the AUthOR 

Sunny tsiao conducts aerospace research for Itt 

Corporation and has written for the Department of 

Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration and 

the national Aeronautics and Space Administration. 

he began his career as a cooperative student at the 

Johnson Space Center, serving on the Flight Crew 

training team for StS-5 and 6. he holds a mas-

ter’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from 

Purdue University and is a member of the tau Beta 

Pi and Sigma Gamma tau engineering honorary 

societies. An accomplished amateur model builder 

and violinist, Sunny tsiao was born in taiwan and 

grew up in Denver. he lives in Monument, 

Colorado with his wife and their three children. 

Read You Loud and Clear! is his first book. 

On the BACK COveR 

A team from nASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center 

(GSFC) visits the Intelsat communications relay 

station on Black Island, 30 miles from the McMurdo base in Antarctica in February 1999. Pictured from left to right are Ken Griffin, htSI (honeywell technical Services Inc.); Phil Liebrecht, GSFC; Bill Watson, nASA headquarters; and Don Shinners, htSI. Image courtesy of 

Steve Currier, nASA 

Wallops Flight Facility. 

I SBN 978-0-16-080191-4

9 780160 801914

90000

F or sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U .S. G overnment Printing Office

I nternet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free(8 6 ) 5 1 2 1 - 8 0 0 ; 6 DC area( 0 2 2 ) 5 1 2 1 - 8 0 0 

Fax:(2 2 ) 5 1 2 2 - 1 0 4 M a 0 il: Stop IDCC, W ashington, D C 2 0 4 0 2 0 - 0 0 1 

ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 

Regardless of how sophisticated 

it may be, no spacecraft is of any 

value unless it can be tracked 

accurately to determine where 

it is and how it is performing. 

At the height of the space race, 6,000 

men and women operated NASA’s Spaceflight 

Tracking and Data Network at some two dozen 

locations across five continents. This network, 

known as the STDN, began its operation by tracking Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite 

that was launched into space by the former Soviet 

Union. Over the next 40 years, the network was 

destined to play a crucial role on every near-Earth 

space mission that NASA flew. Whether it was 

receiving the first television images from space, 

tracking Apollo astronauts to the Moon and back, 

or data acquiring for Earth science, the STDN was 

that intricate network behind the scenes making 

the missions possible. Some called it the “Invisible 

Network,” a hallmark of which was that no NASA 

mission has ever been compromised due to a network failure. 

Read You Loud and Clear! is a historical 

account of the STDN, starting with its formation 

in the late 1950s to what it is today in the first 

decade of the twenty-first century. It traces the 

roots of the tracking network from its beginnings 

at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico 

to the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System 

(TDRSS) space-based constellation of today. The 

story spans the early days of satellite tracking using 

the Minitrack Network, through the expansion 

of the Satellite Tracking And Data Acquisition 

Network (STADAN) and the Manned Space 

Flight Network (MSFN), and finally, to the Space 

and Ground Networks of today. 

Written from a nontechnical perspective, the author has translated a highly technical subject into historical accounts told within 

the framework of the U.S. space program. These 

accounts tell how international goodwill and foreign cooperation were crucial to the operation of 

the network and why the space agency chose to 

build the STDN the way it did. More than anything else, the story of NASA’s STDN is about the 

“unsung heroes of the space program.” 

NASA 

SP-2007-4233 

“READ 

YOU 

LOUD 

AND 

CLEAR!

”

by Sunny Tsiao 
“READ YOU
 LOUDAND CLEAR!” 

 

“READ YOU
 LOUDAND CLEAR!” 

The Story of 

NASA’s Spaceflight 

Tracking and 

by Sunny Tsiao Data Network 

The NASA History Series 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

NASA History Division 

Office of External Relations 

Washington, DC 2008 

NASA SP-2007-4233 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Tsiao, Sunny, 1963

 Read you loud and clear! : the story of NASA’S spaceflight tracking and data 

network / by Sunny Tsiao.

 p. cm. -- (NASA SP-2007-4233)


 Includes bibliographical references and index.


 1. Space vehicles--United States--Tracking--History. 2. Ground support systems 

(Astronautics)--History. 3. United States. National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration--History. 4. Project Apollo (U.S.)--History. I. Title. II. NASA 

SP-2007-4233. 

TL4026.T785 2007 

629.47’8--dc22

 2007007826 

­
To my beloved Father and Mother, 

Tom and Ellen 
0

F asro t yb el eh S 

I tn re en :t tskoob ro e g. 

aF :x ( )202 

ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4

90000

9 780160 801914

F ro as l e b y t S eh pu e r i tn e dn e tn fo D e co mu tn s , .U S. G vo er e mn tn P r i tn i gn O f fice

I tn e r en t : koobs t ro e . opg . vog P noh e: l f r ee lot ( 668 ) 215 - 0081 ; DC a re a ( 202 ) 215 - 0081

Fa :x ( 202 ) 215 - 4012 Ma i l: S po t IDCC, W a hs i gn t no , D C 20402 - 000 1

ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 
Contents 

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix 

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii 

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxvii 

Introduction: Invisible Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix 

1 The Early Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 

2 Evolution of a Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 

3 The Mercury Space Flight Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 

4 Preparing for the Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 

5 The Apollo Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 

6 Era of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199


7 A Network in Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243


8 The New Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303


9 A Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329


Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343


Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383


Appendix 1: Acronyms, Abbreviations, Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403


Appendix 2: Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415


Appendix 3: Radio Frequency Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425


Appendix 4: Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . 427


Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455


NASA History Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475


PrefaCe 

Much of what has been written on the topic of the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) tracking and data networks 

has been on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Deep Space Network, the DSN. 

This is perhaps understandable as the DSN has played and continues to play 

a central role in many of America’s most high-profile exploration missions. 

These have included the early Pioneer probes, the Mariner missions of the 

1960s and 1970s, Viking and Voyager, and most recently, Galileo, CassiniHuygens, and the new generation of Mars explorers that will prepare the way 

for eventual human voyages to the Red Planet. 

The intent of this volume is to present a history of NASA’s “other” 

network, the one established and run by the Goddard Space Flight Center 

(GSFC). The Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network, or STDN, was—in its 

various incarnations throughout the years—the network that tracked the first 

artificial satellites around Earth. It tracked Apollo astronauts to the Moon and 

back. Today, a network based in space called the Space Network, along with a 

much reduced Ground Network, work together to support the United States 

and international partners in all near-Earth space communications and space

flight activities. The history of the STDN is not unlike a microcosm of the 

history of NASA itself. It spans 50 years. It has seen its share of triumphs and 

tragedies, and it is playing a major role in setting the pace for space exploration 

in the twenty-first century. 

­

When considering sources for this history, the author searched for 

scholarly works that have been published on the subject of NASA’s STDN. 
x “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

There has been some coordinated effort to document NASA’s human spaceflight and near-Earth communications networks throughout the years. Starting 

in the late 1960s, the GSFC saw the need to begin documenting this history. 

From that start, most of the literature on the subject has been independently 

commissioned reports sponsored by the Center itself. 

The seminal work was by William R. Corliss in 1969 called History 

of the Goddard Networks. Corliss updated it five years later, expanding the subject to the end of the Apollo program. These initial works were relatively 

general, based primarily on secondary research—assimilation of information 

put out by the GSFC in the form of information pamphlets, brochures and 

public affairs news releases. 

NASA historian Alfred Rosenthal drafted, in 1983, an unpublished work titled Vital Links: The First 25 Years of NASA’s Space Tracking, 

Communications and Data Acquisition 1958–1983. Vital Links was a new work 

on the subject, taking the timeline up through the early part of the Space 

Shuttle program. A key part of Rosenthal’s work was his interview of some 

20 people whom he identified as principals on the subject. These were not 

formal oral histories but rather, topic-specific statements made by people who 

were major contributors on the STDN over the years. The interviews were 

done in 1982 and 1983 but never published. Many of these people are now 

deceased. The author drew heavily on these interviews and many of the quotes 

are used throughout this book. The draft of Vital Links was turned over to 

the NASA History Division where it is archived. It was a primary reference 

for this work. 

In 1992, GSFC published the Contractor Report Keeping Track: 

A History of the GSFC Tracking and Data Acquisition Networks 1957 to 1991. 

It was edited by Kathleen M. Mogan and Frank P. Mintz. The report listed 

them as editors rather than coauthors because Keeping Track was, for the most 

part, edited together from Corliss’s 1974 and Rosenthal’s 1983 works. A final 

chapter was added which provided a very brief overview of the STDN in the 

1980s. Mogan and Mintz included excerpts from about half of Rosenthal’s 

interviews at the end of the report in a section called “Personal Views.” They, 

in addition, conducted half a dozen interviews with key network personnel 

who were at Goddard in 1990. The material was then published by the GSFC 

as a reference report where it has circulated since. Copies have also been distributed to other NASA locations. Therefore, through Rosenthal, Mogan, 

and Mintz, over two dozen people who shaped NASA’s STDN from 1960 to 

1990 were interviewed. This was an invaluable resource. Taken together, Vital 

Links and Keeping Track served as the primary reference, the updating of which 

was an impetus for this book. 

The most important archival materials were undoubtedly the Historical 

Reference Collection at the History Division of NASA Headquarters. There, 
Preface xi 

correspondences and memoranda on the subject were found dating back to 1958. 

Letters between key Administrators and managers like Edmond C. Buckley, 

Gerald M. Truszynski, and Ozro M. Covington—early movers of the program—explained why certain decisions were made and how they arrived at 

those decisions. Files were found all the way to the present. Organized by 

subject and key words, files addressing a specific topic with regard to the 

Networks were found in the form of Congressional testimonies, news articles, 

technical presentations and photographs. These included those published by 

the Agency over the years as well as those from open literature such as newspapers, magazines and professional journal articles. 

Technical briefings and presentations provided to the author by 

NASA was another good source of firsthand information. Most of these came 

from the Office of Space Communications in Washington and some from the 

GSFC. The author also interviewed current and former NASA managers and 

others who worked with the Network, both inside the government and contractors, both U.S. and foreign. They brought unique, personal perspectives 

that answered questions or helped clarify ambiguities uncovered in the course 

of the research. These personal perspectives also provided stories which simply could not have been found anywhere else. NASA Oral Histories—most 

of which are now available online—provided much insight to this end. They 

complimented, and in certain cases, supplemented the histories obtained from 

other sources. Most of these Oral Histories were conducted by the Agency as 

part of the ongoing Johnson Space Center (JSC) Oral History Project started in 1998. Interviews from three groups of people were reviewed: NASA 

Administrators and high level managers, flight controllers and operations personnel, and astronauts. This produced a broad and diverse set of viewpoints 

from which a story could be weaved together, supplementing the material 

uncovered from other sources. 

Books on the subject of tracking networks, space communications, 

space exploration, and political history in general provided good background 

information within which the topic was framed. Even though these generally lacked the details necessary to delve in-depth into the actual history of 

Networks, they provided the general science and historical background which 

complemented this history, and which in fact, allowed the story to be told 

from a popular point of reference. Other books of a more technical nature 

provided the material needed to explain some of the finer scientific points in 

layman terms. 

Transcripts such as Administrator testimonies before Senate and 

House subcommittees and White House letters were examined. The World 

Wide Web provided convenient material, but they required verification from 

other sources. Most could be validated by authenticating or tracing back to the 

original Web site. Those from dubious sources were either not used at all or 
xii “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

if used, clarified in more detail in the Endnotes section of this book. Internet 

sites were especially helpful for general historical information on topics such 

as history of a country, the climate of an island, or the evolution of a country’s 

governing body and its political relationship to the United States. 

A diverse range of photographs and pictures are included in this book. 

When discussing the topic of tracking stations and communication networks, it is 

easy to fall prey to reproducing pictures of big antennas and buildings page after 

page. After all, those are probably the most prominent components of a ground 

station. Some of those are included. But what paints a more interesting and complete picture are the people involved and the environment that they operated in. 

Therefore, a deliberately chosen mix of seldom before seen photographs along 

with better-known, more frequently reproduced pictures are included. 

The history of NASA’s STDN is a 50 year story, from its birth in 

the late 1940s to where it stands today in the first decade of the twenty-first 

century. The story is told here from a historical and not a technical point of 

view, although explanatory passages are present when warranted. The author 

hopes that in doing so, the chapters will appeal not only to the trained subject 

expert but also to a lay audience or just the space enthusiast at large who may 

simply have always been curious as to how NASA tracked the Lunar Rover on 

the Moon, for instance. 

Since the beginnings of the STDN are inextricably tied to the formation of NASA as America’s civilian space agency, a brief synopsis of how 

the Agency came about—the nuances of which affected how it would operate its tracking networks for years to come—is included in Chapter 1. For a 

comprehensive look at the establishment of NASA, the author recommends 

starting with NASA’s Origins and the Dawn of the Space Age, Monographs in 

Aerospace History number 10, by David S. F. Portree, 1998. 

Similarly, the history of the STDN is tied to the Space Shuttle. 

After the Apollo lunar missions, the Network turned its focus on supporting the reusable Shuttle. Much has been written on the history of the Space 

Transportation System (STS), so much so that in 1992, NASA’s History 

Division published a monograph summarizing the vast amount of literature 

on the subject. The reader is encouraged to reference that work for more 

information. (Launius, Roger D. and Gillette, Aaron K., The Space Shuttle: An 

Annotated Bibliography, Monographs in Aerospace History, Number 1, 1992) 

Finally, this book does not address the Deep Space Network DSN 

except where it overlaps and affects the STDN. Works on the Deep Space 

Network include A History of the Deep Space Network by William R. Corliss 

from 1976, and the 2001 NASA Project Histories publication SP-2001-4227, 

Uplink-Downlink: A History of the Deep Space Network 1957-1997 by Douglas J. 

Mudgway. The latter work is a very comprehensive description of the DSN 

from a technical perspective. Mudgway followed this volume with a less tech­
Preface xiii 

nical but more historical look in his 2005 publication Big Dish. Since it is difficult to fully segregate the two networks, the following is an overview of the 

DSN which the reader may find beneficial as he or she delves into the history 

of the STDN in the coming chapters. Much of this description can be found 

in the 1989 Jet Propulsion Laboratory publication JPL400-326 Goldstone Deep 

Space Communication Complex: 

Scientific investigation of the planets and interplanetary space has 

been carried out for over four decades by NASA mainly through the use of 

automated space probes and robotic vehicles. Although engineered to operate 

independently in the far reaches of space, these intricate and highly autonomous craft are dependent upon Earth-based DSN for guidance, control and 

reception of the vast amounts of scientific information they acquire and transmit back to Earth. 

NASA’s DSN is today among the largest and most sensitive scientific 

telecommunications and radio navigation networks in the world. Its principal 

responsibilities are to support unmanned planetary missions and radio and radar 

astronomy in the exploration of the solar system and the universe. The DSN is 

managed, directed and operated for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

(JPL) of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. It performs several, wide-reaching functions, all relating to the deep space environment: 1) Receive telemetry signals from space probes; 2) Transmit commands 

that control the spacecraft; 3) Generate radio navigation data to locate and 

guide the spacecraft to their destinations; 4) Perform radio science, radio and 

radar astronomy; 5) Perform highly sensitive Earth geodynamics measurements; 

and 6) Participate in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. 

The history of the DSN dates back to 1958 when JPL deployed 

three ground communication stations to help receive telemetry and determine 

the orbit of Explorer 1, the first successful American satellite. Before that, 

engineering research into the tracking requirements for lunar and planetary 

spaceflight had been in progress for some time at JPL. Following Explorer 

1, JPL developed a ground communications and navigation network for the 

Pioneer 3 and 4 missions, the first U.S. spacecraft to be launched beyond 

Earth orbit. On 3 December 1958, shortly after the establishment of NASA, 

JPL was officially transferred to the new space agency from the U.S. Army. 

Since then, it has grown with the U.S. space program into a world network 

consisting of 12 deep-space stations located at three communication complexes on three continents: Goldstone in Southern California’s Mojave Desert; at 

Robledo near Madrid, Spain; and at Tidbinbilla on the outskirts of Canberra, 

Australia. These three locations allow the DSN to maintain around-the-clock 

communications with spacecraft traveling anywhere in the solar system. 

The network consists of several key components. One is the 

Network Operations Control Center (NOCC), which controls and monitors 
xiv “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the three complexes. Located in Pasadena, the NOCC is the operations hub 

for the DSN. Its functions include monitoring operations at the three complexes, validating the performance of the network for spaceflight project users, 

providing information for configuring and controlling the network, and planning and participating in network testing and mission simulations. 

The Ground Communications Facility provides the necessary 

communication circuits that link the complexes to the control center at JPL and 

to the remote flight project centers in the United States and overseas that manage and operate the space probes. “Comm” traffic between these places can be 

sent in various ways, such as via land lines, ocean cables, terrestrial microwave, 

and communication satellites. These circuits are leased from commercial carriers by the NASA Integrated Support Network, commonly referred to as 

NISN—jointly managed by the Goddard and Marshall Space Flight Centers— 

which provides circuits as needed to all NASA centers and facilities. 

The most visible arm of the DSN is of course the three Deep Space 

Communication Complexes that are dominated by a suite of large parabolic 

dish antennas. At each complex are two 34-meter (111-foot) diameter antennas, one 26-meter (85-foot) antenna, and one gigantic 70-meter (230-foot) 

antenna. A centralized Signal Processing Center remotely controls the 70-and 

34-meter antennas, generates and transmits spacecraft commands, and receives 

and processes the spacecraft telemetry. These antennas form separate subnets 

according to their respective sizes, and each subnet has a different communication capability. For example, the 70-meter antenna subnet—which is the most 

sensitive—supports deep space missions while the 26-meter subnet supports 

spacecraft in near-Earth orbit. The two 34-meter antenna subnets support both 

types of missions. 

The 26-meter systems were originally part of the Goddard STDN. 

They were consolidated into the DSN in 1985. The merger led to significant 

operational efficiencies by consolidating like maintenance, operations, and 

field support activities for tracking stations located geographically close to 

each other. From a mission’s perspective, it also allowed the DSN to now track 

spacecraft in highly elliptical, high apogee Earth orbits. 

In the United States, the DSN is staffed by JPL personnel, assisted 

by contractor engineers and technicians who are primarily responsible for 

operating and maintaining the Goldstone complex, the NOCC and the 

Ground Communications Facility. The two overseas complexes are operated 

entirely by the local government agency (the National Institute of Aerospace 

Technology, or INTA, in Spain and the Commonwealth Scientific and 

Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, in Australia) and their contractors under NASA funding. The international staff totals over 1,000 people. 
Preface xv 

Since its beginning, the DSN has provided principal tracking, telemetry, and command (TT&C) support for every unmanned lunar and planetary 

spacecraft that NASA has launched (plus secondary support on Apollo). The 

resumé is quite impressive. Moon exploration began with the Pioneer 3 and 

4 probes in 1958 and 1959. This was followed in the 1960s by the Ranger 1 

through 9 lunar television missions (1961–1965); the Lunar Orbiter 1 through 

5 photographic surveys for Apollo landing sites (1966–1967); and Surveyor 

1 through 7 lunar landers (1966–1968). Support for inner-planet exploration began in 1962 with JPL’s Mariner series of missions to Venus, Mars and 

Mercury that encompassed six planetary flybys and the first planetary orbiter 

around Mars in 1971. Concurrent with these Mariner flights were the NASA 

Ames Research Center Pioneer missions, Pioneer 6 through 9 between 1965 

and 1968. Mars exploration culminated in 1975 with the much-heralded landings of Viking 1 and 2. 

The first JPL probe to explore the outer planets was Pioneer 10, 

which flew by Jupiter in 1973. Six years later, Pioneer 11 became the first 

spacecraft to flyby Saturn. Two Voyager probes performed a grand tour of 

the outer planets following their launch in 1977, passing Jupiter in 1979 and 

Saturn in 1980 and 1981. Voyager 2 then went on to make close approaches 

to the seventh planet, Uranus, in 1986 and three years later Neptune. In both 

cases, stunning close-up photographs of these distant planets were beamed 

back to Earth. They are now far beyond Pluto’s orbit and astronomers anticipate they will venture beyond our known solar system in the next few years. 

More recently, the DSN is supporting the Cassini-Huygens mission, exploring Saturn and its largest moon Titan. The latter is one of the 

most intriguing objects in the entire solar system. The second largest of any 

of the planetary moons (only Jupiter’s Ganymede is larger), Titan is actually 

larger than Mercury and Pluto. It, in fact, has a planet-like atmosphere which 

is denser than those of Mercury, Earth, Mars, and Pluto. Composed predominantly of nitrogen with other hydrocarbon compounds, such elements are the 

essential building blocks for amino acids necessary for the formation of life. 

This has led some scientists to postulate that Titan’s environment may be similar to that of Earth before life began putting oxygen into the atmosphere. 

Finally, the DSN is once again supporting new NASA missions 

to our nearest planetary neighbor, this time with the Mars Reconnaissance 

Orbiter along with the Spirit and Opportunity robotic rovers. This is a prelude to eventual human exploration of the planet that is slated for the 2030 

to 2040 timeframe. Pluto remains the only planet (dwarf planet) not having 

been visited by a manmade spacecraft. But that will change by the year 2015 
xvi “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

as the New Horizons spacecraft—launched on 19 January 2006—is scheduled to encounter our solar system’s most distant planet. It will then make 

an extensive study of as many Kuiper Belt objects as it can, a mysterious disk 

shaped zone beyond Neptune containing thousands of planetary-like objects, 

before permanently leaving the confines of the solar system to travel into 

interstellar space.1 
foreword 

“Invisible” is an adjective often used to describe NASA’s space 

communications and tracking programs. Behind this is the implicit charac

terization of the associated systems as collectively providing “infrastructure:” 

necessary support capabilities essential to the achievement of primary objec

tives. Infrastructures are by nature seldom noticed, with recognition nor

mally reserved for those unfortunate occasions when it falls short and limits 

accomplishment of desired objectives. 

­

­

­

The electronic highways linking orbiting spacecraft with their 

associated control and information handling capabilities on Earth were (and 

remain) absolutely essential to the spectacular successes of NASA’s space pro

grams. Yet many, commonly including the spaceflight programs themselves, 

take the existence and performance of NASA’s communications and tracking 

infrastructure for granted. The thousands of dedicated and capable people 

who have devoted much of their careers to making this capability a success for 

nearly five decades understand and accept the fact that their success is mea

sured by remaining invisible. 

­

­

Those of us who have participated in this program are proud of 

our individual contributions and collective accomplishments, and greatly welcome this history being documented. We also hope a broader understanding 

of the unique challenges we faced, and of our solutions for these challenges, 

will prove helpful to those blazing similar new trails. 

Infrastructures are notoriously tricky to manage, due in large part 

to funding issues associated with “taken for granted” resources. Customers, 
xviii “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

or users, of infrastructure assets and capabilities are usually detached from 

capital, operating and maintenance funding concerns, and seldom get excited 

about contributing! Those managing NASA’s space communications program 

very successfully surmounted these challenges. 

Supplying NASA’s communications and tracking infrastructure 

also presented unique challenges. Unlike more traditional infrastructures such 

as roads and bridges that rely on established technologies, the technologies 

needed for space communications and information handling were in their 

infancy and needed to be appreciably advanced. NASA’s leaders had to anticipate the direction and pace of the underlying technologies—predicting future 

capabilities, risks, and costs. 

This evolving technology added yet another challenge: vaguely 

defined requirements. As these same technologies were integral to the development of user spacecraft and instrumentation, the development period for 

providing new space communications and tracking capabilities has been comparable to the design periods for its customers’ spacecraft. The net result was 

that the tracking and data organization needed to evolve its enabling capabilities in advance of having defined user requirements. 

The early leaders of NASA’s space communications program 

deserve special recognition for their success under these conditions. In retrospect, they were extremely successful, synergistically integrating NASA’s 

needs with those of the broader society. The tremendous advances in communications and information handling experienced over the four decades of 

NASA’s space program were not coincidental. It is quite a tribute to early leaders such as Edmond Buckley and Gerald Truszynski that essential tracking and 

data capabilities have been there when needed, enabling NASA’s impressive 

accomplishments! 

A general characterization of NASA’s space communications organization may help explain the associated program. This program relied heavily on support service contractors—people with needed skills provided under 

level-of-effort contracts—along with foreign nationals at overseas stations. 

Contracts were usually competitively awarded. The direct use of U.S. government civil service personnel was quite limited. Although numbers varied over 

the years, in general (prior to the 1996 reorganization) only about 1 percent 

of program personnel were civil service personnel at NASA Headquarters. 

About 10 percent were civil service (or corresponding JPL employees) at the 

Field Centers—primarily GSFC and JPL—and approximately 90 percent 

were support contractors reporting to the Field Centers. 

The focus of the program was operations, and images of control 

rooms crowded with consoles suggest a large staff directly participating in 

operations. The reality is that only a small percentage of the people occupied console positions. The majority were devoted to supporting roles—plan­
foreword xix 

ning and scheduling, maintenance, logistics, preparing to meet new mission 

requirements, management, and overhead duties. 

As demonstrated by results, NASA has successfully and cost-effectively 

met the space communications needs of the Agency’s ambitious space programs 

throughout its history. This did not happen by accident, but was effectively 

orchestrated by leaders grasping both the needs and possibilities. Regrettably 

slighting numerous dedicated people who made significant and vital contributions to NASA’s space communications program over the years, I mention 

three leaders whom I feel merit special recognition: Edmond C. Buckley at 

Headquarters, Ozro M. Covington at Goddard, and Murray T. Weingarten at 

Bendix. Not just very competent managers, they were leaders—able to envision future possibilities and inspire others, especially subordinates, to pursue 

their visions. Personally, I feel very fortunate to have been able to work with 

and learn from them. 

From NASA’s establishment in 1958, Edmond Buckley headed 

NASA’s network operations at Headquarters. As described in this history, 

Buckley’s approach of consolidating management and funding in a single 

organization reporting directly to the Administrator prevailed. This feat 

must be recognized in the context of convincing very competent, territorial-minded peers to agree his approach would best serve NASA. NASA’s 

networks—STADAN, MSFN and DSN—were consolidated under him to 

form the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition (OTDA) in November 

1961. Consolidating tracking and data activities also took better advantage of 

the limited pool of personnel knowledgeable of relevant technologies. 

NASA’s Centers have notoriously acted as independent fiefdoms, the 

drumbeat of “one NASA” periodically coming from various Administrators 

notwithstanding. Many at the Manned Spacecraft Center (renamed Johnson 

Space Center in 1973) especially resented GSFC being given responsibility 

for the Manned Space Flight Network. Ozzie Covington deserves special 

recognition for developing a cooperative relationship between Goddard and 

JSC, and especially with Chris Kraft, during the Apollo era. Ozzie strongly 

promoted a culture in which JSC was recognized as the MSFN’s customer. 

Although this legacy was lost in later years, one must not underestimate its 

contribution to Apollo’s successes. 

Similarly, by force of his personality Murray Weingarten created a 

cooperative and professional relationship with NASA as his customer. Murray 

was especially attentive and responsive to changes in NASA’s needs. BFEC was a 

dominant contractor in the early days of the Network, and its culture permeated 

much of the contractor community. After Murray departed and BFEC ownership transitioned to Allied Signal and then Honeywell, the contractual relationship with NASA became especially bottom-line oriented and more contentious. 

Again, the program had been well served by Murray’s contributions. 
xx “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Although much of the history of NASA’s Spaceflight Tracking 

and Data Network focuses on the execution of the program, primarily by 

GSFC and its contractors, NASA Headquarters was also a key participant. 

Headquarters not only provided leadership within the Agency, but was also 

responsible for external coordination, program advocacy and—especially 

essential—securing needed funding. Thus, the history of the Headquarters 

component is inextricably intertwined in the history of the program. 

NASA Headquarters normally has had only a half-dozen or so 

Program Offices—offices responsible for funding and executing Agency programs—with OTDA/OSC (Code T/O) being one. In 1990 the Associate 

Administrator for Space Operations (Code O) was designated as fifth in line 

of succession to the Administrator.1 The roles and responsibilities of most 

Headquarters Program Offices changed over the years, but that of OTDA/ 

OSC remained largely unchanged until 1996, organizational name changes 

notwithstanding. 

For example, a post-Challenger organization review headed by 

Sam Phillips observed that ongoing operations were fundamentally different than occasional operations done as part of an R&D program. Phillips 

recommended NASA recognize differences, and manage operations in an 

organization experienced with continuing operational activities even while 

evolving in response to multiple changing requirements, technical upgrades, 

and continual maintenance. NASA’s only organization experienced with 

such continual operational activity was OTDA (Code T), and in response to 

the Phillips’ recommendation NASA renamed OTDA as the Office of Space 

Operations (Code O)—in preparation for moving all on-going operational 

activities, including STS operations, into this new organization. 

However, the Shuttle program had no intention of transferring its 

operations to Code O—whatever its name—and Space Operations was in reality only a continuation of OTDA. Thus Code T became Code O in the mid 

1980’s, with essentially no change in its roles and responsibilities. It was again 

renamed in 1990, this time as the Office of Space Communications (OSC). 

Gerald Truszynski, who followed Buckley as OTDA Associate 

Administrator in 1968, was equally capable and continued Buckley’s philosophies for another decade. Truszynski very eloquently described the importance of Buckley’s approach during an interview with Alfred Rosenthal in 

1982. This interview is included herein (in Chapter 9), and the reader’s attention is especially directed to it. 

This structure endured and served NASA well for thirty-five years, 

cost-effectively providing the similar communications services necessary to 

the conduct of most agency missions. By understanding this fast-changing 

technology and the evolving industry associated with it, OSC has successfully 

delivered these essential services at costs which have decreased almost linearly 
foreword xxi 

from some 10 percent of the Agency appropriation down to about 5 percent 

over the first three decades. 

History has repeatedly shown that societies are far more successful at adapting technologies developed for other purposes for general benefit, 

often military, than in envisioning these broader purposes first. For example, 

the Romans first paved roads for military purposes to be able to control the 

empire with a smaller army by being able to redeploy it rapidly. The significant boost to commerce of being able to rapidly move goods and services to 

distant markets over these paved roads was totally unanticipated. 

Located at the intersection of the infant computing and communications technologies, NASA’s space communications needs drove many communications and information handling advances—advances which have since been 

widely adapted, changing our daily lives extensively. NASA’s leadership was 

not only in identifying needs and advancing necessary technologies, but also in 

knowing when to back off and capitalize on industry-funded advances. 

A characteristic of synergistic relationships: it is seldom possible 

to isolate and credit contributions of individual participants. Advances are 

a collective product of all. As noted in Chapter 9, OSC’s participation in 

advancing relevant technologies has served NASA and the nation very well. 

For example, global communications by satellite became a reality when it 

did partly because my predecessors chose to become anchor tenants, rather 

than providing a NASA infrastructure. Enabling capabilities such as the DSN 

64-meter antennas and TDRSS came on-line ahead of defined requirements. 

TDRSS was implemented as a cost-effective alternative to expanding the 

ground stations to meet STS requirements, but greatly increased productivity 

of low-Earth orbiting science programs by enabling essentially “any-time” 

communications. 

TDRSS was an early user of a technique for spectrum sharing, 

enabling simultaneous support of several spacecraft transmitting on a common frequency. This technique (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Code 

Division Multiple Access, or DSSS CDMA) now enables every teen and his 

or her parents in the United States to have their own cell phone. CDMA has 

now evolved to become essential in the U.S., and NASA’s early role in fostering CDMA was substantial. (A different sharing technique is used in other 

parts of the world.) 

The globe-spanning nature of NASA’s tracking and communications activities led the program to develop relationships with counterparts 

internationally. For example, OSC-led delegations visited Soviet tracking stations in Eupatoria (Yevpatoria, on the shores of the Black Sea) and Ussuriysk 

(near Vladivostok) even before the Soviet Union collapsed. Such experiences 

both facilitated international understanding in themselves, and provided experience and models later adopted for broader space relationships. 
Other allied responsibilities, such as spectrum management, were 

also vested in OTDA. Radio spectrum is a finite natural resource, spawn

ing increasingly fierce battles over allocations as technology greatly expands 

utility. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) had been estab

lished in 1865, and recognizing radio waves do not respect political boundar

ies expanded its charter to include allocating radio spectrum globally in 1927. 

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) serves a similar role for 

U.S. domestic commercial uses, while the National Telecommunications and 

Information Administration (NTIA) coordinates U.S. government uses. 

xxii “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

­

­

­

OTDA was designated NASA’s spectrum management representative, routinely participating in government, commercial and international 

forums seeking equitable allocation of this resource. The Lewis (now Glenn) 

Research Center in Ohio has been NASA’s center of expertise for this very 

specialized activity. An example of NASA’s contributions: OSC played a major 

role in obtaining the international spectrum authorizations for commercial 

low-Earth orbit satellites at the World Administrative Radio Conference in 

Spain in 1992, invaluable to the commercial communications industry. 

The world’s space agencies understood that the use of standardized approaches for handling space data would be beneficial to all. A primary objective of standards is to reduce costs and enable interoperability by 

adopting compatible systems and procedures. Although space data formats 

were somewhat similar, the standards activity for space data is more complex, 

involving designing or adopting systems and procedures that can utilize these 

standardized data formats. 

On its own initiative, NASA OTDA became a founding member of 

the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), which is now 

supported by more than 30 space agencies and their associated industrial bases 

distributed across the world space community. Acting as a technical arm of 

the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), CCSDS generates 

world standards in the field of space data and information transfer systems. 

In recent years, NASA has sought to play an anchor tenant role and 

facilitate development of private, commercialized remote tracking and communications assets. Success has been limited, as a major commercial space industry 

has yet to materialize. But even in the absence of significant private revenues, 

costs have been reduced by sharing assets with other space agencies. 

A less appreciated element of President Kennedy’s challenge to send 

humans to the Moon and back was his rapid time scale: “before this decade 

is out.” Not only did this schedule add an inspiring sense of urgency for the 

Agency, it also saved costs! Had he said “two decades,” the cost of the endeavor 

would undoubtedly have doubled. However, this also spawned a culture of 

“technical excellence at any cost,” an attitude extending well beyond priorities such as human flight crew safety. 
foreword xxiii 

Although many STDN contracts included incentives, these incentives were primarily used to reward technical performance, and occasionally, 

for meeting schedules. Seldom have they been used to motivate cost savings. In my view, failure to develop an effective means to balance contract 

performance with costs throughout the program has been a shortcoming of 

OTDA/OSC leadership. Adequate funding was generally obtained, and controls to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse were effective. But stewardship of 

public funds could have been improved by adopting lower cost approaches. 

Progress towards reducing costs was steady but neither smooth nor 

assured, with social challenges greatly dominating technical ones. Although 

early on the STDN program was on the leading edge of relevant technologies, the program was often surprisingly slow keeping pace with these fast 

changing technologies. For example, NASA was not only one of the first customers for IBM’s “big iron” mainframe computers, it was also one of the last 

mainframe customers as the world moved on to powerful mini-computers, 

workstations and desktop computers. Altruistically, program managers were 

hesitant to change from ways that had proven successful. 

Other factors certainly came into play. Mid-level civil service managers often equated their own importance to the size of their budgets, and 

in turn the size of “their” support contractor staff. Some contractors were 

particularly effective resisting changes. As they generally held “level of effort” 

contracts, adopting more efficient systems and streamlining operations would 

reduce the size (and revenues) of their contracts. I certainly recall contractors 

making end-runs to influential members of NASA’s appropriations committees in Congress with greatly exaggerated stories of how many voters’ jobs 

could be adversely affected by proposed changes. 

The “contractor marching army” working new mission needs also 

had an insidious side: these people were basically inventors, and often tended 

to invent new solutions rather than adapt old approaches or increasingly available commercial alternatives. 

The point is that constraints on modernizing and streamlining were 

much more complex than simply taking advantage of advancing technology to 

reduce costs. Obtaining capital funding for modernization was only a minor 

impediment. There were two ways to view progress in this environment. On 

the plus side, operating costs have been continually reduced even while output 

metrics increased substantially. On the other hand, technology offered additional cost savings opportunities, accompanied by improved operational performance from streamlining and modernizing the systems architecture. OSC 

pressures to do better resulted in acrimonious relations between Headquarters 

and the GSFC/contractor communities. 

OSC fell into a trap that plagues many confronting change—not 

appreciating the full dimensions of inertia and resistance. Technically edu­
xxiv “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

cated managers naivély assume the predictable behavior of the laws of physics 

also apply in the arena of human behavior. When egos, profits, and even jobs 

are threatened with change, resistance can be formidable. 

In 1995, NASA sought more effective ways to operate, rejecting 

Buckley’s model in favor of a “new” management and funding arrangement. 

As described in Chapter 8, OSC responded unreservedly to this call, and 

prepared to shift major responsibilities to JSC and a newly created office: 

SOMO (Space Operations Management Office). Operating costs had already 

been reduced by one-third over the first five years of the 1990s, even while 

output metrics such as the number of passes supported and data delivered 

had more than doubled as NASA’s spaceflight programs grew rapidly. By 

early 1996 the OSC organization had been reduced substantially. After I 

retired, OSC was abolished, with management and funding fractionated 

across Headquarters. 

Certainly money factored into this excursion—it is easy to idealistically underestimate effort needed to successfully provide “invisible” services 

and conclude doing better is a “slam dunk.” The SOMO staff was extremely 

naïve as to the challenges of managing the space communications program, 

but little interested considering old ways. The consolidated contracting structure which became CSOC (Consolidated Space Operations Contract) was 

advocated directly to the Administrator by a contractor very familiar with the 

space communications program. 

This recommendation was that by consolidating all contracts into 

a single large contract and giving the contractor overall responsibility, NASA 

could save $1.4-billion. One can only speculate as to why a contractor very 

aware of the dynamic nature of STDN support requirements—space missions 

lasting past projected lifetimes, launch delays, spacecraft degradations—would 

recommended an approach certain to result, as it did, in massive, cost-increasing 

change orders. 

In retrospect this excursion was ill-conceived and short-lived, with 

SOMO and CSOC lasting barely five years, and the old structure restored 

within a decade. Generally, performance suffered and cost savings failed to 

materialize. Undoubtedly a major factor in the SOMO/CSOC fiasco was the 

same failure to comprehend the full nature of change that had initially plagued 

OSC. In October 2006 NASA restored Buckley’s organization and funding 

structure, although reporting in at a slightly lower organizational level—a de 

facto reaffirmation of Buckley’s wisdom a half century earlier. 

An independent review of NASA’s space communications program 

by the National Research Council in 20062

, in explicitly addressing the SOMO/ 

CSOC excursion, recommended future major realignments in top-level management, funding and contracting structures be preceded by a transition plan 

outlining objectives, ensuring past corporate knowledge is considered. 
foreword xxv 

The bottom line: as I am quoted herein, I believe our nation has 

been well served by the STDN program. Not only have all mission support 

requirements been met, but advanced enabling capabilities have been there 

when needed. Being at the juncture of communications and computing tech

nologies, the program has played an influential role their amazing advances 

over the past half-century—benefiting all. Our performance, speaking from a 

Headquarters perspective, has not been perfect; the primary shortcoming has 

been failure to appreciate social impacts of changes, and effectively counteract 

resistance to streamline, modernize, and reduce costs even further. 

­

I am especially pleased to see this history documented, and congratulate both the NASA History Division and the author for an excellent, 

objective, and scholarly work. Well done! 

Charles T. Force 

February 2007 

aCknowledgments 

Publication of this book would not have been possible without the 

generous contribution of many inside and outside of the space agency. I would 

like to first recognize the Office of Space Communications for sponsoring the 

work and for their interest in preserving the history and accomplishments of 

the Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network. The OSC’s recommendations in 

general, and that of James Costrell in particular, provided invaluable guidance 

to help steer a clear path through the nearly 50 years of this history. I would 

like to acknowledge, along these lines, previous contributions by William 

Corliss, Alfred Rosenthal, Kathleen Mogan, and Frank Mintz on document

ing this history. Their works served as an impetus for the current volume. 

Sincere appreciation also goes to the people I interviewed who provided first 

hand accounts of their experiences, perspectives, and reflections. They pro

vided oral and written material that were not only substantial in nature but 

also unique and fascinating. These, in many ways, helped set the tone of the 

story. I also appreciate the team of reviewers for sharing their candid insight 

and knowledge, without which corrections and improvements to the original 

draft could not have been made. I am especially grateful to David Harris for 

his comments on the early years of the history and similarly to Charles Force 

on the later years. Working with Charlie was espeically bittersweet as he sadly 

passed away six months after having graciously written the foreword. 

­

­

A cadre of historians, archivists, and professionals at the NASA 

History Division made this work possible. Colin Fries was instrumental in 

identifying and finding the numerous documents used from the Historical 
xxviii “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Reference Collection, as was Jane Odom with the archival materials. Nadine 

Andreassen provided administrative assistance. Special thanks certainly go to 

Steve Garber who oversaw this project from its beginning to end. The library 

staff at the Goddard Space Flight Center and NASA Headquarters were also 

helpful in recommending reference sources and in locating otherwise hard to 

find reports and publications. 

In the Communications Support Services Center at NASA Headquarters, Shelley Kilmer-Gaul designed and laid out the book and cover 

art. Meredith Yuskiw assisted with the layout as well as the re-creation of 

many of the images contained in this book. Stacie Dapoz performed the 

copyediting and proofread the layout, David Dixon handled the printing, 

and Gail Carter-Kane and Cindy Miller assisted in the overall process. 

Thanks are due to all of these fine professionals. 

Thanks are also due to John Saxon who volunteered as my guide 

in Australia. He also provided the pages of the Honeysuckle Station Log for 

Apollo 11, an enlightening eyewitness documentation of the technical operation of a historical ground station on the epochal mission. I am also indebted 

to the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Mike Dinn; Glen Nagle and Candy Bailey, 

my hosts at CDSCC; Neal Newman who facilitated my research with CSIRO; 

and Kathryn Zaraza for enthusiastically providing logistics assistance. It was a 

delightful experience. 

Credit also goes to Eleanor Ellis for transcribing the hours of interview material. Johnny Tsiao and John Hackney critiqued the manuscript from 

the lay readers’ perspective, providing honest feedback from outside the space 

community. A goal of this book was to present the history in a way that would 

appeal to a broad range of readers. Their commentary was appreciated. 

And finally, to my dear family—Lisa, Jordan, Marissa, and 

Andrew—who gave me their unwavering encouragement and support 

throughout: Thank you. 

Sunny Tsiao 

Monument, Colorado 

March 2007 
IntroduCtIon 

INVISIBLE NETWORK 

Capcom: 3, 2, 1, 0. 

00 00 03 Glenn: Roger. The clock is operating. We’re underway. 

00 00 07 Capcom: Hear loud and clear. 

00 00 08 Glenn: Roger. We’re programming in roll okay . . . Little 

bumpy along about here. 

00 00 16 Capcom: Roger. Standby for 20 seconds. 

00 00 19 Glenn: Roger.


00 00 23 Glenn: Roger. Backup clock is started . . . Fuel 102-101, oxy


gen 78-100, amps 27.


00 00 39 Capcom: Roger. Loud and clear. Flight path is good, 69.


00 00 43 Glenn: Roger. Checks okay. Mine was 70 on your mark . . . 


Have some vibration area coming up here now.


00 00 52 Capcom: Roger. Reading you loud and clear.


00 00 55 Glenn: Roger. Coming into high Q a little bit; and a little con­


trail went by the window or something there.


00 01 00 Capcom: Roger.


00 00 20 Capcom: 2, 1, mark.


­
xxx “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

00 01 03 Glenn: Fuel 102-101, oxygen 78-101, amps 24. Still okay. 


We’re smoothing out some now, getting out of the 


vibration area.


00 01 16 Capcom: Roger. You’re through max Q. Your flight path is . . . 


00 01 19 Glenn: Roger. Feels good, through max Q and smoothing out 


real fine . . . Cabin pressure coming down by 7.0; okay;


flight very smooth now . . . Sky looking very dark out­


side . . . Cabin pressure is holding at 6.1 okay.


00 01 46 Capcom: Roger. Cabin pressure holding at 6.1.


00 01 49 Glenn: Roger. Have had some oscillations, but they seem to be 


damping out okay now. Coming up on two minutes, 


and fuel is 102-101, oxygen 78-102. The g’s are build­


ing to 6.


00 02 07 Capcom: Roger. Reading you loud and clear. Flight path looked 


good. Pitch 25. Standby for . . . 


00 02 12 Glenn: Roger. BECO, back to 1.25 g’s. The tower fired; 


could not see the tower go. I saw the smoke go by the 


window.


00 02 21 Capcom: Roger. We confirm staging on TM.


00 02 24 Glenn: Roger . . . Still have about 1.5 g’s. Programming. Over . . .


There the tower went right then. Have the tower in sight 


way out. Could see the tower go. Jettison tower is green.


00 02 48 Capcom: Roger.


00 02 50 Glenn: 1.5 g’s.


00 02 53 Capcom: Roger, Seven. Still reading you loud and clear. Flight 


path looks good.


00 02 56 Glenn: Roger. Auto Retro-Jettison is off; Emergency Retro-


Jettison Fuse switch, off; Retro-Jettison Fuse switch, off.


00 03 03 Glenn: UHF/DF to normal.


00 03 19 Capcom: Flight path looks good; steering is good.


00 03 22 Glenn: Roger. Understand everything looks good; g’s starting 


to build again a little bit.


00 03 30 Capcom: Roger.


00 03 32 Capcom: Friendship Seven. Bermuda has you.


00 03 34 Glenn: Roger. Bermuda standby . . . This is Friendship Seven. 

Fuel 103-101, oxygen 78-100. All voltages above 25, 

amps 26.


00 03 48 Capcom: Roger. Still reading you loud and clear. Flight path is 


very good. Pitch -3.


00 03 53 Glenn: Roger . . . My pitch checks a -7 on your -3.


00 04 00 Capcom: Roger, Seven.

Introduction xxxi 

00 04 08 Glenn: Friendship Seven. Fuel 103-101, oxygen 78-100, amps 

25, cabin pressure holding at 5.8. 

00 04 20 Capcom: Roger. Reading you loud and clear. Seven, Cape is Go; 

we’re standing by for you. 

00 04 25 Glenn: Roger. Cape is Go and I am Go. Capsule is in good 

shape. Fuel 103-102, oxygen 78-100, cabin pressure 

holding steady at 5.8, amps is 26. All systems are Go. 

00 04 44 Capcom: Roger. 20 seconds to SECO. 

00 04 47 Glenn: Roger . . . Indicating 6 g’s . . . Say again. 

00 04 53 Capcom: Still looks good. 

00 04 54 Glenn: Roger . . . SECO, posigrades fired okay. 

00 05 10 Capcom: Roger, stand . . . 

00 05 12 Glenn: Roger. Zero-g and I feel fine. Capsule is turning around 

. . . Oh, that view is tremendous! 

00 05 21 Capcom: Roger. Turnaround has started. 

00 05 23 Glenn: Roger. The capsule is turning around and I can see 

the booster during turnaround just a couple of hundred 

yards behind me. It was beautiful. 

00 05 30 Capcom: Roger, Seven. You have a go, at least 7 orbits. 

00 05 35 Glenn: Roger. Understand Go for at least 7 orbits . . . This is 

Friendship Seven. Can see clear back; a big cloud pattern 

way back across towards the Cape. Beautiful sight. 

00 05 54 Capcom: Roger, still reading you loud and clear. Next transmis

sion, Bermuda. 

­

00 05 58 Glenn: Roger. Understand next transmission, Bermuda . . . 1 

Bermuda, Canary Island, Kano, Zanzibar. The list goes on: Muchea, 

Woomera, Canton Island, Guaymas. Reading like a who’s who from National 

Geographic, these obscure spots from around the world became astronaut 

John H. Glenn, Jr.’s only links back to Earth on that historic day in 1962 as he 

circled the globe at 27,350 kilometers per hour (17,000 miles per hour) inside 

Friendship 7. Completing an orbit every 90-minutes, ground stations that the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had constructed at 

these and other places around the world anxiously tracked the progress of 

Glenn in his tiny, Mercury capsule. Not unlike runners in a relay, as Friendship 

7 passed from station to station, each Capsule Communicator—known as 

Capcom—handed him off to a waiting colleague down the line. 

Even though the momentous flight of 20 February 1962 lasted only 

4 hours and 55 minutes, the United States had prepared for it since before 

NASA even opened its doors as America’s space agency some three and a half 

years earlier. By the time Glenn became the first American in orbit, NASA 
xxxii “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

had in fact already established no less than 30 ground stations on five continents and several islands, along with ships in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific 

oceans. At the time, about half of these stations were devoted to tracking science and application satellites while the other half played a unique role in the 

then-burgeoning arena of human spaceflight, an arena which seven years later, 

would culminate with mankind’s first steps on the Moon. 

Connected by over two million circuit miles of land and oceanfloor cables, America’s spaceflight network spanned just about every corner of 

the globe, from desolate volcanic atolls like Ascension Island to metropolitan, 

capital cities like Madrid and Canberra.2 In the United States, stations could 

be found spanning the cold north of Alaska to the lush hillsides of North 

Carolina. Like the deep-sea diver who relies on his harness and cable to communicate with and find his way back to the mother ship, NASA’s spaceflight 

tracking and data network was—and is—that electronic link to the satellites, 

spacecraft, and astronauts in space. 

More than that, it is also an electronic link to the past. 

Through the ages, communications have been the key to discovery. 

Whether by foot messengers or highspeed electronics, communications have 

been essential to the exploration of new frontiers. Take the 1960s, for example, where radio communication with probes preceded man to the Moon. 

Regardless of how sophisticated it may be, no spacecraft is of any value unless 

it can be tracked accurately to determine where it is and how it is performing. 

Only in doing so can the data it is collecting—whether pictures of celestial 

objects or television broadcast signals—be transmitted, received and used on 

the ground. This data, reduced into useful information by computers and 

electronics on the ground, enable the user here on Earth to analyze data from 

space. In the case of human spaceflight, the stakes are much higher. A failed 

communications link potentially compromises not just the success of a mission but also puts the lives of astronauts at greater risk. 

These electronic downlinks—called telemetry—carry everything 

from astronauts’ pulse-rate to so-called “housekeeping” data, which give an 

indication of the health and status of the spacecraft. Conversely, uplinks transmit commands from mission controllers, scientists and engineers up to the 

spacecraft. These radio frequency or RF links bridge the expanse of space, 

tying the spacecraft and Earth to each other. Without tracking, telemetry, 

command, and control, satellites would merely be inanimate objects in space 

and astronauts would be beyond the reach of the thousands who support their 

mission back on the ground.3 

William C. Schneider, NASA’s former Associate Administrator for 

Tracking and Data Systems from 1978 to 1980, commented on the vital role 

that space communications played, for example, during tense moments on 

Apollo. “Very few people really understand and appreciate the importance of 
Introduction xxxiii 

reliable tracking and communications to all of NASA’s programs, particularly 

when it comes to manned missions. Sitting in Mission Control in Houston 

during a lunar flight, there was a communications blackout when the spacecraft was behind the Moon. This also happened to be a period when the 

spacecraft has to fire its engines to start its descent to the lunar surface. Not 

having communications during this critical phase made us all feel very nervous and anxious, and the relief, when the capsule was able to confirm that all 

was well, was almost indescribable.”4 

In the early days of space exploration, prominent engineers, scientists, and astronauts were certainly at the forefront of public attention and 

acclaim. These professionals in a way became the new Magellans and the 

new Columbuses, the new breed of modern-day explorers and map makers. 

Instead of crossing oceans at the mercy of the wind, astronauts now traveled 

the vast expanse of space in craft designed by engineers. Whether a mission 

was the flight of a communications satellite or the exciting journey of an 

astronaut, all were supported by a unique team of men and women on virtually every continent who operated an intricate system of ground stations, 

computer facilities, and communication centers. These, tied together, made 

up NASA’s Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network (STDN). 

John T. Mengel, one of the “founding fathers” of America’s 

spaceflight tracking networks, once commented on this behind-the-scenes 

criticality: 

True, tracking and data acquisition were support functions, but 

this support, going back to the early days of the space effort, was 

critical to success in the competition-charged arena of the sixties 

and seventies, when the ability of the United States to succeed in 

the field of space travel and space research was being questioned. 

We proved it could be done.5 

To operate a network, teamwork and cooperation were essential. 

This was true not just for those working at a station on some remote island but 

also on the much larger, agency-to-agency level. For instance, over the years, 

cooperation among the triad of NASA, the Department of Defense (DOD) 

and the Department of State, has been crucial. To NASA, the Air Force, with 

its launch facilities and worldwide network of radar installations, was a huge 

asset. Help from the Navy was important too, providing tracking and recovery ships in all three major oceans. However, like most big projects where 

different organizations have to depend on each other to get the job done, the 

NASA/DOD cooperative was not without its share of problems. One example 

was that the space agency’s desire to work with the Air Force was tempered 

sometimes by the fear that the DOD might try to “elbow in” on the fledgling 
xxxiv “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

edmond C. Buckley was nasa’s first 

associate administrator for tracking 

and data acquisition, leading the new 

office of tracking and data acquisition 

(otda) at Headquarters from 1961 to 

1968. In this role, Buckley dealt directly 

with Congress, the dod and the state 

department to oversee the space agency’s tracking needs. Prior to becoming 

the associate administrator, Buckley 

was nasa’s assistant director for 

space flight operations. (rensselaer 

Polytechnic Institute photograph, 

copy in folder 10/1/1 nasa australian 

operations office, Yarralumla, aCt) 

Agency’s new, and in many ways, more glamorous programs. Congress, too, 

was sensitive to the NASA/DOD relationship. Questions about duplication 

of facilities, for instance, often came up during budget discussions. Influential 

members on the Hill played the role of watchdogs to make sure that NASA 

remained true to its civilian charter. Despite constant budget and political 

battles, Congress, nevertheless, generally understood that NASA and other 

government offices simply had to work closely together in order for America 

to succeed in space. 

To maintain communications with an orbiting spacecraft, a tracking network has to be global in nature. Therefore, international cooperation 

is not only important but absolutely necessary in getting stations established at 

optimal locations around the world. Whether dealing with strong allies like 

Australia and Great Britain or venturing deep into Africa for the first time, the 

role of the State Department was indispensable as a facilitator to help the space 

agency intermediate discussions at the highest levels of government. With this 

liaison, officials could more effectively manage NASA operations in the face 

of geopolitical unrest around the world. For example, during the pioneering 

flights of Project Mercury, the Guaymas tracking station in Mexico often had 

to be surrounded by troops to protect it against unruly mobs espousing antiU.S. sentiment.6 

The different persuasions of different governments sometimes 

require delicate diplomacy on the part of the United States. In particular, the 

ability to cater to the sensitivities of diverse cultures is important. NASA has 

found that the single, best way to accomplish this is to invite foreign nationals 

to join in the operation of the tracking network, providing them with a sense 
Introduction xxxv 

the 85-foot tracking 

antenna which received 

signals of mankind’s 

first steps on the moon 

on 20 July 1969 still 

operates today at 

the Canberra deep 

space Communication 

Complex in tidbinbilla, 

australia. the antenna 

was moved from its 

original Honeysuckle 

Creek site some 30 

kilometers (20 miles) 

away in 1985. Clearly 

visible are the two large 

yokes which allow the 

antenna to be moved 

in two “X-Y” axes as 

it tracks a spacecraft. 

(Photograph by the 

author) 

of ownership to become partners in the space effort. This “nationalizing of the 

stations” from the early days of the network would leave an indelible legacy 

around the world that continues even today. 

Such international cooperation could in fact make or break a station. Putting a site in Havana, Cuba in the late 1950s presented a volatile situation. Conversely, other places such as Australia—where as many as 10 sites 

were active during the 1960s—enthusiastically embraced the opportunity 

to participate in this new frontier, adopting the American space program as 

their own. Australia’s Parkes Observatory was selected by NASA (with great 

national fanfare), to help receive the Apollo 11 moonwalk telemetry. Indeed, 

the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) on the outskirts of the Australian capital remains active to this day as part of NASA’s 

DSN. In fact, the 85-foot antenna at nearby Honeysuckle Creek (HSK) that 

actually received video of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first steps on the 

Moon is still used at the CDSCC in Tidbinbilla, having been moved from 
xxxvi “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

HSK when it closed in 1984. The years have not changed this. International 

cooperation is just as vital today as it was then, as the space agency routinely 

works with the Europeans, Russians and Japanese on a diverse range of programs including the International Space Station, Earth science research, and 

planning of future space communication needs. 

As much as the story of NASA’s spaceflight tracking networks is 

about the stations and the technologies, it ultimately boils down to the individuals, the workers in the trenches who made it happen. From Administrators, 

to Station Directors, to the teams of contractors, all did their jobs because they 

believed in it and put their hearts into it. Even though space is often associated 

with “high-tech,” it is still the people involved who were movers of the program, who ran the day-to-day operations of the facilities, and who left behind 

their legacy. This emphasis on people especially characterized the early years 

of the Agency’s tracking networks. There were no notebook computers in 

1957 when the first satellites were launched. In fact, there were no digital 

computers of any kind. Instead of clicking on a “mouse” to retrieve data, 

technicians would interrogate lines drawn on graph paper from mechanical 

strip chart recorders. Whether one was the head of a station or just feeding 

teletype printouts to the engineers, everyone had a job to do. 

While those working with the communication networks of today 

certainly get their share of excitement, those who were around for the early 

human flights and satellite launches fondly remember the “glory days.” As one 

former official at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) recalled: 

I didn’t geographically know the world then in the detail I do 

today. Not only was it educational and exciting just to learn the 

names of all the remote tracking stations, but there was also the 

excitement of talking to the people at all the different tracking stations and ships.7 

Former Flight Director Christopher C. Kraft—who wrote 

the Foreword to Hamish Lindsay’s book Tracking Apollo to the Moon on the 

Australians’ perspective of working on the Apollo Network—recalled fondly: 

I have a very soft spot in my heart for the network and the 

people who operated it. These people were as much a part of the 

success of our efforts as were the flight controllers and the other 

people at Houston and the Cape. Whatever we did was in large 

measure dependent on the reliability of the worldwide tracking 

and communications network. . . . This is truly one of the unsung 

accomplishments of the space program.8 
Introduction xxxvii 

As the network expanded in the 1960s and early 1970s, so did the 

team of people who ran it. It was during this time that contractors from the 

aerospace industry, like Bendix Field Engineering Corporation (BFEC), made 

an indelible mark on the history of the spaceflight network. So close was the 

relationship that station workers were often called the “badgeless controller” 

because it didn’t matter if they were government civil servants or contractor 

employees. The two could work side by side and one would not know which 

was which unless you looked at his badge.9 For many, working the networks 

became a way of life. For some, entire careers were spent working in remote 

places around the world. 

An examination of the history of America’s spaceflight tracking 

network is not unlike driving down a long and winding road—with many 

turns and twists. Much of its early fate was tied to the Cold War and the 

Space Race borne from it. In the mid-1950s, even before NASA was formally 

established, the United States began building a network to track what it hoped 

was to be the world’s first artificial satellite. However, that network—called 

Minitrack—ended up as its first test tracking Sputnik 1, which the former 

Soviet Union shocked the world with on 4 October 1957. 

Minitrack next set the stage for a greatly expanded network called 

the Satellite Tracking and Data Acquisition Network, or STADAN. Led 

by the new Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland, 

this much more expansive network soon became the centerpiece of all nearEarth tracking and space communications activity for the United States. The 

STADAN supported not only NASA’s own science and application satellites 

but also the world’s first commercial satellites which were just then being 

launched, including the COMSAT Early Bird, the world’s first electronically 

active, commercial, communications satellite.10 

However, even as the sophistication of satellites was rapidly evolving and launches were taking place on a more regular basis, something even 

more dramatic was about to change the very fabric of the Goddard network. 

This something was the world of manned or human spaceflight. 

To support this new national priority, engineers at Goddard, along 

with the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, developed a network 

that ultimately tracked astronauts to the Moon and back. Initially called the 

Mercury Space Flight Network, or MSFN (the word “Mercury” would later 

be replaced with the word “Manned”), it quickly became just as expansive as 

the STADAN, even surpassing the latter in terms of capability, locations and 

new technology. Much of its early requirements were based on experience 

gained from aircraft and missile testing and from the tracking of lunar and 

planetary probes such as the unmanned Surveyor spacecraft which preceded 

man to the Moon. From this, cadres of network planners worked out solutions 

to the high data rate requirements needed to send humans into space. 
xxxviii “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

As both the STADAN and the MSFN matured, the ever increasing 

demand for data in the right amount (bandwidth), at sufficient speed (data rate) 

and at the right time (timing accuracy) drove their evolution. Real time operations at ever-increasing data rate became the prime consideration. “To know 

accurately where the spacecraft was at any given moment was extremely important to us,” said Kraft. “A review of the early history, particularly of the Mercury 

flights, reveals that we often had to make some very delicate decisions whether 

to continue some of these flights or not. Determining the orbital trajectory and 

providing tracking and communications support to meet these parameters from 

launch to reentry was certainly no easy job for the Goddard team.”11 

To this end, Kraft recalled a specific problem that the network had 

to deal with involving the critical “Go/No Go” decision as whether to continue a flight or initiate an abort. During the launch of an Atlas rocket—an 

Air Force Intercontinental Ballistic Missile which NASA used to launch the 

Mercury astronauts and the Agency’s early, large, satellites—there was only a 

30- to 120-second window after its main engine had cutoff to decide whether 

to continue or to abort. This was all the time controllers (or the astronaut) 

had to turn the spacecraft around and fire its retrorockets so that its trajectory 

would allow the spacecraft to reenter in the Atlantic recovery area before its 

impact point reached the African coast. Kraft recalled: 

Initially, there were very few people who believed that this 

would be possible. . . .We called it the ‘short arc’ solution. People 

like John Mayer,Bill Tindall,Lynwood Dunseith and Goddard’

s Jim 

Donegan deserve credit for giving us the know-how to solve this 

critical problem, a problem which many mathematical and trajectory experts believed could not be solved. By analyzing the data 

generated by the Cape, Goddard and the Bermuda tracking station, we were able to get the answers, even within the very limited 

timeframe available.12 

During NASA’s first man-in-space program Project Mercury, the 

network was not well centralized and relied on the not always reliable teletype 

communications. For mission assurance, flight controllers were dispatched to 

most of the primary tracking stations so that they could maintain immediate 

contact with the spacecraft from the ground on a given pass. Astronauts too 

were sent as capsule communicators or Capcoms to the various sites. Here, 

something interesting happened within the NASA culture. For unmanned science and application satellites, there was no debate as to who was in charge. 

Goddard was clearly the lead and the STADAN was centralized at the Network 

Operations Control Center (NOCC) in Greenbelt. However, things were not 
Introduction xxxix 

so clear-cut when it came to the “manned” side of the house. Here, both 

Goddard and Houston’s Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) had a stake. 

Despite the fact that there was not always full agreement even 

within Goddard’s own top management (who thought the center should be 

devoted to scientific exploration of space and questioned whether it should 

be in the business of tracking human missions), Headquarters in due time 

delegated Goddard with the full responsibility for running the MSFN. This 

decision by Headquarters was fairly logical as MSC (renamed the Lyndon 

B. Johnson Space Center, or JSC, in 1973) certainly had enough on its plate 

as NASA’s lead center for human spaceflight to be worried about also having to run a worldwide tracking network. Nevertheless, the decision did not 

eliminate Houston’s concerns about the network; the “Not Invented Here” 

mindset was not something that easily went away. 

As history has shown, JSC did not have to worry about the 

Goddard-run network, as not a single mission—manned or unmanned—has 

ever been compromised due to network failure. This “invisible network” as 

artist rendition of a tracking and data relay satellite providing communications 

support from earth orbit. the long and winding road has taken nasa’s spaceflight 

tracking and data network from a handful of ground stations in the late 1950s to the 

space network of the twenty-first century. (nasa lithograph lg-2001-8-033-gsfC) 
xl “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

a chronology of nasa’s near-earth spaceflight tracking and data network. (figure by 

the author) 

it has been called, operating behind the scenes, has always been there. Like a 

light switch, it’s there when needed. In the final analysis, much of the success 

on what could have been a very divisive issue was due in no small part to some 

very effective personal relationships between people who understood what 

was needed to get the job done at both centers, people like Ozzie Covington, 

Bill Wood, Tecwyn Roberts, and Chris Kraft. 

Following the incredible journeys of Apollo to the Moon and 

America’s first space station Skylab, as well as the world’s first international 

spaceflight in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, human spaceflight became suddenly very quiet in the late 1970s. Although the GSFC was busy supporting 

Earth science and application satellites, in the cost-conscious days following 

Apollo, the wisdom for having a separate network specifically for human 

spaceflight was questioned. It was in this era of change that Goddard merged 

its two networks (the STADAN and the MSFN) in 1975 into a single, leaner, 

and ostensibly more cost-effective network called the Spaceflight Tracking 

and Data Network, or STDN. 
Introduction xli 

But no matter how large or small a ground network is, due to “lineof-sight” limitations imposed by the curvature of Earth, it is still located on the 

surface of Earth and can thus only provide coverage for some 15 percent of an 

Earth-orbiting spacecraft’s ground track—limited to brief periods when it is 

within the line-of-sight over a given tracking station. To overcome this, NASA’s 

network for tracking and communicating with near-Earth spacecraft (that is, 

the STDN but not the DSN) had to move into space. Thus, the Tracking and 

Data Relay Satellite System, or TDRSS, was born. 

With the advent of TDRSS in the 1980s, America’s spaceflight tracking and communications network evolved into a full-fledged Space Network 

(SN) constellation of relay satellites and ground terminals along with a greatly 

reduced Ground Network (GN). Today, many Earth-orbiting spacecraft rely 

primarily on the SN for their tracking, telemetry and control needs with many 

missions that do not require continuous contact with the ground opting, mainly 

for cost reasons, to transmit their spacecraft science data via the GN. Digital 

and telecommunications technology have also evolved significantly in recent 
xlii “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

years to impact space communications. The ever increasing demand for higher 

bandwidths (traffic capability) and lower “bit-error rates” (higher accuracy) in 

the modern information age explosion have led to the complete transformation 

of how space communications are done. Such is the trend in spaceflight communications that started in the 1990s in which NASA historically set the precedence but is now heavily influenced by the commercial sector. In this new age 

of information technology and international teamwork, the Agency’s role is no 

longer the same as it was when the Space Shuttle first flew into space in 1981 or 

even when the International Space Station was first being built in the 1990s. 

Aside from geopolitics, the root cause driving such change can almost 

always be traced to two factors: technology and cost reduction. Few would be 

surprised that the demand for better technology is always a driver.But in addition 

to better technology, as space moves from the realm of government sponsorship 

to a commercial commodity, cost reduction in today’s world of real-time global 

communications and data demands is perhaps more important than ever before. 

In the 1990’s, “Faster, Better, Cheaper” also drove much of the way 

business was conducted in the space industry, both commercially and at NASA. 

This approach impacted the space program in ways ranging from economics to 

performance and, some would say, safety. New ground and space communication networks such as Universal Space Network (USN) entered the playing field. 

This network provided multi-mission ground terminals which offered users the 

advantage of low cost services: pay only for what you use. They targeted not 

only commercial users of satellite services but also government users, including 

NASA. As we broach the twenty-first century, satellite users now routinely 

rely on the internet for data access and file transfers. This access extends to such 

remote locations as the South Pole, where NASA was instrumental in providing 

internet access to researchers. 

When one speaks of space exploration, “high technology” usually 

comes to mind. To this end, the aphorism “If NASA can put a man on the Moon 

. . . ” has become a part of the English vernacular, perhaps even to the point of 

being somewhat trite. Satellite and spacecraft—some human, some robotic—sent 

on their missions into space, are there to make the unknown known. But whatever data that astronauts and instruments record, the information is of no value if 

it cannot be returned to Earth. At its height, over 6,000 men and women—from 

network engineers to field technicians to NASA managers—were committed to 

this vast undertaking. As former Station Director and later Associate Administrator 

for Space Communications (1989 to 1996) Charles T. Force says of this invisible 

network, “The nation was well served.”13 

This is the story of that invisible network. 
Chapter 1 

THE EARLY YEARS 

Tracking, in the context of spaceflight, refers to the collection of 

spacecraft position and velocity measurements so that its motion on orbit may 

be determined. The roots of modern day tracking and data acquisition can 

be found in the immediate years following the Second World War when the 

United States entered into a period of intense research to develop a viable bal

listic missile technology. Science, and in particular, the development of sound

ing rockets (small rockets launched into the upper part of the atmosphere for 

research and experiment), played a part in this advancement. However, its 

pace was clearly driven by national security. 

­

­

World War II had just forced the United States and the Soviet 

Union to become reluctant allies. With the war now over, the potential for 

an armed conflict between the two superpowers was something that both 

governments took careful steps to avoid while at the same time, and in no 

uncertain terms, prepared for. Even in the last days of the war, both countries 

postured to shape the political landscape that would soon emerge after Nazi 

Germany and the Imperial Japanese governments had been defeated. It was 

in this Cold War atmosphere that a major concern arose in the American 

military leadership, one that fueled the perception that the United States not 

only trailed, but trailed badly, the Soviet Union in the area of ballistic mis­
2 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

sile technology.1 Much of this concern could be traced to that fact that much 

larger missiles were then needed by the Soviets to carry their nuclear warheads which were, at the time, bigger and much heavier than their American 

counterparts.2

 Also capitalizing on this state of apprehension was the very 

effective use of propaganda by the Soviets, as the usually secretive society 

openly and routinely paraded these large rockets in Red Square during times 

of state celebrations. 

As the pace of missile testing accelerated, the Department of Defense 

(DOD) converted several former War Department weapon proving grounds 

in the continental United States into missile ranges. Key among these was the 

White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in southern New Mexico. Here, captured German V-2 rockets were brought and flown after the war. In a move 

called Operation Paperclip, German rocket scientists, under the direction of 

Wernher von Braun, brought over 300 boxcar loads of missile materials to 

White Sands where they were tested as sounding rockets equipped with atmospheric sampling devices and telemetry transmitters.3 It was in New Mexico 

where America’s first suborbital rockets were launched above Earth’s atmosphere in 1946 when the WAC Corporal ventured some 80 kilometers (50 

miles) up, almost into the ionosphere.4 

Other pioneering work at the Army range included the “Albert 

monkey flights” and the Navy’s Aerobee sounding rockets.5 In 1950, the Air 

Force converted the Long Range Proving Ground at Cape Canaveral, Florida 

into the Atlantic Missile Range, which it later renamed the Eastern Test Range 

(ETR). With a corridor that extended all the way from the Florida coast, over 

the Caribbean to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, ETR was perfect for 

testing the early long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in the 

Air Force arsenal such as the venerable Atlas. Located on the coast of Florida, 

easterly launches out of “The Cape” also enjoyed the enormous benefit of 

having the velocity from Earth’s rotation “kick start” a rocket’s journey into 

space. On the other coast, the Navy established the Pacific Missile Range 

(PMR), tracking missiles launched out of Point Mugu, California and later, 

Air Force launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, on intercontinental trajectories to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands some 10,000 kilometers (6,200 

miles) away in the South Pacific. 

In those days, there were essentially two proven methods for 

tracking vehicles into the upper atmosphere: optical and radar. Optical tracking 

has been around since humans first studied the stars and sailed the seas. As 

the name implies, visual sightings from ground-based, high-power telescopes 

were used to provide measurements of a satellite’s position against the background stars. In April 1956, the Working Group on Tracking and Computation 

(WGTC), as part of the National Academy of Sciences’ Space Science Board, 

approved a plan by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 3 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, to establish an optical tracking network to photograph very small objects in anticipation of tracking the International 

Geophysical Year (IGY) satellites. The IGY was an 18-month (July 1957 

through December 1958) scientific undertaking sponsored by the International 

Council of Scientific Unions designed to promote and stimulate a broad, 

worldwide investigation of Earth and the near-Earth cosmic environment. 

At the time, it was quite the watershed event in terms of fostering scientific 

interest on an international basis when East-West tensions were dominating 

the news. 

To prepare for U.S. IGY activities, the SAO was given $3,380,000 

by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to implement an optical network. This network, proposed by Harvard astronomer Fred L. Whipple 

and Ohio State University professor J. Allen Hynek, featured sophisticated 

Baker-Nunn high precision telescopic cameras that had unusually large apertures. These high-resolution cameras were named after its principal creators, 

James G. Baker, consultant to the Perkin-Elmer Corporation of Norwalk, 

Connecticut, and Joseph Nunn of South Pasadena, California. Built by the 

Boller and Chivens Company of South Pasadena and instrumented with optics 

fabricated by Perkin-Elmer, the Baker-Nunn was basically an f/1 Schmidt 

camera with a 20-inch (50.8-centimeter) focal length and a wide 5o by 30o 

field-of-view so as to accommodate star-field photography for the purposes 

of optical tracking. (A Schmidt camera is a high-powered telescope with a 

film plate holder instead of eyepiece at its focus. It is typically used as a survey 

instrument in which a large amount of sky is covered.) Another key component of the camera was its film. Manufactured by the Kodak Corporation, 

film for the Baker-Nunn used high speed Royal X-Pan emulsion, standard 

for high grain black and white resolution at the time. The 55.625-mm film 

size was, however, unique to the needs of the SAO. To achieve the required 

resolution, a single frame was rather large, measuring 2.2 inches by 18 inches 

(5.6 centimeters by 45.7 centimeters). It required close to an hour to process 

and dry the film in preparation for making position measurements.6 

The camera operated by alternately tracking a satellite and the star 

background. Superimposed on the same strip of film was the image of a crystal-controlled clock from a separate optical system which was periodically 

illuminated by strobe lights. This was done to establish a precise time reference. From the photographs, the position of a satellite could be accurately 

determined by comparison with the position of the background star field.7 

The instrument was sensitive enough; under favorable lighting conditions, it 

could photograph a 16th magnitude object, which corresponds to something 

that is 25 times dimmer than the faintest star visible to the naked eye.8 

By the late 1950s, the Smithsonian’s optical network was global in 

scope and was concentrated in a geographical band of about 40° north and 
4 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

south of the Equator. There were 12 stations located at sites selected, among 

other things, for their year-round mild weather: 

North America 

Haleakala, Maui 

Jupiter, Florida 

Organ, New Mexico 

South America 

Arequipa, Peru 

Curacao, Dutch Antilles 

Villa Dolores, Argentina 

Australia 

Woomera 

Africa 

Olifantsfontein, South Africa 

Europe 

San Fernando, Spain 

Asia 

Mitaka, Japan 

Naini Tal, India 

Shiraz, Iran9 

Although optical tracking could be effective, it had its drawbacks. 

In particular, its usefulness was limited by something known as the acquisition problem. Simply put, in optical tracking, there was no way to initially 

find what it was supposed to track. Before the optical network could be put to 

use, the SAO had to come up with a plan to address the acquisition problem. 

Here, Whipple had an idea. To encourage participation and popular interest 

in this new field, Whipple’s plan was to use a network of amateur volunteers 

worldwide to literally serve as eyes to visually find—or acquire—a satellite. 

The strategy was rather simple. After surveying the night sky and finding the 

satellite, these participants would pass the “acquisition data” on to one of the 

12 Baker-Nunn stations that was closest to them. 

Not surprising, the intention to use amateurs in this fashion was 

initially ill-received by the NAS Space Science Board’s technical working 

group who thought the work “too technical” for just anyone to perform. 

But just as Whipple had anticipated, the announcement of the formation of 

Operation Moonwatch in early 1956 brought an enormous response. Visual 

observation teams sprang up in North and South America, Africa, Europe, 

Asia, in the Middle East and even at such remote places as Station C and 

Fletcher’s Ice Island T-3 in the Arctic Basin. In the Washington, DC area, 

the first Moonwatch station equipped with 12 telescopes was set up in an 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 5 

an optical satellite tracking 

network using Baker-Nunn 

cameras established by the 

Smithsonian astrophysical 

Observatory was in place by 

the late 1950s. the camera 

would alternately track a 

satellite and the star background to obtain a fix on its 

location. Baker-Nunn cameras were also used extensively by the air Force to track 

military satellites. (http:// 

history.nasa.gov/SP-4202/ 

p9-151.jpg) 

apple orchard in Colesville, Maryland. The orchard was owned by a Mr. G. 

R. Wright, a Weather Bureau employee who ended up chairing the national 

advisory committee in charge of planning the unusual network. 

Dry runs to test the ability of spotters to actually sight a tiny sphere 

hurling through space began in June of 1957. An imitation of the proposed 

IGY satellite flew over Fort Belvoir, Virginia. This test satellite was definitively “lo-tech,” a makeshift device made up of a tiny flashlight bulb fastened 

to a plumber’s suction plunger that was towed at the end of a clothesline 

behind an airplane flying at 1800 meters (6,000 feet). Light output from this 

object was calculated by Whipple to be about the same as that reflected off a 

metal sphere on orbit from a rising or setting Sun. The contraption worked 

though, and the experiment went off without a hitch. Soon, variations of the 

technique were used to train Moonwatchers from around the world. Two 

years later, some 250 teams with approximately 8,000 members were functioning under Moonwatch. Teams came from all walks of life, organized by 
6 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

universities, public schools, government agencies, private science clubs, and 

amateur astronomers. The United States alone accounted for 126 groups.10 

The endurance of Operation Moonwatch was a testament to its 

true popularity, as more than 5,000 volunteers equipped with telescopes and 

binoculars continued scrutinizing the skies over the next two decades (long 

after the original need had been met). More than 400,000 satellite observations 

were recorded. Whipple would praise the infectious enthusiasm of these early 

space buffs, saying, “Quite a number have gone into science or space programs 

because of their amateur involvement in Moonwatch.”11 After the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration was formed in 1958, it would continue 

to fund Moonwatch at a low level through the SAO—at about $30,000 per 

year—until the organization was officially disbanded in July of 1975. 

Despite its relatively good accuracy, optical tracking had inherent 

disadvantages in addition to acquisition. For instance, in order to get good 

photographs, the weather must be favorable and lighting must be correct. The 

latter condition meant that a site must be in darkness while the satellite being 

tracked was in sunlight. The problem with that though, is a satellite spends a 

significant portion of its orbit either in Earth’s shadow where it is not illuminated, or in sunshine where there is not enough contrast to see it (like trying 

to see stars during the day). Thus optical tracking could only be used during 

a short window just before and after sunrise or sunset. Therefore, from any 

given station, it was usually impossible to get more than a few good observations of the orbit per pass.12 

Besides optical systems, there was radar, an electronic system. 

Radar—or Radio Detection and Ranging—in which the location of an 

object is precisely determined by measuring returns on electromagnetic waves 

reflected off the object back to the transmitting station, had been a topic of 

research by scientists and engineers since the late 1800s when German physicist 

Heinrich Hertz first began experimenting with radio waves in his Frankfurt 

laboratory. Research continued throughout the first half of the twentieth century on both sides of the Atlantic. But it was not until World War II when the 

allies first used it to great advantage for early warning—in particular during 

the Battle of Britain—did radar come into its own. By the end of the war, it 

was standard operating equipment on Navy ships and aircraft on both sides. 

Towards the end of the war, missile testing activities soared, and 

along with it, the need for reliable tracking techniques. In the fall of 1944, 

Major General G. M. Barnes, then Chief of Research and Development 

Service, U.S. Army Office of Ordnance, recognized the urgency for the Army 

to establish a research program in the field of guided missiles. To this end, he 

was convinced that as a vital part of such a program, it was necessary to have 

somewhere within the limits of the continental United States, a range where 

test firings of such missiles could be conducted routinely and safely. With this 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 7 

Diagram of Operation Moonwatch showing the vital role of amateur star gazers in this 

schematic from an original set of NrL plans. (Constance McLaughlin Green and Milton 

Lomask, Vanguard: A History. [NaSa Sp-4202, 1970]) 

in mind, military and civilian engineers from the Ordnance Department and 

the Corps of Engineers conducted surveys of all open areas in the United 

States to find a place suitable for such firing activities. 

Certain fundamental requirements were set forth, such as: extraordinarily clear weather throughout the preponderance of the year; large amounts 

of open, uninhabited terrain over which firings could be conducted without 

jeopardy to civilian population; accessibility to rail and power facilities; and 

to whatever degree possible, proximity to communities to provide for the cultural needs of personnel to be employed at such an installation. The result of 

these studies indicated that a relatively desolate area around the White Sands 

Desert and the Alamogordo Bombing Range in southern New Mexico nearly 

filled all of the specifications.13 While it was recognized that both the length 

and width of the range were not as large as might be desired, it could be utilized efficiently for the early types of missiles that were being developed and 
8 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

for the reduced-scale prototypes of the later and larger types that the Army 

then had in mind. In this way, White Sands quickly became the hub of activity for U.S. missile development, and with it, tracking technology.14 

Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, radar was increasingly 

used to supplement optical tracking. This work, at a time when the accepted 

practice was that optics were the primary way for data recovery, was not 

received with open arms by all. In spite of this initial reservation, it did have 

the momentum of technical advancement on its side.15 It was at White Sands 

during this time that a young engineer named Ozro M. Covington began 

developing the concept of centralized networks for tracking and communications, honing skills which would later be used to lead NASA’s human spaceflight network. After working in the field of communications and radars as a 

civilian in Europe and at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey during World War II, 

Ozzie Covington became the Technical Director of the Army Signal Missile 

Support Agency at White Sands in 1946 (a position he would hold until leaving 

for NASA in 1961.) Here, Covington and range engineers tested and refined 

networking communications and data processing techniques and developed 

what was, in essence, the forerunner to the mission control concept. 

The idea of a worldwide communication complex to support spaceflight was not a new concept to many at White Sands. By the time Covington 

came onto the scene, it had already been the subject of study and a number of 

possible approaches had been considered. 

We supported the firing of V-2 rockets brought to the U.S. 

from Germany after World War II and, of course, our own U.S. 

developmental missiles, [said Covington] to monitor these flights, 

which could reach 100 miles (160 kilometers) in altitude and some 

100 miles downrange.We established a chain of five radar tracking 

stations.These were linked to our ‘C’ Station, which also contained 

early computer capabilities to give us a real-time data system.We 

really had an early mission control center from which we not only 

monitored these flights but also sent guidance signals to the missiles.While we developed our electronic capabilities, we also used 

the real-time data to guide an array of optical instruments to keep 

an eye on these firings. After a V-2 went south to Juarez, Mexico, 

instead of north,these radars and their associated display equipment 

became the primary source of data for the range safety officer.16 

Among these first networks was the very successful tracking system developed at the range using an elaborate chain of FPS-16 C-band, 

single-object tracking radars made by the Radio Corporation of America 

(RCA) to track missiles launched on extended horizontal flights. The units 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 9 

were networked to transmit data to a control center where consoles displayed 

information on the radar returns for the test engineers. Operating either on 

commercial line power or generators, these transportable radars could be 

moved from one place to another or to undeveloped sites using prefabricated 

transportable pads so as to provide support from different locations all around 

the range. A modernized version of this radar tracking system continues to be 

used at White Sands today.17 

Still, a third approach for tracking emerged in the late 1940s: radio 

interferometry. Like most electronic tracking techniques then in use, radio 

interferometry required the presence of a signal source, or transmitter beacon, on the object being tracked. Despite its somewhat intimidating name, 

the basic operating principle of radio interferometry is relatively straight forward. Since radio signals—like sound—travel in waves, separate antennas will 

receive the waves at slightly different times. Knowing that electromagnetic 

waves propagate at the speed of light, measurements of the different arrival 

times of the waves, called phase differences, can then be used to calculate 

position solutions for an object. This technique had the advantage of yielding 

highly accurate tracking angles and could be used under virtually any atmospheric condition, even underwater. Given its potential, a number of groups 

were involved in its research after World War II. A significant milestone was 

reached in 1948 when engineers of Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation 

(Convair) created the first working application for the U.S. Army on the 

Azusa missile tracking system. 

To understand how this technique was utilized and eventually 

developed into what would become the Minitrack Network—the progenitor 

to the STDN—one has to go back to the year 1955. That summer, plans were 

drawn up by the United States to launch the first artificial satellite as President 

Dwight D. Eisenhower announced on 29 July that the United States would 

participate in the upcoming IGY by orbiting a 9-kilogram (20-pound) satellite. In keeping with the spirit of the IGY, Eisenhower announced that the 

American satellite program would be civilian in nature. Despite the announcement, it was well understood by the science community that assistance from 

the military was going to be required, since at the time, it alone possessed the 

capability to launch a rocket large enough to orbit a satellite. 

Following this announcement, a Committee on Special Capabilities 

was appointed by the DOD to select the appropriate organization to lead this 

effort. This committee would end up selecting a proposal submitted by the 

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) as the one which seemed best qualified to 

promote the civilian nature of the project while at the same time support military interests in space technology development. The NRL was a good choice. 

It was well qualified, having already conducted research in this field for nearly 

a decade, even developing an underwater tracking system using sound inter­
10 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

ferometry. By the early 1950s, the NRL detachment at White Sands had built 

and fielded a rudimentary tracking system for the development of the Viking 

short range guided missile. 

In this way, the effort selected by the committee, called Project 

Vanguard, thus became the United States’ official IGY entrant in September 

1955. The project was led by Milton W. Rosen, Chairman of the NAS 

Advisory Committee on the IGY, and was managed jointly by the Office of 

Naval Research and the NAS Committee on the IGY.18 

Once Vanguard was given the go-ahead, a significant portion of 

the early work was devoted to solving the problem of just how to track such 

a small object in space, since the Vanguard satellite would only be 15 centimeters (6 inches) in diameter. Most atmospheric research scientists were 

advising Rosen’s team to rely on optical tracking; it was, after all, the tried 

and proven method. In addition, camera observations of meteoroids entering 

Earth’s atmosphere had demonstrated that modern terrestrial optical instruments could indeed spot small objects weighing only a few pounds that moved 

at high velocities in the upper atmosphere. 

Rosen was well aware of the limitations of optical tracking—in 

particular, the acquisition problem—and wanted something better. In other 

words, optical instruments could see a satellite, but could they find it? To get 

a better handle on the problem, he had Richard Tousey at the NRL verify 

visibility computations that had been performed earlier. Tousey’s answer confirmed what Rosen had already suspected. In his opinion, the probability of 

successful optical acquisition of a Vanguard-sized satellite on the first visual 

pass was only 1x10-6, that is, literally one in a million.19 

Thus, convinced from the beginning that his team must look elsewhere for a solution, Rosen asked John T. Mengel and his NRL Tracking and 

Guidance Branch to develop an electronic system for use in conjunction with 

an optical one. For ballistic missile guidance, Mengel had led the development of the mentioned Azusa system at White Sands. For tracking a satellite, 

however, that system was out of the question as it required an onboard transmitter weighing 13.6 kilograms (30 pounds), far too large for a small satellite. 

Mengel’s team immediately went to work and within a year came up with an 

interferometer system that, although based on the techniques developed for 

Viking, required only a 0.37-kilogram (13-ounce) transmitter using a different operating frequency and antenna pattern. It was, in essence, a pioneering 

new system.20 

Hired by nuclear submarine pioneer Hyman G. Rickover a year 

after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Jack Mengel, who later became 

the first Director for Tracking and Data Systems at the Goddard Space Flight 

Center, began his career for the NRL working on antisubmarine devices. “At 

first, I was responsible for telemetry and radio control systems in the Rocket 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 11 

the rCa FpS-16 radar has been widely used at missile ranges since the 1950s. It is a 

transportable, Single-Object tracking radar which operates in the C-band of the electromagnetic spectrum. the photograph shows a FpS-16 at patrick air Force Base used 

in 1961 to track launches out of Cape Canaveral. (photo courtesy of patrick air Force 

Base Office of history) 

[Sound] Branch, which used V-2 rockets of World War II fame for scientific 

observations in the near-Earth regions. This was followed in 1950 by work 

on a Viking missile project and its possible use in submarine warfare.”21 Here, 

his work in developing an X-band interferometry system that operated at the 

centimeter (one inch) wavelength provided the high precision missile guidance that the U.S. military was looking for. 

Expounding on this initial work, he and his team then converted 

this system into a 108 megahertz (MHz) system for tracking satellites. This 

new radio interferometry satellite tracking system had the catchy name 

Minitrack, which Mengel derived from “minimum-sized tracking system.” 

The name was fitting, as tracking was accomplished using a small oscillator 

onboard the satellite that illuminated pairs of antennas at a ground station 

with which angular positions of the satellite was derived using the radio inter­
12 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

ferometry technique. “What apparently had sold the Defense Department on 

our proposal was the fact that it consisted of a good radio system which would 

be infallible in picking up the satellite in orbit,” explained Mengel.22 This 

pioneering tracking network was to become operational in 1957 at a cost of 

only $13 million.23 

Despite the low price tag, America’s first spacecraft tracking network had to overcome several key technical hurdles in order to achieve a level 

of tracking accuracy never before attempted. Angle measurements and accurate timing were vital. One had to know precisely at any given instant in time 

where a satellite was in orbit. From the very beginning, the ability to ascertain 

precise timing, in particular, was crucial. Chesley H. Looney, Jr., the former 

Head of the Time Measurement Branch for Minitrack at the GSFC said: 

In the early days of the space program, prior to the establishment of NASA, we had to develop a reliable, low-frequency phasemeasurement system to track our Vanguard satellites.While a high 

frequency interferometer system had been used at White Sands 

Missile Range, New Mexico, to track military rockets, this system 

was inadequate to meet the needs of low-powered satellites then 

being planned. Thus, a new system at a different frequency and 

with a different antenna layout to provide the proper precision and 

signal resolution had to be designed . . . In those days, our budgets were very tight and we were forced to use low cost hardware. 

Yet, the equipment had to be capable of phase-angle measurements 

with an accuracy not attempted before. In the process, we developed an elegantly simple,filter-inductor system.In our related time 

measurements, we achieved an accuracy of 10-milliseconds per day 

and broke new ground in phase-angle tracking later embodied in 

commercial designs.24 

As eventually implemented, Minitrack used a 10-milliwatt, 370- 

gram quartz crystal controlled oscillator transponder aboard the satellite which 

operated at the fixed frequency of 108 MHz. It had a battery life of 10 to 14 

days, sufficient for a planned Vanguard mission. The new tracking network 

was considered quite revolutionary for its time and was thus subject to much 

scrutiny by the general scientific community. In a series of papers and speeches 

over the next two years, Mengel and his colleagues—notably Roger L. Easton, 

his assistant at NRL, and Paul Herget, Director of the Cincinnati Observatory 

and a consultant on Project Vanguard—responded to this scrutiny by presenting the difficulty of tracking and its importance in the U.S. satellite program. 

In a March 1956 paper, Mengel explained the challenge of tracking 

an artificial satellite to fellow scientists and engineers. In it, he said: 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 13 

The final realization of man’s efforts to place a satellite in orbit 

about the Earth will immediately pose a new series of problems: 

How to determine the precise orbit that it is following and how 

to measure what is happening within the satellite from the vantage 

point of a ground station.The immensity of the first of these programs, how to prove that the satellite is in fact orbiting—the acquisition phase—can be realized by an analogy. Let a jet plane pass 

overhead at 60,000 feet (18,000 meters) at the speed of sound, let 

the pilot eject a golf ball, and now let the plane vanish.The apparent size and speed of this golf ball will approximate closely the size 

and speed of a satellite three feet in diameter at a height of 3,000 

miles (4,800 kilometers).The acquisition problem is to locate the 

object under these conditions, and the tracking problem is to measure its angular position and angular rate with sufficient accuracy 

to alert nonacquiring tracking stations, those trying to follow the 

satellite by optical means, as to the time and position of expecting 

passage of the object.25 

In describing how Minitrack worked, Mengel and Herget likened 

the antennas of a station to human ears. In short, it used stereo-phonics to pinpoint the location of a given signal source. For instance, a person locates the 

source of a sound by virtue of the phase difference in the sound waves which 

arrive at slightly different times at each of his ears. The antennas of a Minitrack 

station functioned much like ears. The electronic receivers of the Minitrack 

system were connected to pairs of receiving antennas set at a known distance 

apart, which indicated the direction of the signal by phase differences in the 

radio wave that it received from the satellite. The direction to the satellite, 

measured relative to the baseline vector between the two antennas, could then 

be calculated from the phase difference using triangulation. 

For example, if the waves arriving at two antennas were out of 

phase by one-third of a wavelength, the extra distance they traveled to the farther antenna could be deduced and the angle to the baseline calculated using 

trigonometry. However, in order to find the actual length (that is, magnitude) 

of the extra distance, it must be known whether this phase difference was only 

one-third of a wavelength or some multiple thereof. To resolve this ambiguity, other pairs of antennas were set up but spaced closer together at distances 

of less than one wavelength. These arrays provided shorter fractional phase 

differences, and on the basis of whether the resulting directions fell within the 

reception pattern of the antenna system, the number of wavelengths involved 

could be determined. 

A Minitrack antenna array was quite large, consisting of a 150- 

meter (500-foot) cross of eight linear dipole antennas (metal frame antennas 
14 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

with many elements like the traditional rooftop, television antenna) mounted 

above 18-by 3-meter (60-foot by 10-foot) ground screens which served to 

eliminate multipathing, or interference, from ground reflection. In the northsouth direction, three pairs of antennas spaced 150, 20 and 4 meters (500, 64 

and 12 feet) apart, respectively, were used; in the east-west direction, two 

pairs with spacings of 150 and 20 meters were used. The resulting reception 

pattern was a fan-shaped beam spanning 100° north-south by 10° east-west, 

measured at the 6 decibel (dB) reception power point, a common demarcation 

used to measure antenna reception strength.26 

In this setup, the north-south and east-west determinations provided 

the two angles needed to locate the actual direction to a satellite. However, 

more information was still needed. To verify precise antenna alignment (that 

is, its orientation with respect to a fixed celestial coordinate system) and timing, 

calibrations had to be done. This was done periodically by having an airplane 

equipped with a Minitrack transmitter and flashing lights fly over the station 

at night at an altitude of 6,100 meters (20,000 feet). An optical system called 

MOTS—Minitrack Optical Tracking System—was used for this purpose. 

MOTS was one of the lesser known tracking systems implemented 

early in the network. Developed under the direction of Edmund J. Habib at 

the GSFC, stations used it to calibrate and determine position misalignments 

in the Mintrack system. It worked something like this: A time-coded lamp on 

the belly of the airplane, operating simultaneously with an onboard 108-MHz 

Minitrack transmitter, allowed for precise observation of the airplane’s position against the background star-field as the Minitrack array on the ground 

recorded the movement of the Minitrack beam. In this way, a precise comparison between the optical position (aircraft belly light) and the radio frequency 

position (aircraft transmitter) could be made for calibration purposes.27 Precise 

optical and radio fixes could then be made to correct for any misalignment of 

the antenna. Using this setup, Minitrack was sophisticated enough to record 

phase differences to an accuracy of one-thousandth of a wavelength and the 

time of observation to one millisecond, which in turn produced a direction fix 

to the satellite accurate to within 20 arc-seconds (1/180th of a degree). Such 

was the kind of resolution that was needed in order to track Vanguard.28 

As implemented, the Minitrack stations were all very similar. Their 

principal antennas consisted of the large arrays for angular tracking, one fixed 

antenna array for telemetry reception, and a single rhombus (diamond shaped) 

antenna for communications. Three trailers housed the ground station core 

electronics consisting of telemetry recording equipment and communications 

hardware. Site selection had to consider many factors. Due to the size of the 

main array, a station required a large plot of land, at least 23 acres in an area 

that was relatively smooth, with a gradient of less than 1°. To maximize the 

observation time during each pass, Minitrack specifications called for the ter­
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 15 

rain adjacent to a station to not exceed an elevation angle of 10° for at least 

800 meters (one-half mile), and 20° for 8,000 meters (5 miles). Finally, to 

minimize interference, engineers selected locations away from electric power 

plants and even airports (although this recommendation was not followed at 

many of the sites eventually constructed).29 

The final decision by the IGY selection committee on the U.S. satellite project came down to two proposals: the Navy’s Project Vanguard and 

a competing concept called Project Orbiter submitted by Army scientists— 

including Wernher von Braun. The latter, however, originally contained no 

provision for electronic tracking. While it may be too simple to say that the 

NRL proposal was selected because it had provisions for electronic tracking, 

it is clear that the inclusion of a Minitrack Network in the NRL proposal 

undoubtedly had a direct bearing on the committee’s decision in August 1955. 

Mengel later supported this claim, saying, “What apparently sold the Defense 

Department on our proposal was the fact that it consisted of a good radio system which would be infallible in picking up the satellite in orbit.”30 

In addition, NRL also described in their proposal a somewhat 

less elaborate version of the Minitrack system as eventually implemented. 

Developed by Roger Easton, this toned-down system became known as the 

“Mark II,” or unofficially, the “Jiffy.” Some in the halls of NRL referred to 

it as the “Poor Man’s Minitrack.” Using less-sophisticated radio frequency 

phase-comparison (instead of interference), the Mark II, nevertheless, went on 

to become the nucleus of Project Moonbeam, a program sponsored by NRL 

to encourage amateur radio enthusiasts and their clubs to build their own 

ground stations to track satellites.31 

With its selection accomplished, design and construction-preparation of the Minitrack Network began in the fall of 1955. From its inception, 

Minitrack was a project that had to have cooperation amongst all the stakeholders. Considering all the technical and administrative requirements that 

were needed to coordinate the work of various military units, university laboratories, individual experts and private contractors, its progress was remarkably smooth. Years later Mengel was able to recall “a few personality clashes” 

but in his opinion, those were “par for the course for a program that made use 

of some of the best astronomers in the country.”32 

During initial development and construction, the U.S. military played 

the decisive role. Three Army agencies—Corps of Engineers, Map Service and 

the Signal Corps—were responsible for most of the actual construction. The 

Air Force’s main role was the installation of tracking radars at Patrick Air Force 

Base in Florida and on Grand Bahamas Island. Overall program management 

was under the Naval Research Laboratory. In addition, the Navy’s Bureau of 

Yards and Docks obtained use of the land needed to construct the prototype 

station at Blossom Point, Maryland. Outside of the military, the Department of 
16 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Minitrack antenna arrays were large, spread over an area one and a half times the size of 

a football field. (Constance McLaughlin Green and Milton Lomask, Vanguard: A History. 

[NaSa Sp-4202, 1970 file 6589 NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa history 

Division, Washington, DC 20546]) 

State provided the much-needed assistance to the Navy as the executing agent 

for foreign affairs, conducting negotiations for land leases on foreign soil. This 

cooperation between the various departments of the U.S. government was a 

testament to the priority of Project Vanguard. There was with it a definite 

sense of urgency. Chesley Looney recalled years later that, “While our budget 

was low, . . . [we] had high priority which allowed us to push ahead without 

administration hurdles. All of us were anxious to succeed.”33 

Things moved quickly. In the spring of 1956, a project advance 

team led by Commander Wilfred E. Berg, surveyed 17 Latin American sites 

from which six were selected. They were: 

Batista Field in Havana, Cuba 

Paramo de Cotopaxi near Quito, Ecuador 

Pampa de Ancon at Lima, Peru 

Salar del Carmen at Antofagasta, Chile 

Peldehue Military Reservation near Santiago, Chile 

Rio Hata in the Republic of Panama. 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 17 

One of the lesser-known tracking systems developed by GFSC was the MOtS— 

Minitrack Optical tracking System—which was used to obtain precise, position calibration and misalignments in the Minitrack system. the photograph shows David W. harris 

(who later became a Deputy associate administrator at NaSa headquarters) operating 

the camera at Blossom point in 1963 after it was modified to photograph passive satellites such as echo. Note the photographic plate at the bottom of the camera. MOtS was 

used until the 1970s. (NaSa Image Number G-63-826) 
18 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Shortly after Berg’s group returned in early May, NRL eliminated 

the Panamanian site based on studies indicating that a station at San Diego 

would be more useful for early orbit determination. This decision would 

make the station on the coast of California the first to receive confirmation 

from Vanguard that it indeed had successfully attained orbit.34 

As the network began to take shape, there emerged basically three 

categories of stations. The first type involved three tracking units located 

immediately downrange of Cape Canaveral on the islands of Grand Bahama, 

Antigua, and Grand Turk, networked with a radar installation at Patrick Air 

Force Base, Florida. These monitored the launch, ascent, and orbital inserthe antenna system of a Minitrack station was made up of eight individual antennas 

connected to form three pairs in the north-south direction and two pairs in the eastwest. the outermost pairs in each direction were 152 meters (500 feet) apart while the 

inner north-sourth pairs were separated by distances of 19.5 and 3.7 meters (64 and 

12 feet). the spacing of the inner east-west pair was 19.5 meters. (Mengel and herget, 

tracking Satellites by radio. Folder 8800, NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa 

history Division, NaSa headquarters, Washington DC) 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 19 

tion (“early ops”) of the Vanguard vehicle. In the second category were the 

so-called primary stations located roughly on a north-south line along the east 

coast of North America and the west coast of South America so as to form a 

“picket line” across the expected path of satellites. To preclude over-flight of 

the Bahamas, launches out of the Cape were limited to orbital inclinations of 

35° or less (in other words, the ground track of satellites were bound between 

35° in latitude north and south of the Equator). With this picket line, radio 

signals from a satellite could be intercepted as it crossed the 75th West meridian on each orbit. Seven primary stations formed this line: 

Blossom Point, Maryland


Fort Stewart, Georgia


Antofagasta, Chile


Santiago, Chile


Quito, Ecuador


Lima, Peru


Havana, Cuba35


Lastly, there were other stations outside of the picket line in locations around the world at San Diego, California; Hartebeestpoort outside of 

Johannesburg, South Africa; and Woomera, South Australia. This last group 

of stations was needed to help determine the initial orbit of the satellite. With 

this arrangement, Mengel estimated that there was a 90 percent chance of 

capturing every pass of a satellite which was at an altitude of 500 kilometers 

(300 miles) or higher. 

The first station established was on a 23 acre NRL managed site 

in the U.S. Army Blossom Point Proving Ground, Maryland, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Washington, DC. The Army had specifically permitted this portion of the range to the Navy in 1956 for use as a Vanguard 

support site. Bordering the Potomac River, Blossom Point provided an ideal 

setting for a ground station, with horizon-to-horizon look angles along with 

an interference-free, low-noise environment. As the network developed, 

this prototype station functioned somewhat like a test station for the rest of 

the network. Here, engineers, scientists, and station operators received their 

training, and procedures were developed for system tests, simulations, and 

checkout, including use of the MOTS cameras. 

When it was first conceived, NRL engineers envisioned using only 

four sites, along with the test-bed at Blossom Point. By the time Vanguard 

was ready to issue its first full progress report in December of 1955, however, 

Mengel’s team was thinking in far more elaborate terms. By the time it was 

completed, the Minitrack Network would consist of 14 sites, including the 

DOD launch support radar stations. With the obvious need to place ground 
20 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

stations in other countries, the ability to secure foreign cooperation became 

paramount. In fact, the ability to work effectively with local governments and 

foreign nationals would play directly into how well stations could accomplish 

their missions in the years to come. This NASA hallmark began in the days of 

Minitrack. As B. Harry McKeehan, Chief of International Operations at the 

GSFC from 1963 to 1980, explained: 

Very early in our planning for the tracking network, there 

emerged a definite commitment that our foreign tracking stations 

were to be conceived carefully and operated with the full support and active cooperation of the foreign governments involved. 

Thus, even in times of political turmoil, we were usually able to 

continue our operations without serious interference. . . . [In] 

instances when stations had to be closed because of political conditions within the country, even in those cases, we continued to 

recognize and honor our commitments to the host government 

and our local employees.36 

McKeehan soon found that one of the best ways to secure international cooperation was to involve local nationals in station operations. “A 

major stabilizing factor in our foreign operations was our policy of maximum 

utilization of local people in station positions. This proved to be cost effective 

as well as giving the local government and population a feeling of having a 

stake in the NASA missions.” McKeehan explained how this “nationalizing 

of the stations” was done. 

Our efforts normally started after the technical requirements 

for a specific program had been identified and the tracking coverage determined.Then, we explored with our colleagues in NASA 

Headquarters and the appropriate officials of the Department of 

State, the country to be approached for a ‘tracking partnership’.We 

considered the country’s geographic features, accessibility, political 

stability and available logistic support.Also, we looked into possible 

sources for local employees to reduce the number of U.S. personnel. Then, we would work through the U.S. embassy, establishing contacts with representatives of the foreign governments and 

explaining our needs to their leaders.This approach, together with 

the worldwide excitement of the U.S. space effort, opened doors 

and usually assured us of the support needed.37 

To meet technical standards, NASA provided training and other 

educational programs for local employees which ultimately ended up also 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 21 

broadening the scientific base in those countries. “With concern for the sensitivities of other countries, we learned to manage responsibly the resources and 

manpower needed to assure our success in exploring space. It helped create a 

great reservoir of goodwill throughout the world for the U.S. space effort and 

. . . proved to be a valuable future investment,” said McKeehan.38 Even today, 

as the space agency continues to promote international goodwill—albeit in a 

very different global environment—the lasting effect of this policy can still be 

felt, the roots of which date back to this time. 

As site construction finished, all three military branches also contributed to their operation and maintenance. Army personnel operated the 

five prime Minitrack stations in Latin America plus the one at Fort Stewart, 

Georgia. Meanwhile, the Naval Electronic Laboratory operated the station at 

San Diego, Blossom Point, and the tracking units on Grand Bahama Island, 

Antigua, and Grand Turk. The Air Force operated their radar installations 

at Patrick and Grand Bahama. In Australia, the method of operation was 

somewhat different. There, the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE), an 

agency of that commonwealth’s Department of Supply (DOS), constructed 

and operated the station just outside of the village of Woomera. Under agreement with the Australian government, the DOS supplied the land, power, 

facilities, and workers. In return, the United States furnished all the technical 

equipment, trained the WRE personnel, and installed the initial equipment. 

Half way around the world, an agreement was reached with the South African 

government allowing for the National Telecommunications Research Center 

to staff the station just outside of Johannesburg with South African nationals. 

Finally, the NRL contracted with Bendix Radio in Towson, 

Maryland, a Division of Bendix Aviation Corporation, to build the station 

electronics. Being the equipment supplier for the DOD, Bendix was a logical choice to provide this service. (After NASA was formed and operation 

of Minitrack was turned over by the DOD to the new space agency, Bendix 

would quickly assume operations of the stations in addition to just providing 

the hardware.) 

One of the early challenges of Minitrack was the need for rapid data 

processing in order to compute and determine a satellite’s orbit. To this end, 

NRL began working to implement a solution very early on in the network 

design process. As early as September 1955, Paul Herget met with Cuthbert 

C. Hurd, then Director of Electronics Data Processing Machines, and other 

officials of International Business Machines (IBM), to discuss the computational requirements of the Earth satellite program. In March of the following 

year, the Office of Naval Research issued a request for proposals for the renting of computer facilities and the furnishing of mathematical and programming services for Project Vanguard. IBM and two other companies responded 

with IBM winning the contract at a bid of $900,000.39 
22 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Under the contract, IBM was to supply personnel to operate, 

around-the-clock, its 704 computer for six weeks after installation and checkout, and then to provide, free of charge, orbital computations over the life 

of the first three successful satellites or lifetime of the Minitrack Network— 

whichever occurred first. In July 1956, NRL’s new Vanguard IBM Computing 

Center opened in downtown Washington, DC. John P. Hagen, Director of 

Project Vanguard, appointed a committee led by Joseph W. Siry, Head of 

the Theory and Analysis Branch at NRL, to oversee the orbital computation 

work. Joining Siry on the committee were Gerald M. Clemence and R. L. 

Duncome of the Naval Observatory, and Paul Herget from the University of 

Cincinnati.40 Since this was a new center, Siry had IBM network the facility 

via a transceiver to a backup site located at the company’s Research Computing 

Center in Poughkeepsie, New York. This ensured computational redundancy 

and reliability that the NRL felt it needed.41 

Network operations could be summarized as follows: Within minutes after a satellite pass, observations from a station were transmitted by teletype to the Vanguard Control Center. After being (manually) inspected for 

errors, the data was recorded onto reel-to-reel magnetic tapes where they 

were taken by courier to the Computing Center. There it was transferred onto 

punched cards and fed into an IBM-704 analog computer (better known at the 

time as an “electronic calculator”). The machine was programmed with mathematical calibration formulas and correction factors for each station to account 

for certain systematic errors such as atmospheric conditions and refraction of 

the radio signal as it passed through the ionosphere. Distances and directions 

from the given ground station to the satellite were then computed. 

As observations on various points along the trajectory were collected, 

the calibration formulas were updated and the satellite path calculated (a process 

known as differential correction and orbit determination). Adding higher order 

corrections to account for parameters such as atmospheric drag and nonuniformity of the Earth gravitational model—for example its nonspherical “pear 

shape”—and variations in geographical mass concentrations, the IBM-704 was 

able to compute (and predict) a satellite’s position and velocity 150 times faster 

than the actual progress of the vehicle. This was certainly no small feat in an era 

before the digital computer. In this manner, the orbit of the satellite was steadily 

refined as it made more and more revolutions around Earth.42 

★ ★ ★

By September 1957, Minitrack was in place. To the disbelief of its 

builders, however, the network would begin its operations by tracking not an 

American satellite but a Russian one. Just three days after completing a checkout of the network on 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 23 

by announcing the launch of Sputnik 1 (the name meant “satellite” or “fellow traveler”). Once they were sure that their 45-kilogram, beach ball-sized 

sphere had indeed made it into orbit, the Soviet news agency Tass announced 

from Moscow that radio signals from the satellite could be heard by receivers set at 20 and 40 MHz. Amateur radio operators from all over the world 

scrambled to pick up the steady beep of the transmission. 

The unexpected Soviet announcement disrupted Minitrack preparations as all the equipment had been set up to operate at the planned American 

satellite frequency of 108 MHz. In the words of one space pioneer, the United 

States was “caught with its antennas down.”43 Stations had to quickly convert their Minitrack receivers to operate on the new frequency and to put as 

many stations as possible into operation before Sputnik’s transmitter gave out. 

Unlike today where receiver frequencies can be changed by the mere turn of 

a knob, entire racks of equipment had to be changed out. Instructions sent 

by teletype and equipment flown in by the Army enabled stations at Blossom 

Point, San Diego, Antofagasta and Lima (and later at Santiago and Woomera) 

to convert to operating at 40 MHz within a few days. 

Although the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been fully 

aware that the USSR was planning to put something into space, the actual 

launch nevertheless still caught American space planners off guard. Chesley 

Looney illustrated just how much so: 

When the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik in 1957,we were 

totally demoralized initially. This lasted for about 24 hours. Then 

we pulled up our socks and quickly put together a 40 megahertz 

system and three boxes of antenna gear which we flew to Lima, 

Peru, and to Antofagasta and Santiago, Chile, and quickly started 

to track this new bird. Unfortunately, it was not ours, but while we 

were not happy, we gained some valuable experience for the first 

Vanguard vehicle tests expected to follow in December 1957.44 

Before its batteries died some 14 days later, the Naval Research 

Laboratory was able to collect some very useful tracking information on 

Sputnik 1 (and later Sputnik 2). Despite the obvious American disappointment, the whole experience gained tracking the first two Soviet satellites 

ended up being very useful for Minitrack, in essence providing a “real world” 

opportunity to check out communication lines, time references, clocks and 

data transmission accuracy. The United States had chosen a frequency of 108 

MHz because it would give a more accurate indication of direction than the 

lower frequencies. For example, a radio signal transmitted on a carrier frequency of 40 MHz is bent approximately seven times more sharply than one 

at 108 MHz; for 20 MHz, it is 29 times. Therefore, a scientific fallout from 
24 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

tracking Sputnik was the U.S. realizing a large amount of data from which 

new knowledge about the electrified layer of the ionosphere and its effect on 

radio wave propagation was gained. 

Two months after the stunning blow of Sputnik 1, the United States 

was ready to attempt orbiting its own satellite. On 6 December 1957, the 

Navy’s Vanguard rocket, with a tiny 1.5-kilogram (3.3-pound), grapefruitsized satellite inside the nosecone, rose a few feet off its launch pad at Cape 

Canaveral, and then to the dismay of those watching, promptly crashed back 

down on itself erupting into a huge ball of fire. Unlike the Soviet Union’s 

delayed announcement of Sputnik, the launch attempt of Vanguard was seen 

on American television. The psychological impact of this spectacular failure 

could not be understated. Just one month earlier, the Soviets had succeeded 

in orbiting a dog on the 450-kilogram (990-pound) Sputnik 2. Five days after 

the failed attempt, President Eisenhower, who up until then had been publicly 

endorsing the Navy’s Vanguard as the official U.S. satellite program, reluctantly (and quietly) granted the Jet Propulsion Laboratory under the direction 

of the Army the approval to attempt a satellite launch. 

Three months later on 31 January 1958, the Army came through. 

Explorer 1 was launched into orbit atop a Jupiter C IRBM to become America’s 

first artificial satellite. In addition to a 108 MHz transmitter (which operated 

for a remarkable 113 days), the 68-kilogram (31-pound) satellite had onboard 

an experiment devised by Professor James A. Van Allen of the University of 

Iowa to detect charged particles in Earth’s magnetic field. In time, telemetry 

downlinked from the first four Explorer satellites led to the discovery of the 

Van Allen Radiation Belts, hailed as the single most important discovery of 

the IGY. 

Seven weeks later on 17 March, the Navy—on its third attempt— 

finally followed Explorer 1 into space with the launch of Vanguard 1. Although 

its success was delayed, the satellite and its all-important accompanying tracking network were to pay great dividend almost immediately. Utilizing the precise tracking capability afforded by Minitrack, telemetry provided by this tiny 

sphere, which when analyzed, showed Earth’s geode to be slightly pear-shaped 

rather than a perfect sphere—a fact verified some 10 years later in beautiful 

color photographs taken by Apollo astronauts on their way to the Moon. 

★ ★ ★

Spurred on by the sudden urgency brought about by Sputnik, 

President Eisenhower in early 1958 revisited an initiative that up until then 

had not exactly occupied high priority on his administration’s agenda. That is, 

a national governing agency whose charter was to develop, direct and coordinate all American space-related activities. 
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 25 

NASA, as it turned out, was not to be a completely new creation, 

but was instead, transformed from a predecessor organization, the National 

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA. Founded in 1915, NACA 

was a civilian U.S. government agency whose original charter was to advise 

on and coordinate research that was being conducted by other organizations 

in the (then) new field of aeronautics. However, it quickly established itself as 

the leading research organization in the field, pushing back the envelope of 

flight, from supersonic flight in 1947 to high altitude experimental aviation 

that would set the foundation for eventual human flight into space. 

After Sputnik—throughout the remainder of 1957 and into 1958— 

the status and progress of existing U.S. space activities was reexamined by 

Congress, Eisenhower, and the military. The nature, scope, and organization of long-range space goals were debated. The principal issue at hand was 

not whether there should be an organized space program but rather the extent 

of military involvement. To settle the issue, Congress conducted several hearings by the Military Preparedness Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on 

Armed Services from November to January. Eisenhower himself advocated 

civilian control of existing space related activities but showed little progress in 

resolving the broader, long range issues. However, Congress soon forced the 

administration’s hand. 

In January 1958, it introduced a bill authored by New Mexico 

Senator Clinton D. Anderson on behalf of the Joint Committee on Atomic 

Energy. The bill amended the Atomic Energy Act by giving the Atomic Energy 

Commission a major share of the nation’s space program. Not surprisingly, the 

Administration decidedly opposed this bill. But it was put in a position where 

it had to propose an alternative. On 4 February 1958, President Eisenhower 

announced that he was assigning James R. Killian, Jr., the responsibility of 

developing a definitive solution. (Killian, who was at the time President of 

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took a leave of absence between 

November 1957 and July 1959 to serve as the first presidential science advisor.) 

Following the Sputnik crisis, Eisenhower established the President’s Science 

Advisory Committee (PSAC) of which he appointed Killian chairman. 

A month later, on 5 March 1958, President Eisenhower received 

the answer he had wanted, approving the recommendations of the PSAC that 

the “leadership of the civil space effort be lodged in a strengthened and redesignated National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and that legislation be 

enacted to give NACA the authority and flexibility” to carry out its expanded 

responsibilities.45 Politics aside, the recommendation was not unexpected. 

NACA had begun posturing itself in January of that year by proposing an 

interagency space program made up of leadership from its own organization, 

the DOD, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the NAS. Meanwhile, 
26 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

NACA’s leaders—in particular Hugh L. Dryden—had close ties to many on 

the President’s advisory committee, including Killian himself and World War 

II aviation hero, General James Doolittle. 

Killian called the President’s 5 March endorsement the conclusive 

act with respect to building a civilian space agency upon the NACA structure. 

Several factors favored into this decision: 1) NACA was already an established 

research Agency with a large technical staff and sizable research facilities; 2) 

NACA had been progressively moving into space research; 3) If NACA would 

not be allowed to move further into the space field, its whole future would be 

in jeopardy; 4) NACA had a long history of close cooperation with the DOD; 

and 5) NACA’s liabilities could be overcome. 

This last point was important as the committee specifically identified what these liabilities were: 1) NACA did not have an across-the-board 

space competence nor did it have much experience in the administration of 

large-scale developmental contracts; 2) Most of the nation’s space work had 

been done by or for the DOD, and NACA would have had to tap this competence without impairing the military space program; 3) NACA was not in a 

position to push ahead with the immediate demonstration projects which may 

be necessary to protect the nation’s world prestige; 4) NACA was limited by 

the somewhat inflexible hiring and pay provisions of civil service regulations; 

and 5) NACA’s organization and procedures were geared to a much lower 

level of expenditure than would be the case after its expansion. Nevertheless, 

the advisory committee concluded that these liabilities could be overcome— 

or at least be mitigated—by enacting appropriate legislation. 

Towards this end, four specific recommendations were proposed. First, NACA should be renamed the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration. Second, it should be permitted to establish pay rates in excess 

of those of the Classification Act of 1949. Third, the Agency Head should 

be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.46 

Finally, the composition of the 17-member NACA governing committee 

should be changed.47 

By far the most important point to come out of the 5 March 1958 

Presidential memorandum was the clear emphasis on the civilian nature that 

the new U.S. space agency should have. Language to the effect permeated the 

memorandum, such as “entail increased expenditures and the employment 

of important numbers of scientists, engineers, and technicians,” and that “an 

aggressive space program will produce important civilian gains in general 

scientific knowledge and the protection of the international prestige of the 

United States,” and straight to the point that the “long-term organization for 

the federal space program . . . should be under civilian control.”48 

In making the recommendation, the PSAC cited several other 

options which were considered but in the end did not have the advan­
Chapter 1 \ The Early Years 27

tages that transforming NACA would have. For example, the DOD was 

not recommended because its deep involvement in the ballistic missile program conflicted with the desired civilian scientific emphasis. The Atomic 

Energy Commission was not recommended because its charter was not the 

space program. Finally, putting the civil space program under a proposed 

Department of Science and Technology was not recommended due to the 

delays and the process that would have been required with creating a brand 

new government department, something that the Administration did not 

want to have to go through. 

On 2 April, one month after President Eisenhower approved the 

plan, the White House set the process in motion. A draft legislation establishing NASA was sent to Congress by the Bureau of the Budget, and a White 

House directive was issued to NACA and the DOD instructing them to take 

certain preparatory actions pending congressional approval on the draft legislation. This draft to Congress was accompanied by a personal message from 

Eisenhower to congressional members urging them to enact appropriate legislation in order to promptly establish a national space program which he 

deemed was essential to the general welfare and security of the nation. He 

added that the space program should be given high priority and, of course, be 

soundly organized. 

In summarizing its civilian nature, the President said: “I recommend that aeronautical and space science activities sponsored by the United 

States be conducted under the direction of a civilian Agency, except for those 

projects primarily associated with military requirements. . . . The civilian 

Agency should be a new one and include aeronautical activities as well.”49 

In anticipation of congressional approval and to pave the way for the new 

Agency, the White House initiated a series of preparatory actions under the 

supervision of Dr. Killian and the Bureau of the Budget. 

In May 1958, it instructed NACA to prepare a full explanation of 

the proposed legislation for presentation at congressional hearings. NACA 

was to also make plans to reorient its programs. Internal organizations and 

management structure were changed to carry out the functions to be assigned 

to the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and as 

such, to lay the groundwork for whatever expansion might be necessary in 

order to implement the legislation when enacted. Along these lines, the White 

House directed the DOD and NACA to jointly review current Defense space 

programs to determine which ones should be transferred to the new Agency, 

and of those transferred, which would require continued military support. 

Finally, Killian wanted NACA officials to meet with the NAS, the NSF and 

the country’s academic community so as to ascertain how one might best 

secure their participation at large. 
28 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

By the time the draft legislation reached Congress, the ground 

work had been done. It was received with enthusiasm on both sides of the 

aisle. On 6 February 1958, the Senate created the Special Committee on 

Space and Astronautics. In a statement confirming its priority, Lyndon B. 

Johnson, the Senate Majority Leader from Texas, was named chairman. The 

House mirrored the move when on 5 March, it created a Select Committee 

on Astronautics and Space Exploration, naming the Speaker of the House 

John W. McCormack from Massachusetts as the chairman. Hearings got 

underway in April and three months later on 16 July, Congress passed the 

National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (Public Law 85D568) that 

NACA would become NASA after 90 days, unless the transition was proclaimed sooner by the new NASA administrator. Thus, less than six months 

after signing off on the proposal to Congress, the piece of legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a legal United 

States government organization returned to Eisenhower’s desk where it was 

signed on 29 July 1958. 

Thus in one move, NACA and its 8,000 employees were absorbed 

intact into the new space agency. Its three research Centers (Ames Aeronautical 

Laboratory, Langley Aeronautical Laboratory and Lewis Flight Propulsion 

Laboratory), along with the Army’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, formed the 

space agency’s first Field Centers.50 NACA’s meager $100 million annual operating budget would soon pale in draconian fashion to the funding that the new 

Agency would begin receiving as America committed itself to the space race. 

On 1 October 1958, just three days shy of the one year anniversary 

of Sputnik, NASA officially opened it doors as the nation’s space agency. 
Chapter 2 

EVOLUTION OF A 

NETWORK 

The formation of NASA had an immediate, galvanizing effect on 

United States space activities. One major effect was bringing together orga

nizations and programs that up until then had been functioning as separate 

entities. Consolidated along with the NACA were: Earth science satellite and 

lunar probe programs from the DOD’s Advanced Research Projects Agency; 

the Army’s JPL in Pasadena, California;1 the Army Ballistic Missile Agency’s 

Development Operations Division in Huntsville, Alabama including the 

important Saturn launch vehicle project; the IGY Vanguard and Explorer 

satellite programs, and with it, the Minitrack Network.2 Within weeks, 

Minitrack shifted from military control to NASA management. As part of this 

reorganization, contracts to industry were expanded to allow contractors to 

begin assuming the day-to-day network operations that had previously been 

performed by the military. 

­

One such contractor was Bendix. Murray T. Weingarten, 

President and Chairman of the Board for Bendix Field Engineering 

Corporation (BFEC) from 1973 to 1989, would recall that in this arrangement, 
30 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

The contractor forces were able to respond quickly, yet under 

control, to the many needs of NASA, whether they involved manning a far-off tracking station or chartering and flying a Douglas 

DC-3 aircraft to calibrate these tracking stations. . . . The word 

went out, if you had a problem, whether it involved calibrating a 

tracking station or a need for unique equipment, call ‘Hunter 6­

7700’, which was Bendix’s local phone number in Maryland. It was 

a fast and cost effective means to operate, a fact confirmed many 

years later through numerous congressional oversight hearings.3 

NASA depended on a large contingent of contractors to operate 

its tracking networks. This government/contractor “marriage” was a crucial 

ingredient as to why its tracking and data network has been as successful as it 

has been. Weingarten would attribute this long-term success to an infectious, 

esprit de corps of those who made the network happen. 

Whatever needed to be done, we did in an efficient and cost 

effective manner. The spirit was there. We were there to assist 

NASA in helping the United States become the first nation to 

land a man on the Moon. In those early days, NASA had many 

talented, strong, dedicated people who were decision makers 

gathered from other government agencies. We in industry became 

part of that team and were able to participate in the planning 

and the execution of those plans. The program had top priority 

and the team concept prevailed. Of course, there were problems, 

but we did not allow them to fester. They were discussed openly 

and resolved on a timely basis and the program moved forward. 

The program was a pioneering effort, and new program techniques, such as award fee concepts, were developed, all helping to move the program forward effectively and efficiently. This 

enabled us to break new ground, establish new policies, practices 

and procedures to have effective operations in all parts of the 

world, including such exotic places as Kano, Nigeria; Zanzibar, 

and Madagascar.4 

To see how this “can do” attitude shaped the network, one needs to go 

back and examine how things began to change soon after NASA was established. 

Soon after the Agency’s formation in the fall of 1958, many of the 

people directly responsible for the Minitrack Network transferred from the 

Office of Naval Research and the White Sands Missile Range to what would 

become the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Even before NASA officially opened, Congress authorized in August of 1958, $3.75 million for a 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 31 

“Space Projects Center” to be located near the Capital. On 1 August, Senator 

J. Glenn Beall of Maryland announced that the new Center would be located 

in Greenbelt just outside of Washington, DC on land that was already owned 

by the Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Research Center. Plans for the 

new Center were approved by NASA’s first Administrator T. Keith Glennan 

in November. To accomplish this transfer with as little disruption as possible 

to Project Vanguard, an agreement was reached between NASA and the Navy 

that provided for the continued use of Naval Research Laboratory facilities 

until the new Greenbelt facility could be completed. 

It was around this time that Wesley J. Bodin, a sonar researcher 

with NRL, became curious about the new space program, enough so that 

he transferred into the first group at the new Goddard Center. “When I say 

transferred, it was more than people,” said Bodin. “We transferred people, 

equipment, and functions. We had a network already built with the Army 

Corps of Engineers [Minitrack]. . . . This operating network was transferred— 

completely—into NASA.”5 

Initial personnel transfer took place on 30 November with 157 

members from the NRL being designated to what was temporarily the 

Vanguard Division of the yet unnamed space center. A month later another 

46 persons were moved to form the core of the Space Sciences Division. Over 

american rocket pioneer 

robert h. Goddard in a 

1932 photograph. (NaSa 

Image GpN-2000-001336) 
32 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the next three months, 73 additional people transferred to various new divisions. Major construction in Greenbelt soon began in April 1959.6 

On 1 May, NASA officially announced that the Center would be 

named the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in honor of American rocket 

pioneer Robert H. Goddard who on 16 March 1926 launched the world’s 

first liquid propellant rocket. Construction of the new Center continued over 

the next 18 months. Although the Center bustled with activity as soon as 

NRL personnel were transferred, NASA waited until 16 March 1961—the 

35th anniversary of Goddard’s pioneering launch—to officially dedicate the 

Center. In the meantiEme, NASA found office space wherever possible in the 

area to house the growing contingent of engineers and scientists. To maximize work space, Jack Mengel’s people in the Space Communications Branch, 

even turned barracks into offices at the nearby Naval Station in Anacostia.7 

Organizational changes soon followed. From the two groups that 

came over to NASA—the Vanguard group and a Space Sciences group—Jack 

Mengel formed a new networks division while John Townsend headed up the 

sciences division. (Mengel served as the first Director for Tracking and Data 

Systems at GSFC until retiring in 1972. Townsend became the Goddard Center 

Director from 1986 until his retirement in 1990.) Mengel would recall that: 

The excitement of the space program became a virtual magnet which attracted the very best people to handle the many new 

functions which had been assigned to the Goddard Center. This, 

of course, included tracking, data processing, computer operations, and worldwide communications which were needed to tie 

the system all together. Fortunately, we were able to assemble a 

truly priceless team of very dedicated and talented people.8 

Part of the new Center’s early organization included the Space Task 

Group (STG), a cadre of engineers and scientists out of Langley Research 

Center who were responsible for planning NASA’s “manned satellite” activities. Although located at Langley, the STG was actually part of Goddard’s 

early responsibilities as it assumed the lead for NASA’s new space projects. It 

was a busy time. The Center grew so rapidly that most of the people working 

human spaceflight—commonly known as manned spaceflight—also had to 

move off-Center for a while into a rented facility some five miles away because 

the Greenbelt Center literally ran out of space.9 In its multirole function, 

the Center was assigned the broad scope of managing scientific, communications, and meteorological satellite projects, and developing sounding rocket 

and spacecraft experiments. To support these activities, NASA’s first real-time 

computer complex was built at the Center. The building that housed this new 

computer facility was among the first to be constructed at Goddard. Some 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 33 

Dedication of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on 16 March 

1961. (NaSa Image No. 022) 

recall that it was still under construction and surrounded by a sea of mud even 

as IBM contractors installed interfaces to Cape Canaveral.10 

In January 1961, four months before Alan B. Shepard, Jr. became 

the first American in space, some 670 people from the STG separated from 

the Goddard organization to form the nucleus of what went on to become the 

Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston, Texas. In a move that would 

engender dissension between Houston and Greenbelt for years to come, 

Goddard still retained responsibility for managing and operating the tracking 

and data network for the human spaceflight program. It thus became the focal 

point from which all network activities (excluding the DSN which remained 

with the JPL) were coordinated and directed, and where data from the individual field stations were collected and processed. 

While Minitrack continued to track Explorer and Vanguard satellites using radio interferometry, changes were being made during this time to 

accommodate technology advancements rapidly occurring in the field of RF 

transmission.11 In 1960, Minitrack equipment was adjusted by network engineers to receive satellite transmissions in the Very High Frequency (VHF) part 

of the electromagnetic spectrum at 136 MHz. This modification greatly allevi­
34 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

a VhF double-stacked, yagi antenna, similar to common rooftop antennas used to 

receive over-the-air television signals, but much larger. the antenna consists of both 

vertical and horizontal dipoles which collect signals from a satellite, passing them to a 

preamplifier which boosts their strength for processing by a telemetry receiver. the photograph shows an antenna now at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex 

in tidbinbilla, australia, that is used to support the Interplanetary Monitoring platform 8 

(IMp-8) satellite. (photograph by the author) 

ated low frequency interference at many of the sites and was implemented by 

NASA so as to conform with new international standards being recommended 

by the International Telecommunication Union in the burgeoning field of 

space communications. In addition, telemetry reception at many network sites 

was improved with the addition of nine and sixteen yagi antenna arrays. 

As launch vehicles became steadily more reliable in the early 1960s 

and satellites were being launched into higher inclination orbits (the tilt of 

a satellite’s orbit measured with respect to the Equator), their ground tracks 

went well outside the ±35° latitude window that Minitrack had been designed 

to support. For the first time, polar orbits, where the ground track of a satellite covered the entire globe (ideal for weather observation and surveillance), 

came onto the scene. For this reason, Minitrack stations were soon added in 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 35 

northerly and southerly locations outside the original “picket line,” this even 

while some stations were being shut down. From 1959 to 1960, Minitrack 

reached a plateau in terms of the number of network stations. 

By the early 1960s, a whole new generation of scientific and applications satellites boasting capabilities well beyond those of the IGY satellites 

sprang to the forefront. These ranged from weather, communication, surveillance, and Earth science spacecraft to lunar and planetary deep space probes. 

The orbit mechanics of these higher altitude satellites meant slower angular 

rates with respect to a given location on the ground as a satellite circled the 

globe. Elliptical orbits also meant that fewer stations could observe a satellite as 

it circled the globe. Some, like the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP), 

were on extremely high eccentricity orbits with apogees out to 240,000 kilometers (150,000 miles). Since interferometer effectiveness depended on measuring angular differences, the data that Minitrack could provide for precise 

orbit determination became increasingly inadequate. On top of that, modulation techniques also advanced to accommodate the ever increasing demand 

for higher communication data rates, more complex ground command operations, and higher bandwidth digital telemetry items such as television. 

To accommodate this new generation of artificial satellites—soon 

to be followed by something even more ambitious in “manned satellites”—an 

evolution in NASA’s tracking network had to take place. “While the Vanguard 

program was intended to plow new ground, show new rocket technology and 

develop new guidance and control systems,” said Ches Looney when recalling 

the importance of these changes that were seemingly taking place overnight, 

“the manned space flight program, including its tracking system, required the 

use of proven, off-the-shelf hardware, to offer maximum reliability, because 

after all, human lives were [going to be] at stake.”12 

Looney, who was the Associate Division Chief for Advanced 

Development at Goddard from 1959 to 1966, added: 

We began to realize that while Minitrack was a marvelous 

system and absolutely essential in its time, the basic approach used 

was leading us into a blind alley. As things progressed, we were 

able to improve satellite trajectories and orbits as well as orbit calculations, which together with a new S-band ranging system [a 

higher frequency capable of handling higher data rates], allowed 

us to use large parabolic antenna dishes without independent 

acquisition aids such as Minitrack.13 

In another sign of the changing times, computer telemetry processing facilities were installed at the field stations to directly feed into Goddard 

computers. This was a far cry from Minitrack, when tracking data was recorded 
36 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

and had to be shipped to Goddard by air or surface courier, a process that took 

anywhere from two weeks to a month. Although coarse determination of the 

orbit track could be done at a station, precise orbit computations would be 

unknown for a couple of weeks.14 

The genesis of these changes can be traced back to December 1959 

when NASA formulated its first comprehensive program plan as the country’s 

new space agency in a document simply entitled “NASA Long-Range Plan,” 

prepared by its Office of Program Planning and Evaluation. The report that 

the Agency came up with was essentially a forecast of what it could do within 

certain budgetary constraints and reasonable extrapolations of the state-of-theart in launch vehicles—the pacing facet of space technology at the time. Plans 

such as this were being modified continually, particularly in the face of Soviet 

space “firsts,” which at the time seemed to be occurring at an alarming pace. 

Satellite launches over the coming two to three years were forecasted as part of this plan. These projections provided Goddard engineers 

with a set of requirements from which specific approaches for comprehensive 

tracking, telemetry, and command (TT&C) design were selected, developed, 

tested, and eventually turned into operational hardware. One of the first items 

of business began in 1960 when the GSFC started a process to upgrade the 

TT&C equipment at existing Minitrack stations. In addition to modernizing 

these old Minitrack sites, new stations were established. The network that 

emerged became known in the space community as the Satellite Tracking 

And Data Acquisition Network, or STADAN.15 

Over the next two years, large aperture, high gain circularly polarized, parabolic antennas replaced the less efficient, linearly polarized, yagi 

antennas so as to accommodate communications using the more bandwidth 

efficient S-band frequencies (2,100 MHz). The Minitrack approach gave way 

to far better equipped 12-meter (40-foot) and 26-meter (85-foot) dishes. The 

large 26-meter parabolic dish antennas, in particular, were designed to support the Nimbus meteorological satellite program with its flood of high data 

rate telemetry cloud cover photographs. In addition to receiving downlinked 

telemetry, these antennas could transmit satellite commands from a single 

disc-on-rod uplink antenna mounted on the side of the dish connected to a 

high power amplifier at the base of the antenna. At the same time, a somewhat 

scaled down, 12-meter version of the same antenna type was installed at a 

number of stations to circumvent the cost of the larger dishes.16 

A 26-meter pointing antenna system was a pricey item, costing some 

$910,000 (in 1961) to design, engineer, fabricate, and erect. Mengel was to 

recall that in 1961, NASA Administrator Keith Glennan said never to ask him 

again for any more such pricey equipment.17 However, this was only a harbinger of things to come as more advanced spacecraft and elaborate missions soon 

called for the use of even more sophisticated systems in the STADAN. 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 37 

Just as critical to the STADAN mission of downlink telemetry 

acquisition and uplink satellite commanding was the tracking function. It had 

become a great deal more difficult as NASA’s programs broadened to embrace 

satellites in high eccentricity, high apogee orbits all the way to geosynchronous orbits. In these orbits, angular rates with respect to a ground station 

changed very slowly (virtually none in the case of geosynchronous). Because 

of this, interferometry effectiveness was greatly reduced and sometimes eliminated altogether. 

These tracking problems were anticipated by NASA early on. 

Addressing the issue, Edmund J. Habib at Goddard and Eli Baghadady of 

Adcom, Inc., devised a solution called the Goddard Range And Range Rate 

(GRARR) system. GRARR differed from Minitrack in that it was an active 

rather than a passive tracking system. In Minitrack, a beacon aboard a satellite 

continuously sent out a signal which was received on the ground when it came 

into range of a station. With the GRARR, a concept called “side-tone ranging” was used. In side-tone ranging, range tones were sent from the ground 

station up to the spacecraft on a VHF carrier separate from the S-band uplink 

carrying the command signal. An onboard transponder then returned these 

VHF tones along with the downlinked S-band telemetry. At the ground station, the precise time delay between the transmitted and received tones was 

measured to determine the range (and its rate of change) from the site to 

the spacecraft. With similar information from other STADAN stations from 

around the world, the orbit in which a satellite is traveling could thus be 

determined very precisely. When the system was first set up around the network, ranges out to 400,000 kilometers (250,000 miles or approximately the 

distance of the Moon from Earth) could be measured. Typical ranging accuracy was ±25 meters (82 feet), impressive for its time; range rate accuracy was 

just as good at ±15 centimeters (6 inches) per second.18 

In describing the complexity of ranging systems, George Kronmiller, 

former Goddard GRARR Project Manager explained: 

During the early VHF years, our commanding and telemetry 

units were the same as the spacecraft’s. We never took telemetry through the ranging system, not because we couldn’t receive 

the signal, but because we didn’t have the data handling gear 

to capture telemetry data and transmit it to NASCOM [NASA 

Communications Network] lines. Actually, until the STDN 

[Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network which Goddard formed 

in 1975], commanding and telemetry were kept separate from 

range and range rate, even with S-band. With the development 

of USB [Unified S-band], ranging and commanding could be 

handled on the same carrier. After the MSFN [Manned Space 
38 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Women operators, such 

as Melba roy at the 

Goddard Space Flight 

Center in a picture 

taken in 1964, were a 

big part of the tracking 

workforce. (NaSa Image 

GpN-2000-001647) 

Flight Network] and the STADAN combined to form the STDN, 

VHF remained the same, but the S-band system combined into a 

unified command, ranging and telemetry system using the same 

NASA standard near-Earth transponder on the spacecraft.19 

GRARR equipment was usually housed in two trailers, one 

accommodating receiving and the other transmitting equipment. It operated 

in two different frequency bands: VHF (Very High Frequency) at around 

150 MHz and an Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band at about 2,500 MHz. 

Two antennas were used, one for VHF and the other for UHF. Each was used 

for both transmission and reception. Angular tracking measurements could 

also be made by this equipment, but its accuracy was only good to within 

±0.1 degree in elevation and azimuth, sufficient for the tracking of distant 

spacecraft but not always good enough for following spacecraft whose angular 

rates changed more rapidly. Thus, the angular information was often used as 

pointing or acquisition information for other instruments. Each of the two 

uplink transmitters radiated at 10,000 watts of power—about 5,000 times the 

power of an outdoor “walkie-talkie” hand radio. Since it continuously radiated while the equipment was on, station staff had to be cautious so as to avoid 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 39 

exposure, particularly at the microwave frequencies. A system of flashing red 

warning lights could be found around a station so that people knew when the 

transmitters were on.20 

By 1962, the initial GRARR ground elements were installed in 

trailers at Rosman, North Carolina; Tananarive, Madagascar; and Carnarvon, 

Wester Australia. The system was continually improved and used throughout 

the 1960s, supporting numerous Goddard satellite programs to provide range 

and range rate data whose accuracy would not be surpassed until the use of 

lasers a decade later. On Explorer 35—a so-called “Anchored Interplanetary 

Platform” orbiting the Moon—its range was measured to within 1,500 meters 

(4,900 feet) and the range rate accurate to within 65 centimeters (25.5 inches) 

per second at the lunar distance. Goddard engineers eventually considered the 

system reliable out to 1.3 million kilometers (800,000 miles), or three times 

the distance from Earth to the Moon. This was quite an accomplishment for 

1960s technology.21 

Yet a third improvement had to do with the dramatic increase in the 

data transfer volume that the Goddard network began to experience in the 

early 1960s. The observatory class of satellites such as the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO 1 in 1962) and the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO 1 in 

1964) ushered in an era of information explosion. Meteorological satellites, 

like the Television Infrared Observatory Satellite (TIROS 1 in 1960) and 

Nimbus 1 in 1964, also required large amounts of telemetry to be downlinked 

to the ground during any given data pass over a ground station. 

To meet these high “data dump” requirements, Satellite Automatic 

Tracking Antennas (known by the unflattering acronym SATAN) were installed 

throughout the network so as to supplement the telemetry reception workload of the parabolic dishes. These were essentially smaller, automatic tracking or “auto-track” replacements for the fixed Minitrack yagi antenna arrays. 

Operating in the VHF-band, SATANs were less sensitive (lower antenna gain) 

than their larger S-band counterparts, but were much less expensive to purchase, install and operate than the large dish antennas. Eventually, 30 SATAN 

antennas were installed throughout the STADAN during the 1960s.22 

As the technology of NASA’s global tracking network migrated 

from one of using radio interferometry and optics of the late 1950s to the more 

sophisticated STADAN of the 1960s, requirements on the locations of the stations changed with it.When the original Minitrack Network was developed, site 

selection was driven (and constrained) primarily by the short range of the tiny 

Vanguard transmitter, the technology of the receiving electronics and the general lack of precision tracking available during the satellite’s early orbit. In other 

words, no one was exactly sure just where a satellite might appear over the horizon.Thus, Minitrack stations were originally spaced rather closely along a longitudinal line roughly following the 75th meridian (the “picket line”). Later, with 
40 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

downrange tracking ships and much better ascent and orbit injection tracking, 

rough ephemerides (position-time information from which orbital elements are 

derived for orbit determination) were available even before booster burnout. 

As a result, the three original “early ops” stations in the British West 

Indies—Antigua, Grand Bahama and Grand Turk—just downrange of Cape 

Canaveral were shut down in 1961. In some cases, actions by the DOD were a 

factor.A year earlier, for example, the Chula Vista station on Brown Field near 

San Diego had to be moved to Mojave when the Navy closed down that air station.23 (It was at this new location that the Mojave Station went on to become 

the STADAN side of NASA’s Goldstone Communication Complex.) 

The picket line also changed. Take the Minitrack station in Chile 

for example. It had been located since 1957 at a spot called Salar del Carmen 

in the Pacific port town of Antofagasta on the northern part of the country. Initially operated by the U.S. Army, it was operated by a joint NASA/ 

University of Chile team under contract NAS5-1925 when the space agency 

was established in 1958. However, with the improved capabilities of the 

nearby stations at Santiago and Lima, Antofagasta became redundant and was 

closed in July 1963. Some University of Chile personnel were transferred 

to the improved Santiago site (actually at nearby Peldehue) while most of 

the American contractors returned to the United States for reassignment. 

Telemetry equipment was redistributed, largely to the stations at Santiago and 

Lima. However, heavy equipment like power generators and air conditioners 

were returned to the U.S. for use at other stations. 

While the Antofagasta site was being shut down, the neighboring station at Santiago underwent a $1.2 million improvement to include the 

installation of a 12-meter (40-foot) medium gain antenna, a 370-square meter 

(4,000-square foot) operations building and a new collimation tower (a tower 

located a few miles from the main antenna equipped with an RF emitter used 

as an aim point to checkout and calibrate the automatic tracking capability of 

the antenna). Under the original contract with the University of Chile which 

allowed the United States to put a station on Chilean soil, the school had 

“agreed to provide . . . land as may be necessary for the effective operation of 

the station.”24 Since the entire reservation on which the station was located 

was used only for pasteurization, obtaining the additional 10 acres that was 

needed for modernizing the station did not present a problem. 

The station staff at Santiago almost immediately doubled in 1963, 

from 38 (16 Americans and 22 Chileans) to 62. Under the contract with the 

university, NASA eventually replaced half of the additional 24 people with 

trained Chileans. Said Wes J. Bodin, the Associate Chief of the STADAN 

Engineering Division at the time, this was just an example of the rapid growth 

that the STADAN saw during this time. “When a requirement came in, we 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 41 

added to the network.” Permanent or temporary sites were added as mission 

requirements called for. Bodin cited a couple of examples: 

When NASA started launching spacecraft into polar orbits, 

the second injection burn . . . was too far east of Johannesburg, 

so we added Tananarive. When we needed stations with large 

high-gain antennas, and this was a new requirement, we installed 

our first 26-meter (85-foot) antenna in Alaska. It wasn’t too bad 

working there, so long as you were finished construction work by 

December when the temperature could hit 60 below!25 

This time period also saw what would be the first of several episodes 

in the political environment of the host country that would directly affect 

NASA’s operation of its stations. Up until the 1950s, Cuba was a relatively 

stable independent island, enjoying strong agricultural trade with the United 

States and serving as a popular tourist destination in the western Caribbean. 

The U.S. had occupied this largest of the Caribbean islands in the SpanishAmerican War of 1898 until its independence was granted in 1902. After that, 

the United States continued to have a major influence in Cuban affairs, even 

occupying it briefly a second time from 1905 to 1909. 

In 1940, Fulgencio Batista was elected president and over the next 

four years, began a series of idealistic reforms. Not surprisingly, the Cubans 

did not see eye-to-eye with his isolationist views and voted him out of office 

in 1944. In 1952 however, Batista regained power in a bloodless coup three 

months before the planned election. This time, he instituted a dictatorship. As 

a result, many factions and guerrilla groups began opposing him. One such 

group was led by Fidel Castro Ruz who had participated in a failed attempt to 

overthrow the Dominican Republic government in 1947. He was a staunch 

nationalist known for his opposition of American influence in Cuba. In 1953, 

Castro attacked the Moncada barracks, the main provincial garrison of Batista’s 

army, but was captured and exiled to Mexico. However, he returned to Cuba 

in November of 1956 and over the course of the next two years, his “26th 

of July Movement” gathered strength and influence, eventually to the point 

where Batista finally had to flee the country on 31 December 1958. The next 

day, Castro established a one party communist state in Cuba, the first of its 

kind in the Western Hemisphere. 

At the time of Batista’s ouster, 75 percent of Cuba’s farmable land 

was owned by foreign interest (mostly U.S.). The new government adopted 

land reforms and confiscated all the private property owned by upper class 

Cubans and foreign companies. Although Castro did not officially reveal his 

Marxist leanings until 1961, the United States had recognized the intentions 

of the new government, and as a result, relations rapidly deteriorated. On the 
42 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

day that Castro seized control of the Cuban government, the Minitrack station, which was located at Batista Military Airfield, was shut down even as 

the American Embassy scrambled to learn the fate of NASA Station Director 

Chester ‘Chet’ Matthes and his family, as well as that of the military personnel assigned to the tracking station.26 By noon the next day, confirmation was received that all were safe. Station personnel were then told by the 

State Department to follow instructions from the American Embassy and that 

the station would reopen when the Embassy received word and considered it 

advisable. But that word never came. Instead, they were told to close out the 

station, remove the assets and leave the country.27 

In events unrelated to Cuba during this time, operations at the 

Fort Stewart Station in Georgia underwent some reorganization. When the 

Minitrack station was established there in 1957, the site was primarily an 

Army anti-aircraft training facility. After the Korean cease fire, the Army 

recognized that it needed to maintain a ready and able armor force that could 

be deployed at a moment’s notice to deal with threats that may suddenly 

erupt. As a result, Fort Stewart was turned into an Armor and Artillery Firing 

Center since its old anti-aircraft ranges and impact areas were better suited for 

this purpose than for the new age of missiles. Because of this realignment, the 

NASA tracking station no longer fit the bill for the post’s new mission and the 

Fort Stewart Station was phased out of the Minitrack Network.28 

With the abrupt shut down of two primary stations,a gaping hole materialized in the middle of the picket line.NASA had to quickly find a replacement. 

Attention focused on Fort Myers, Florida. Situated essentially midway between 

Fort Stewart and Havana, it was a logical choice, geographically. Equipment was 

immediately relocated to Florida from the two sites that had shut down and satellite pass responsibilities redesignated and combined at the new site. 

From 1960 through 1963, most of the early Minitrack stations were 

refurbished and transitioned into the STADAN. For example, Johannesburg, 

Quito and Santiago received 12-meter (40-foot) antennas, and all acquired 

dual receive/command SATANs. Santiago was modified into a GRARR site, 

as well. The South American stations, in particular, continued as a centerpiece 

in the evolved network, providing NASA with a tracking and data acquisition 

capability in the southern hemisphere.29 

With satellite ground tracks now extending well beyond the 

original ±35 ̊ latitude window, new stations at locations outside that latitude range had to be built. From 1960 to 1966, the GSFC oversaw the build 

up of eight additional STADAN stations on four continents. These were 

the most advanced stations to date. In North America, they were located at 

Fairbanks, Alaska; East Grand Forks, Minnesota; Rosman, North Carolina; 

and St. John’s, Newfoundland, the eastern-most point of Canada.30 In Europe, 

the Winkfield Station was erected in Berkshire, England. The addition of 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 43 

these sites greatly expanded satellite coverage in the northern hemisphere, 

increasing the observation window from 35o latitude to 65o. In the south, the 

Johannesburg Station was joined by a new one at Tananarive in the Malagasy 

Republic on the island of Madagascar. 

Fairbanks and Rosman soon became the most extensive stations 

in the system. In March 1962, Gilmore Creek, on the outskirts of Fairbanks, 

received the first of the large parabolic dishes, featuring both the 12- and 26­

meter (40-and 85-foot) dishes, along with the GRARR and a full complement of SATAN equipment. In November 1966, in what was essentially 

a cost saving move, the STADAN site in College, Alaska, still operating 

Minitrack equipment, was consolidated with the nearby Fairbanks Data 

Acquisition Facility (DAF) at Gilmore Creek for an estimated annual savings 

of $292,000.31 This was a relatively easy decision by Goddard as these sites in 

the vicinity of Fairbanks were less than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from each 

other. With this move, the last of the remaining Minitrack antenna arrays 

was transferred to Gilmore. 

The Fairbanks Station—also known officially as “Alaska”—was 

located in the central part of the state 22 kilometers northeast of Fairbanks at 

a well-known landmark where Rose Creek joined Gilmore Creek. Being the 

most northerly of all the stations, Alaska provided crucial support for polar 

and high eccentricity, elliptical orbiting spacecraft such as the Nimbus weather 

satellites and the Alouette. (On 29 September 1962, Canada became the third 

country to orbit an artificial satellite with the launch of the Alouette, a science 

satellite to study the affect of aurora borealis, or the Northern Lights, on radio 

frequency (RF) signal propagation in the upper ionosphere and its effect on 

communications.) Conditions at the station were at times harsh, characterized 

by cold winters of below -60oF and summers in which the temperature could 

rise above 90oF. During the winter months for example, the station had to 

operate a steam boiler system to forestall the spread of glacier formations 

around the site. 

Even though work conditions for personnel assigned to remote 

locations such as Alaska could at times be trying, severe injury or death in 

the field was not a common thing. A case in point, though, was recorded on 

3 May 1969 at the Fairbanks Station. At approximately 4:30 p.m., a RCA 

Service Company (the station’s maintenance and operations contractor) 

employee named George Matilla was found crushed to death beneath his car 

at the station’s garage. Since it was a weekend, no one knew exactly what had 

happened. His death was later ruled as an accident by the Alaska State Patrol 

who concluded that the jack had slipped as he worked alone under his car, 

fatally crushing him.32 Throughout the years, there have been other stories as 

well, particularly at the more desolate locations, of those who wandered out­
44 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Orroral Valley (Orr), nestled some 50 kilometers southwest of Canberra in the Namadgi 

National park, was one of 10 NaSa stations in australia at one time. the most comprehensive Satellite tracking and Data acquisition Network station in the Southern 

hemisphere, Orr operated from 1965 to 1984. Clearly seen are the 26-meter antenna 

adjacent to the main Operations Building and the 2 SataN antennas. Note the Minitrack 

array in the foreground. (photo courtesy of CSIrO) 

side the station compound to check on equipment or simply “went fishing” 

and were never heard from again.33 

In the Southern Hemisphere, cooperation between Australia and the 

United States in the field of space research began in 1957 with construction of 

facilities at Woomera, South Australia, for the IGY. In a formal exchange of notes 

in February 1960, the two governments agreed on a cooperative space program: 

The object of such further and extended cooperation would 

be to facilitate spaceflight operations contributing to the advancement of our mutual scientific knowledge of man’s spatial environment and its effects; the application of this knowledge to the 

direct benefit of man; and the development of space vehicles of 

advanced capabilities, including manned space vehicles.34 

The Australian ground stations were established and run by the 

Department of Supply, or the DOS. In this agreement, construction and 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 45 

operation of the stations were financed by NASA while the DOS provided 

management and staffing, either from its own resources within the Weapons 

Research Establishment or through Australian industry contractors. In this 

way, Australia had the most autonomy and independence in running the 

NASA stations outside of the United States. Unlike most stations where the 

local staff reported to an onsite, NASA-appointed Station Director, the DOS 

in Australia appointed its own people. In this way, a great sense of ownership 

was promoted—one which prevails to this day. 

The Australian government welcomed space activities as intrinsically good and providing a medium for strengthening diplomatic cooperation 

with the U.S. It viewed such activities as having strong spin-off potential to 

Australia in such fields as defense, communications, and astronomy. From the 

beginning, Australia was sensitive to the importance of retaining independence and having a substantial share in the control of network activities on its 

soil. Robert A. Leslie, who headed Australia’s network operations—a “father 

figure” in the commonwealth’s space work—stated its position very clearly 

in a 1974 letter to the Minister of Science in which he reiterated this right of 

Australian ownership: 

1	 The employment of foreigners where Australians could be 

employed would be undesirable. 

2	 Control of the activity in foreign hands might have been a matter for question on security grounds and would have been a 

matter of national controversy. 

3	 The maximum spin-off to Australia—for example, to industry, 

universities and government agencies—could best be affected 

by Australians. 

In return for what could be viewed as granting of Australian autonomy, the DOS made an annual contribution to NASA, a subsidy of $140,000 

for operations of the Australian Tracking Stations. Although insignificant in 

terms of absolute dollar amount to NASA’s budget (measured in the billions of 

dollars), this token sum has nevertheless been viewed importantly by the U.S. as 

a sign of goodwill and good faith on the part of the Australian government.35 

In August 1960, the Minitrack station at Satellite Tracking Centre 

just northwest of Woomera was moved to the nearby Island Lagoon dry lake 

bed 22 kilometers (14 miles) to the south and its operations combined with 

the new Deep Space Network (DSN) site there. A station was also opened at 

Carnarvon,Western Australia, collocated with a Mercury Space Flight Network 

station that was then being constructed. However, the largest STADAN site in 
46 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

a vintage 1960s antenna Control Unit (aCU). Graphical computer displays, touch 

screens and joysticks have, for the most part, replaced the lights and buttons of the old 

aCUs. Shown is a control unit on display at the Space Museum at the Canberra Deep 

Space Communication Complex in tidbinbilla. (photograph by the author) 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 47 

the Southern Hemisphere officially opened on 24 February 1966 at Orroral 

Valley 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Canberra. 

The Orroral Station was needed as Woomera (officially closed on 

22 December 1972) was no longer a cost-effective location for NASA. Situated 

in the quiet valley of Namadgi National Park, Orroral provided an RF-quiet 

area to meet requirements for the new 26-meter (85-foot) antennas that were 

being installed across the STADAN. The rolling hills surrounding the area 

made Orroral an ideal environment for a tracking station by naturally shielding the site from man-made radio frequency interference. When the station 

site was chosen, the isolated valley located deep in the “Land of the Echidna 

and Platypus” was accessible only to light and off-road vehicles. Even today, 

one needs to cross the 100-year-old Tharwa Bridge just to reach the site. 

Before construction could start, suitable roads had to be paved for the passage 

of heavy construction equipment and antenna hardware. As at sites around the 

world, NASA provided this as part of its construction. 

Six months after the station became operational, network responsibilities at Island Lagoon were phased out and what was left of the Minitrack 

equipment was moved to the new location. The net effect of this growth 

was to more than double the time that high inclination orbiting satellites 

could be in contact with the ground. Orroral became the most comprehensive STADAN site in the Southern Hemisphere. Construction of the station 

began in November 1964 and was completed in July of the next year at a cost 

of £1,000,000 (about $1.5 million U.S. dollars in 1964).36 

The layout of the station was fairly typical of the new, larger DAFs 

across the STADAN. Equipment was contained within an area of about 40 

acres and laid out so as to minimize interference to the receiving systems 

from buildings, support structures and other antennas. The centerpiece of 

the station was the 26-meter diameter parabolic tracking antenna. Weighing 

with its support structure and hydraulic gimbal-drive mechanism some 400 

metric tons (882,000 pounds) and standing 36 meters (120 feet) high, it was 

easily the most prominent structure on site. From the Operations Building, 

the antennas were controlled and all tracking activities coordinated with the 

rest of the network. 

During acquisition, the antenna—directed by data passed from 

Goddard—searched a specified area of the sky until it picked up the beacon 

signal transmitted by the satellite. The antenna data system then measured and 

encoded the look-angles and fed this information into a servo control system 

and an Antenna Control Unit (ACU) in the control center at the Operations 

Building. The information was also recorded on teletype punched tape and 

passed to the control center for orbit determination. 

To receive telemetry downlink from a satellite, a command signal 

was encoded and transmitted using one of two 2,500 watt transmitters feed­
48 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Layout of the Orroral Valley StaDaN Station. Note that the Minitrack array transferred 

from Woomera was eventually placed further west of the SataN receivers than shown 

ing a small command antenna that was attached to the rim of the main dish. 

Signal from this uplink activated a transmitter in the satellite and data stored 

onboard the satellite could be transmitted to the ground station. Data and 

timing signals were then processed for recording onto 14-track reel-to-reel 

magnetic tapes and, in the case of time-critical information, for transmission 

by teletype back to Goddard. Backup receiving was usually provided by an 

onsite steerable Yagi antenna which could be directed by information from 

any of the primary tracking dish antennas.37 

A continuous electrical power supply to a station was obviously 

vital to its operations. Even a brief outage could cause loss of data or compromise the mission if it were to occur at a key moment. If available, network 

stations used commercial line power backed up by its own diesel power gen­
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 49 

in the diagram. (StaDaN Facility, Orroral Valley, aCt: Information Brochure. Folder 

680/5/23 NaSa australian Operations Office, Yarralumla, aCt) 

erators. If line power was not available—as was the case at ORR—then power 

was generated onsite exclusively using dual-redundant generators with sufficient capacity to provide full backup should one unit fail. At Orroral, for 

instance, two 250,000-watt and two 500,000-watt units were used. Sites usually had two separate power distribution systems, one to run the station core 

electronics and tracking equipment and the other for utilities, air conditioning, lighting, and facility electricity needs.38 

Finally, a DAF was not cheap to operate, requiring a staff of about 

150 technical, administrative and maintenance workers rotating in shifts. 

The operating cost was about $1.2 million a year in the mid-1960s, almost as 

much as the onetime cost to build a station. NASA spent over $140 million 

in Australia alone in the 1970s. Besides just getting the technical job done, 
50 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

such international cooperation also yielded social benefits. For example, by 

the mid-1970s, seven of the ten stations which had been built in Australia 

since 1958 had become popular tourist attractions, often offered as stops by 

touring companies. The Department of Science officially estimated that from 

1965 to when it closed in 1974, the Carnarvon Station was visited by 7,000 to 

10,000 people every year (this, in a continent of around 12 million in 1970). 

Similarly, the DSN site at Tidbinbilla on the outskirts of Canberra was drawing some 8,000 visitors annually.39 

In addition to the permanent sites at Orroral and Carnarvon, several 

project-specific (temporary) stations were also added by Goddard in Australia. 

One reason that the Southern Hemisphere played host to most of the temporary sites was because that was where the critical Earth-injection phase of 

a mission to send satellites into high-inclination orbits usually took place. 

Key among these places was Darwin, a transportable station on the northern 

shores of Australia, selected specifically to support the Orbiting Geophysical 

Project missions, and Cooby Creek near Toowoomba in Queensland, which 

was added to support the Applications Technology Satellites (ATS). Kano, 

Nigeria in 1965 provided another temporary site for STADAN, briefly housing equipment supporting the International Satellite for Ionospheric Studies 

(ISIS). Goddard even ventured into Pakistan where a site was set up for a 

while to observe LANDSAT.40 

As STADAN grew, one of its requirements was to receive high 

bit rate digital telemetry from a new observatory-class of large, science satellites. These included the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO), Orbiting 

Astronomical Observatory (OAO), Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) and 

the Nimbus weather satellites. While the facility in Alaska could support polar 

orbiting and high inclination satellites, it could not support this new class of 

observatories, which orbited Earth at lower inclinations. 

For these missions, Goddard needed a wideband DAF at a latitude 

that was suitable for a high percentage of data recovery on these orbits. Dubbed 

internally as Project 3379, network engineers began looking for a suitable location for their newest station in 1962. Site surveys eventually whittled the number of possibilities down to two: Fort Valley, Georgia and Rosman, North 

Carolina. Rosman—the actual station site was some 15 kilometers northwest 

of the town itself—was eventually selected. The choice was due in part to 

Rosman being closer to Greenbelt which expedited experimenters with evaluation and control of their projects. Located 55 kilometers southwest of Asheville 

on the grounds of Pisgah National Forest, the site had an advantage of the natural setting of the surrounding hills which provided shielding from electromagnetic interference. Because it was on national forest land, the location also 

lacked high voltage transmission lines and commercial circuits in its vicinity 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 51 

Natural rF shielding from the surrounding hills is evident, as is the size difference 

between a 64- and 26-meter antenna in this undated photograph of the DSN station 

at tidbinbilla. (Unnumbered photograph, Folder 8820, NaSa historical reference 

Collection, NaSa history Division, NaSa headquarters, Washington, DC) 

and, in the early 1960s, had an absence of commercial airline routes directly 

over the station.41 

NASA invested $5 million in 1962 to build the station, filling a critical need as the network modernized from Minitrack to STADAN.42 Rosman 

was established specifically as a full service Data Acquisition Facility and was 

among the first not to have the old interferometry tracking system. The site was 

well equipped to handle the new network mission, providing a full suite of the 

most up-to-date equipment for its time: telemetry reception with two 26-meter 

antennas that could autotrack at 1.7 and 2.29 GHz; a 3 kW command uplink 

system; a SATAN 16-element automatic yagi antenna array; S-band GRARR; 

a 1,200-square meter (13,000-square foot) operations building; a 420-square 

meter (4,500-square foot) power and service building housing four 200-kilovolt 

diesel generators, garage, and utilities; a 140-square meter (1,500-square foot) 

building to house the antenna hydraulic drive system; and a collimation tower 

with a small transmitter building located 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) west of the 

main antenna to serve as a boresight (beam center) for calibration and testing of 

the main tracking antennas. The first 26-meter system became operational in 
52 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

July 1962 followed by the second unit in August 1964. These were immediately 

used to support S-band communications, which began earlier that year with the 

launch of the Hughes-built Syncom 1, the world’s first geosynchronous communications satellite, on 14 February 1963.43 

The Tar Heel state embraced its new scientific venture enthusiastically. On 26 October 1963, Rosman was officially dedicated with a ceremony replete with VIPs. Principal speakers included Governor J. Terry 

Sanford; U.S. Senators Sam J. Ervin, Jr. and B. Everett Jordan; Dr. George 

L. Simpson, Jr., NASA Assistant Administrator for Technology Utilization 

and Policy Planning; Edmond C. Buckley, Director of the Office of Tracking 

and Data Acquisition; and Dr. Harry J. Goett, GSFC Center Director. U.S. 

Representative Roy A. Taylor served as master of ceremonies.44 

Although small compared to the 70-meter (230-foot) antennas 

used at the time by the DSN, the 26-meter (85-foot) dishes used in STADAN 

were nevertheless massive in their own right. Their movement was controlled 

by two large hydraulic motors that enabled three kinds of operation: 

1	 Manual operation in which the antenna was guided by an operator,who sitting at his control console,actually steered the antenna 

by sending electrical servo-signals to the motors. 

2	 Computer operation in which commands were sent by a computer that predicted the path of the satellite. Due to its large 

aperture, the 26-meter (85-foot) antenna had a rather narrow 

beamwidth (the direction in front of an antenna in which RF 

signals can be reasonably detected and focused). Consequently, it 

must be pointed near the horizon in the vicinity in which the 

satellite was expected to rise before the signal could be acquired 

(the acquisition process). By predicting the path of a satellite 

in orbit, the antenna could be pre-positioned by the computer 

thereby reducing the search time. 

3	 Automatic operation, or autotrack, in which a satellite’s movement across the sky was automatically tracked by the antenna 

as it moved across its field-of-view. In this mode, the ACU 

converted the position of the satellite relative to the antenna 

boresight into electrical control signals which were sent to the 

antenna. In autotrack, the antenna was usually pointed just above 

the horizon at an azimuth where the satellite was expected to 

break horizon. Once acquired, autotracking enabled the dish to 

follow a spacecraft from horizon to horizon. During this process, the station computer converted the angular position of the 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 53 

antenna into electronic code which was automatically punched 

on teletype tape.This data was then transmitted to Goddard via 

the NASCOM where it was processed along with pass data from 

other stations for use in orbit determination calculations.45 

Output from each of these antennas was fed to a telemetry receiver 

located in a nearby control and operations building. The job of the receivers was to convert the radio frequency signal from the antenna into a lower 

frequency signal which could then be recorded onto reel-to-reel magnetic 

tape—a process known as down converting. The output of the receiver contained many individual pieces of information, not unlike, for example, the 

picture and sound for television received on a single channel. The magnetic 

tape recorders used to record the telemetry operated on the same principles as 

everyday-use home tape recorders but were much more robust in terms of the 

amount of data and speed they could record at. In addition to the telemetry 

itself, a precise time reference, the signal strength and operator voice annotations, if any, were all recorded simultaneously onto the tapes. Once packaged, 

the tapes were shipped to Goddard for processing. 

In spaceflight communications, precise timing data, in particular, is 

of the essence. A spacecraft in circular orbit at 480 kilometers (300 miles) 

above the surface of Earth travels at a speed of 7,600 meters-per-second (25,000 

feet-per-second), or roughly 27,300 kilometers-per-hour (17,000 miles-perhour)! Therefore, accurate timing information is of the utmost importance so 

that computation of the spacecraft’s position in space can be made and that 

timing of various scientific events as downlinked to the ground can be pinpointed. In the STADAN, DAF timing was synchronized to the U.S. Bureau 

of Standards Time Standard Radio Station—WWV in Boulder, Colorado— 

to an accuracy of ±0.001 seconds, or one one-thousandths of a second. While 

this level of accuracy may not seem like much in the age of the Global 

Positioning System, where timing accuracies are measured not in terms of 

milliseconds but microseconds (one millionth of a second), it was quite the 

accomplishment in the analog era of the 1960s. These time-code generators 

produced electronically coded pulses which were recorded onto magnetic 

tapes simultaneously with the tracking and telemetry signals to provide the 

needed timing reference. Finally, to compliment the new, large, parabolic 

antennas, Rosman, along with the other DAFs at Gilmore Creek and Orroral 

Valley, continued to use the SATANs. Even though older, they still provided 

the much larger field-of-view needed to track the older generation satellites 

that still operated on VHF frequencies.46 

During this time, the STADAN also saw the addition of one of 

the few network additions not in the English-speaking world. In 1964, a 

transportable station was set up on the island of Madagascar just off the east 
54 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

African coast. A common language was obviously desirable from the standpoint of working with local nationals and with the local government. This 

was always one of the factors NASA considered when choosing locations for 

its ground stations. However, a station was required in the western part of the 

Indian Ocean for tracking highly elliptical, high apogee orbit injections that 

occurred over that part of the world. Also, NASA had to look for another 

location when it became apparent that the South African station would not be 

able to cover some of these critical events. 

On 19 December 1963, the U.S. entered into a 10-year agreement 

with the Malagasy Republic allowing for the installation of a transportable 

ground station outside the port city of Majunga in northwest Madagascar. 

This agreement was reached in accordance with the spirit of a United Nations 

resolution calling for the application of results of space research to benefit 

all peoples. In addition to benefiting that region of the world by generating much-needed weather forecasts (especially during hurricane season), the 

station provided jobs for some 200 local residents in nontechnical positions 

for handling of day-to-day station maintenance. In reaching this agreement, 

NASA sent a delegation to the capital city of Tananarive where they were 

“received by the president, Mr. Philibert Tsiranana, most graciously in an 

office decorated with space memorabilia.”47 He soon gave the United States 

his enthusiastic support and permitted NASA to start bringing telemetry vans 

into Majunga. 

The initial equipment consisted of five 9-meter (30-foot) trailers, 

each housing a 136.2-KHz and 400-MHz telemetry receiver that were geared 

to support the Nimbus, POGO (Polar Orbiting Geophysical Observatory) and 

A-12 Goddard satellite programs. Much of the equipment at Majunga came 

from the Australian sites of Muchea and Woomera, which had phased out 

at the conclusion of Project Mercury the previous May.48 An MPS-26 radar 

was also temporarily deployed to support the EGO (Eccentric Geophysical 

Observatories) satellites.49 

Explanatory literature handed out to familiarize station workers 

assigned to Madagascar described the environment as an area of mild winters 

and rainy summers, a relatively expensive but charming place to live. The 

handbook noted that the people of Madagascar were not politically minded 

and were predisposed to favor America and Americans. Harry McKeehan, 

who represented GSFC in negotiations with the Republic, called “our friendship with the president and the people of this island republic invaluable in 

building and operating this Indian Ocean site.”50 This cooperation was to play 

a pivotal role later when a political uprising in nearby Zanzibar created a tense 

situation, one in which American lives were put in jeopardy that required an 

evacuation to the Malagasy Republic (see Chapter 4). 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 55 

Table 2-1: Stations of the Satellite Tracking And Data Acquisition 

Network (STADAN) 

Station 

Latitude 

Longitude From To 

Equipment and 

Capabilities Remarks 

North America 

Alaska 

(Fairbanks) 

64°59’N 

147°31’W 

1962 1984 GRARR, MOTS, 

Minitrack, SATAN, 

One each 40, 45, 

85-foot dish 

College site closed in 1966 

and Minitrack equipment 

transferred to Gilmore. The most 

comprehensive of the STADAN 

stations. 

Blossom Point, 

Maryland 

38°25’N 

77°06’W 

1956 1966 Minitrack, MOTS, 

SATAN 

The prototype Minitrack station. 

Used as a servicing station and 

training facility. NASA ceased 

joint operations with the Navy 

in 1966. Continued to be used 

by the NRL as a satellite control 

center. 

East Grand 

Forks, 

Minnesota 

47°56’N 

97°01’W 

1960 1966 Minitrack, MOTS, 

SATAN 

Located near Grand Forks Air 

Force Base, a key ICBM station. 

Fort Myers, 

Florida 

26°33’N 

81°52’W 

1959 1972 Minitrack, SATAN, 

MOTS 

Station formed when Havana 

and Fort Stewart shut down. 

Minitrack equipment transferred. 

Mojave, 

California 

35°20’N 

116°54’W 

1960 1969 40-foot dish, 

SATAN, Minitrack, 

MOTS 

Moved from Brown Field near 

San Diego in 1960. Located in 

the Goldstone complex in valley 

adjacent to DSN site. 

Network Test 

and Training 

Facility, 

GSFC, 

Greenbelt, 

Maryland 

38°59’N 

76°51’W 

1966 1986 Minitrack, 59-foot 

antenna used 

for IUE support 

transferred to the 

Naval Academy. 

30-foot antenna 

moved to Wallops 

in 1986 

Until 1974, the NTTF was used 

to test equipment bound for 

the network and for personnel 

training. In 1974, it became part 

of the operational STDN. Station 

responsibilities were transferred 

to Wallops in 1986. 

Rosman, 

North Carolina 

35°12’N 

82°52’W 

1963 1981 Two 85-foot 

dishes, 

Three SATANs, 

GRARR, ATS 

The most extensive STADAN site 

along with Alaska. Designed to 

receive high bit rate telemetry 

from observatory satellites. 

Turned over to the DOD in 1981. 

St. John’s, 

Newfoundland 

47°44’N 

52°43’W 

1960 1970 Minitrack, MOTS First of the northern latitude 

stations to support tracking of 

polar orbiting satellites 

continued on the next page 
56 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Africa 

33°09’S 

70°40’W 

GRARR, C-band 

radar, 30-foot 

USB 

Darwin, 

Northern 

Territory 

Temporary mobile OGO project 

station. Antenna transferred to 

Kauai MSFN station. 

35°38’S 

148°57’E 

The 85-foot antenna was 

relocated to the University of 

Tasmania after the station closed 

where it is still in use by the 

school 

1957 

One of the original Minitrack 

stations. Turned over to their 

university under contract. 

Station 

Latitude 

Longitude From To 

Equipment and 

Capabilities Remarks

South Amer ca 

Lima, 

Peru 

11°47’S 

77°09’W 

1957 1969 Minitrack, MOTS,

SATAN 

Quito, 

Ecuador 

00° 37’S 

78°35’W 

1981 Minitrack, MOTS, 

SATAN, 40-foot 

dish 

Equipment transferred to Dakar, 

Senegal after station phase out 

after STS-2 

Santiago, 

Chile 

1957 1988 Minitrack, MOTS,

SATAN, GRARR, 

USB, a 30 and 

40-foot dish 

Most extensive of the South 

American stations. Operated jointly 

with the University of Chile who 

continues to run the station today. 

Europe 

Winkfield, 

England 

57°27’N 

00°42’E 

1961 1981 Minitrack, 14-foot 

dish, SATAN, 

MOTS 

Operated by the British under 

agreement to the U.S. 

Johannesburg, 

South Africa 

25°53’S 

27°42’E 

1957 1975 Minitrack, MOTS,

SATAN, a 40 and 

85-foot dish 

Operated by South African 

nationals. Located with DSN 

site. Phased out under political 

pressure. 

Majunga/ 

Tananarive, 

Malagasy 

Republic 

19°S 

47°18’E 

1964 1975 45-foot dish, 

GRARR 

Transportable site erected at 

Majunga which was moved a 

year later to a more permanent 

establishment at Tananarive to 

support the MSFN. Forced out 

due to political strife. 

Australia 

Carnarvon, 

Western 

Australia 

24°54’S 

113°43’E 

1964 1974 Co-located with a MSFN site. 

12°17’S 

130°49’E 

1965 1969 14-foot antenna 

to support OGO 

project 

Orroral Valley, 

Australian 

Capital Territory 

1965 1984 Minitrack, MOTS, 

two SATANs, 85

foot dish 

­

Toowoomba/ 

Cooby Creek, 

Queensland 

27°24’S 

151°56’E 

1966 1969 SATAN, ATS Temporary site used to support 

the ATS project 

Woomera, 

South Australia 

31°23’S 

136°53’E 

1957 1966 Minitrack, MOTS, 

SATAN 

Closed out within 12 months 

after Orroral Valley became 

operational. Minitrack equipment 

transferred to Orroral. 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 57 

Table 2-1 is a summary of the STADAN ground stations highlighting their capabilities and their roles in the network. Appendix 1 shows the 

network as it appeared throughout the 1960s into the mid-1970s. 

★ ★ ★

Network stations were operated by either American contractors, 

local nationals (if overseas), or a combination of both. To promote international goodwill, NASA used local nationals to the extent possible for nontechnical positions. The staff usually worked under the direction of NASA 

civil service supervisors assigned to the station, led by a Station Director and 

sometimes a second-in-charge, the Deputy Station Director.51 While Goddard 

contracted with several companies to perform station support requirements 

that ranged from facility maintenance to transportation to administration, it 

generally relied on two commercial contractors to run the network: BFEC 

and RCA.52

As the tracking network expanded from Minitrack to STADAN, so 

did the level of contractor support provided. In FY1963, Bendix as a corporation did $32.5 million of business with NASA. Over the next five years, 

as the STADAN expanded and became more complex, more stations were 

added. By FY 1968, Bendix was doing $123.8 million worth of work for 

NASA, making it the space agency’s seventh top contractor in overall dollar 

amount obligated.53 Of this amount, $39.1 million, or about one-third, were 

two prime contracts with Goddard (NAS5-9968 and NAS5-10750) to operate 

and maintain its two networks, the STADAN and the MSFN.54 

Bendix employees received a number of incentives to work at overseas locations. By the late 1960s, for example, an array of seven allowances, 

each tailored to the specific conditions of the locale, was being offered. One, 

the Foreign Assignment Allowance, was a 10 percent of base pay “sweetener” 

applied to compensate for the inconveniences and cultural disadvantages at 

locations where employees had to learn a foreign language and assume additional assignments due to lack of trained local personnel. The Cost of Living 

Allowance was granted in circumstances where costs of subsistence, services 

and goods exceeded comparable expenses in the Baltimore-Washington area. 

Since that particular variable allowance did not cover housing expenses, a 

separate Housing Allowance was also established. For contractor personnel 

on location with families, many companies provided an Education Allowance 

that reimbursed the cost of providing educational services to children at 

local schools who would otherwise be tax-subsidized in United States public 

schools. As the years went by, many contractor employees ended up spending 

their whole careers overseas, doing very well for themselves, moving from station to station as the landscape of the tracking network evolved.55 
58 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

A hallmark of STADAN was the training that its people received. 

Goddard and the contractor teams hired both degreed and nondegreed personnel in various disciplines, although most were in the field of electronics and electrical engineering. Technical training had been taking place at 

Blossom Point since the inception of Minitrack in 1956. In the fall of 1966, 

as NASA ceased joint satellite tracking operations with the Navy at Blossom 

Point, satellite training operations were consolidated with manned network 

training at Wallops Island. This was subsequently relocated to the Network 

Test and Training Facility (NTTF) at the GSFC itself.56 

The NTTF employed about 40 contractor instructors who held 

either a Bachelor of Science degree or a teaching certificate in the appropriate 

technical field. The program was modeled along the lines of a vocational 

school, with a format for both classroom instruction and hands-on laboratory 

training. The instructional emphasis was decidedly pragmatic, fostering in 

students the capacity to quickly adjust and adapt to changing situations which 

might arise in the field. Instructors were sometimes dispatched to field stations themselves, providing the opportunity to conduct on-site training with 

foreign local nationals. 

To ensure quality control and technical competency, Goddard, in 

the fall of 1967, instituted a formal job certification program for American citizens assigned to field stations throughout the network. All individuals studying at the NTTF were awarded primary certification in one technical area 

prior to his or her graduation. Certification was based on both academics and 

hands-on test performance in technical skill areas such as telemetry, communications, teletype operations, the IBM 1218 computer, and the FPQ-6 radar 

just to name a few. Certification tests examined the readiness of a technician 

in four fundamental areas: 1) Safety Procedures, 2) Operating Procedures, 3) 

Preventive Maintenance, and 4) Corrective Maintenance. Incumbent personnel (those veterans already serving on-site prior to the creation of the 

Certification Program) in some cases received certification by waiver based on 

their field experience; otherwise, they too had to take the test. Primary certification in a particular specialty meant that a person could practice that skill 

at any network location. The program also allowed personnel to obtain “secondary certification.” This feature allowed station staff members to receive 

a number of secondary certifications in different technical skill areas outside 

their primary area. But these were generally limited for use only at the particular station where they worked. 

The program was very successful. So successful, in fact, that three 

years after it was implemented, in a move to further promote foreign cooperation through the hiring of local labor, the Certification Program was 

extended to include skilled positions. Initial implementation began in 1970 at 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 59 

Chile, Ecuador, and Madagascar. It eventually resulted in more than 200 local 

nationals being certified, mostly for Electronics Technician positions.57 

★ ★ ★

Ground stations and the people who operate them, however, do not 

make a network by themselves. A network requires a coherent and integrated 

communication system that enables the stations to talk to each other and to 

the GSFC. The NASA Communications Network, known as NASCOM, 

was that critical ground link which tied the system together. But when NASA 

first constructed its networks, NASCOM did not yet exist. Initially, each of 

the Agency’s three networks—the Satellite Tracking And Data Acquisition 

Network (STADAN), the Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN) and the 

Deep Space Network (DSN)—all had their own communication system linking the ground stations to the control center. Even at Goddard, the satellite 

and human spaceflight communication organizations were in separate divisions within John Mengel’s Tracking and Data Systems Directorate. 

But by 1962, complexity of both the STADAN and the DSN had 

noticeably increased. With the new MSFN coming online, it became clear 

that running three separate communication systems at the same time was 

just not going to be very efficient, both technically and in cost. Technically, 

economically and logistically, a single system made much more sense. Studies 

were done to this effect which showed significant savings could in fact be 

achieved through circuit sharing and common use of field equipment. In July 

1963, the Communications Division was formed at Goddard under the direction of Lavern R. “Vern” Stelter—who later became Chief of the NASA 

Communications Division—to coordinate all Agencies’ ground communication activities. Up until then, this had been done by Headquarters. 

In describing how the tracking networks worked, some have likened it to the human body. That is, if the control centers were the brain, then 

the tracking stations were the eyes and ears and the NASCOM lines the central nervous system. The flow of information between the worldwide network 

of stations and the operations center at the GSFC during a mission was quite 

extensive. The degree of mission success often hinged on the ability of a station 

to transmit critical information quickly and accurately. The NASCOM voice 

circuits enabled Goddard to manage, exercise, coordinate and brief all stations 

simultaneously during simulations and on actual missions. It also enabled the 

stations to discuss problems and procedures among themselves. 

Even before the formation of NASA, John Mengel’s Minitrack 

team at the NRL was faced with the job of getting tracking data back from 

the picket line and the other stations around the world. To develop and operate this system, Mengel recruited experienced range workers from Edwards 
60 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

(known as Muroc at the time) in Southern California, White Sands in 

Southern New Mexico, and from industry. As personnel from the military 

ranges and surveillance networks brought their knowledge to the NRL, its 

pool of communications knowledge quickly grew. This was vital since many 

of the then proposed Minitrack stations had to be in either undeveloped parts 

of the world or at great distances like Australia. 

At first, the challenge was just getting data back to NRL. Speed 

was not too important. Similarly, science data was not time critical and were 

recorded on 14-track magnetic tapes and airmailed back to the United States. 

Within the continental United States, existing teletype lines were found to 

support Minitrack stations at San Diego, Blossom Point, and Fort Stewart, 

all of which were on established military installations. Not surprisingly, the 

real communication challenges were in South America where lines had to be 

added in uninhabited rainforests and undeveloped terrain. Throughout the 

1940s and 1950s, the United States had worked with Latin American countries as part of its Inter-American Geodetic Survey (IAGS) to produce comprehensive maps of the entire Western Hemisphere. The U.S. government 

was able to cultivate important relationships through this endeavor which 

enabled the Army to go into some of these countries and lay communication 

lines that were needed by the South American stations. Stelter explained how 

it all worked out: 

Aside from the tremendous technical advances which made 

this network possible, we had the unqualified support and 

cooperation of every foreign country involved. Without their 

support, there would have been no successful NASA Communications Network. Indeed, if we had to pay for every person involved 

in this worldwide effort, we could not have afforded it. At that, 

our phone bill during the Apollo program was $50 million per 

year! On our part, we tried our utmost to make our foreign colleagues full participants and they in turn provided hundreds, possibly thousands of people, to assure the reliability and performance 

of the NASCOM network on which our success, and often the 

lives of our astronauts, depended.58 

All of NASA—not just STADAN and the other tracking networks—relied on the NASCOM for communications, everything from 

everyday telephone conference calls to high rate telemetry transmissions. To 

this end, a combination of permanently rented circuits for teletype and voice 

were used. These included commercial landlines operated by telephone companies, ocean-floor cables, high frequency radio links and microwave relays, 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 61 

and finally, NASA and commercial communications satellites. By 1969, some 

two million miles of circuits in one form or another were being used.59 

Data was routed using these circuits to key switching centers at 

various hubs in different parts of the world—Canberra, London, Madrid, 

Pasadena—which piped the data back to the United States.60 Said Stelter: 

Initially, we had to rely on high frequency radio and on other 

rather primitive transmission technology which was anything but 

reliable. Somehow, we were able to make it work. . . . Later, we 

added the first computerized switching facilities, developed by 

UNIVAC [UNIVersal Automatic Computer], which was a significant advance. It assured us that all data from the spacecraft would 

get to the user in a reliable manner and outbound commands 

would in turn reach the spacecraft quickly. No easy task!61 

Other communication systems existed, but NASCOM was by far 

the world’s largest, real-time communications system. It was very much a prototype, pioneering the broad-band communication systems of today. 

As Minitrack steadily evolved into STADAN in the 1960s, the realtime link between satellites and controllers back at Goddard also improved. 

This was still at a time when very few commandable features were actually 

built into satellites. While things like tape recorders could be commanded 

to read out the data they had stored, little else could be directed from the 

ground. With the introduction of more complex satellites, particularly the 

OGO and OAO, by the mid-1960s mission controllers possessed the command capability for controlling many more satellite functions in addition to 

just the onboard scientific experiments. Goddard controllers, linked directly 

to STADAN stations, could now in effect “drive” a satellite via commands 

uplinked through a station as a satellite passed overhead.62 

For Minitrack, transmission speed was a nicety but not a requirement. Now, with the advent of this new class of large observatory satellites 

and their high-rate data dumps, speed became not only desired but necessary. 

In addition, with Project Mercury on the horizon calling for real-time voice 

and tracking, telemetry, and command capabilities, a change was needed to 

bring the old NASCOM links literally “up to speed.” 

Preparations for the manned-satellite program, in particular, drove 

several requirements. It needed real-time, wide-band communications—the 

first for quick trajectory computations to support mission decisions and the 

second for the heavy data volume required to monitor spacecraft health and 

status and to talk with the astronaut. A most obvious requirement was that 

ground-based flight controllers, some of whom were stationed at tracking 

sites, had to be able to talk directly with the astronaut during a pass. Voice 
62 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

If tracking stations were the sensory organs of NaSa’s communications network and 

the Goddard Space Flight Center the brain, then NaSCOM (the NaSa Communications 

Network) could certainly be called its central nervous system, with over 2 million circuit 

circuits between the spacecraft and the ground, therefore, had to be added to 

the system for the first time. (Television coverage inside the Mercury capsule 

was also proposed but would not be implemented until Apollo, partly because 

the communication technology was just not yet ready to handle the demands 

of such a bandwidth intensive item.) Added to all this was perhaps the most 

important difference between satellite and human spaceflight communications: reliability. If communications were lost during a pass for an observatory 

satellite, some data might be lost; on a human flight, the consequences could 

be much more severe.63 
Chapter 2 \ Evolution of a Network 63 

miles at its height of operations. Shown here is a layout of the circuits in 1972. Since the 

diagram was taken from a brochure describing the Madrid Station, some of the notes are 

in Spanish. (Madrid Space Station, INta/NaSa: Information Brochure, JpL p72-223) 

These important differences were known to Langley engineers even 

in 1958 as they laid the foundation for a Mercury Network. It soon became 

apparent, however, that they could not just simply piece together a worldwide, real-time communication system from existing commercial or military 

circuits. Integration with Minitrack was also not possible; the requirements 

were just too different. Communication requirements for Mercury were, at 

the time, such a leap from anything else that had been done that Langley, and 

later Goddard, knew that an entirely different network had to be designed and 

built specifically to support the new man-in-space project. 
64 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

This network, as it finally emerged, would consist of two communication circuits, one for voice and one for teletype. Teletype would use the 

then state-of-the-art Western Union 111 Torn-Tape Relay System, limited to 

a speed of 60 words per minute. The limitation was due to capabilities of the 

terminal equipment that was already being installed at the new MSFN sites. 

Initially, oversea switching centers were located at Adelaide, Australia (subsequently moved to Canberra), Honolulu, and London. Later, communication switching centers were added in Madrid, Guam, and the Kennedy Space 

Center. Goddard served as the hub and main switching center.64 

“Data pipe” between Goddard and the Cape represented a substantial 

advance in wideband transmission capability over the previous generation with 

NASCOM. In 1961, for instance, four two-way, voice data circuits each capable 

of transmitting at one kilobit-per-second (1,000 bps) were installed between the 

Cape and Goddard. While this may not seem like something hardly even worth 

mentioning in today’s world where data rates are measured in gigabits-per-second 

(that is, a billion bps), it was quite the improvement over the Minitrack days; 

one of these channels could now transmit 30 times as much data. This faster 

data requirement was needed because, prior to the establishment of the Mission 

Control Center in Houston, Goddard had to control the real-time displays at 

Mercury Control, then still located at Cape Canaveral. Soon, other wideband 

data lines were installed between GSFC and the STADAN stations, most notably at the new DAF of Rosman and Alaska. Finally, in preparation for sending 

astronauts into space, another important voice link was established in 1963 with 

a newly laid ocean floor cable connecting the new station on Bermuda with the 

Cape. This link could carry 2,000 bits-per-second of digital information and 

would continue to serve the Bermuda Station well into the Shuttle era.65 

★ ★ ★

As NASA began sending men to the Moon, new stations were 

added and aircraft and ships were assigned to the network. Unlike Mercury or 

Gemini, live television was going to be used on Apollo and new equipment 

accommodating state-of-the-art transmission schemes at the S-band frequencies would be installed throughout the network. The role of communication 

satellites like Syncom would be called on to provide “switchboards in the sky.” 

Developed by an industry team, their success would lead to the creation of the 

Cosmsat Corporation and an international consortium to manage and market 

worldwide satellite communication services. In time, this development would 

pay great dividends as the consortium’s Intelsat ultimately ended up serving 

the very government agencies that helped to develop its technology.66 

To see how sending humans into space remade the Goddard networks, one needs to turn the clock back to a time before there was a GSFC. 
Chapter 3 

THE MERCURY SPACE 

FLIGHT NETWORK 

By the summer of 1961, the GSFC had fully established itself as 

the lead NASA center for directing science application satellite projects along 

with the communication, tracking, and data network that support them. In a 

little over two years since its founding as the first new field center established 

after the creation of NASA, GSFC’s workforce had grown from 216 to 1,900, 

accounting for 11 percent of the space agency’s total.1 The STADAN was quite 

busy. It quickly matured during this time, supporting a wide array of satellite 

projects ranging from the original Vanguard and Explorer series to the newer 

TV and weather satellites such as TIROS (Television Infrared Observation 

Satellite) and even privately built communication satellites. The first satel

lite project which Goddard assumed full responsibility for was Explorer 6, 

launched on 7 August 1959. This began 16 years of GSFC association on this 

very successful series, which continued until 1981, with the orbital decay of 

Explorer 55. In April 1960, TIROS 1 downlinked the first ever global cloudcover photographs taken from orbit. Solar science satellites were launched 

beginning with Solrad 1 in June 1960. AT&T’s Telstar 1, the world’s first 

commercial satellite, was launched on 10 July 1962. 

-
66 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

The first Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO 1) was launched on 

7 March 1962. For years, John C. Lindsay, a former Associate Chief of the 

Space Sciences Division at Goddard, had investigated satellite designs using 

spin stabilization which enabled observations of the Sun in ways not possible 

from the surface of Earth. By 1960, the Ball Brothers Aerospace Corporation 

of Boulder, Colorado (at the time the leading developer and provider of stabilized pointing control devices for sounding rockets and balloon systems) 

had produced a successful engineering prototype of a spin-stabilized satellite. 

OSO1 produced many new findings. Among them was the discovery that the 

Sun’s corona has openings (now called coronal holes) which were interpreted 

as huge, fast-moving bubbles rising through the corona.2 

Even as application and science satellites were hitting full stride and 

making ever more exciting discoveries on a regular basis, events, though, were 

taking place which soon redefined NASA’s priorities and led to the establishment of an all-together, different Goddard spaceflight network. 

★ ★ ★

On 12 April 1961, the Soviet Union launched Yuri A. Gagarin, a 

27-year-old Second Lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force, into orbit on Vostok 

(East) 1.3 But unlike Sputnik, Gagarin’s flight did not come as a total shock to 

the United States. What the Soviet Union accomplished four years earlier with 

Sputnik was the first sign to the international community of the existence of 

a full-fledged and very robust space program, one in which they proceeded 

with at an unrelenting pace. As early as the mid-1950s, a disturbing picture of 

Russia’s growing capability in long-range, heavy payload rocketry emerged. 

The CIA, using the Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, had 

reported in 1957 the first Soviet ICBM on its launch pad at the BaikonurTyuratam space complex. Over the next two years, the world would know 

what the CIA had long suspected: the USSR was embarking on a series of 

space experiments designed to put a human into space. 

In May 1960, the Soviet news agency Tass reported the launching of a “Spacecraft 1” into orbit. It weighed a massive 10,008-pounds and 

contained a “dummy cosmonaut.” This was followed by more qualification 

flights carrying dogs which took place over the next several months. By the 

following April, the veil of secrecy surrounding Soviet space activities was 

rapidly breaking down. 

It began with a rumor from Moscow on 7 April that a cosmonaut had been launched in secret. This was followed by a message wired to 

London on midnight of 11 April quoting unidentified sources as saying that 

a cosmonaut had returned from space and was undergoing physical examination for illness, and he was “suffering from post-flight effects of a nature 

more emotional than physical.” Variations of this story immediately surfaced, 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 67 

including one by a French correspondent who suggested that the mystery 

cosmonaut was none other than Vladimir Ilyushin, son of the famous Soviet 

aircraft designer. The White House immediately denied the authenticity of 

these reports saying that the United States had no evidence whatsoever that 

such a flight had taken place. However, the next day, Moscow released the 

following official announcement: 

The world’s first spaceship, Vostok, with a man on board was 

launched into orbit from the Soviet Union on 12 April 1961. The 

pilot space-navigator of the satellite-spaceship Vostok is a citizen 

of the USSR, Flight Major Yuri Gagarin. The launching of the 

multi-stage space rocket was successful and, after attaining the 

first escape velocity and the separation of the last stage of the 

carrier rocket, the spaceship went into free flight on a round-theEarth orbit. According to the preliminary data, the period of revolution of the satellite-spacecraft round the Earth is 89.1 minutes. 

The minimum distance from the Earth at perigee is 175 km [109 

miles] and the maximum at apogee is 302 [188 miles], and the 

angle of inclination of the orbit plane to the Equator is 65o 4’. The 

spacecraft with the navigator weighs 4,725 kg [10,420 pounds] 

excluding the weight of the final stage of the carrier rocket.4 

Although the actual implementation of a U.S. man-in-space program had to await the creation of NASA, concept proposals for “mannedsatellites” and how to track them had been in circulation as far back as the 

early 1950s. These took on a more serious form in 1956 when the Air Force 

embarked on a study known as “Project 7969” entitled, A Manned Ballistic 

Rocket Research System, designed specifically to investigate the requirements for 

a human orbiting laboratory. The formulation of ideas in that project did not 

directly translate into an actual program, but it did push the National Advisory 

Committee for Aeronautics to begin its own studies of human spaceflight. 

The Secretary of Defense created, in early 1958, an Advanced 

Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to coordinate civilian and military research 

for piloted and unpiloted space projects, the idea being that ARPA would act 

as an interim space agency until Congress passed the appropriate legislation 

establishing NASA. In this capacity, ARPA articulated the first objectives of the 

American human space program. The goal was clear: “Achieve at the earliest 

practicable date orbital flight and successful recovery of a manned satellite, and 

to investigate the capabilities of man in this environment.”5

 These goals were to 

be embodied in Project Mercury, America’s first human spaceflight program. 

Within the newly created space agency, the Langley Research 

Center located in Hampton, Virginia near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, 

was the home to two key groups entrusted with starting Project Mercury. The 
68 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

STG was one of these, responsible for the overall implementation of the manin-space program, formally designated as Project Mercury on 26 November 

1958. The STG directed the development of both the launch vehicle and 

the spacecraft as well as the recruiting of flight crews and flight controllers. 

Another cadre of personnel formed the other group, informally called the 

Tracking System Study Group (TSSG). The TSSG helped the STG establish 

network support requirements for Project Mercury. Heading it was Edmond 

C. Buckley, who was later to be in charge of all NASA tracking activities as 

the Agency’s first Associate Administrator for Tracking and Data Acquisition 

(from 1962 to 1968). 

The STG was at the time under the jurisdiction of the newly established Space Projects Center. In 1961, this center moved to Greenbelt to form 

the nucleus of the new GSFC. By fall of that year, however, the STG had 

moved on to Houston, Texas to establish the MSC. With this move, MSC 

immediately became the lead NASA center for all human spaceflight activities 

and assumed overall responsibility for executing Project Mercury. The job 

of implementing an effective worldwide tracking and data acquisition network remained with GSFC. These initial shifts in center responsibilities, as 

it turned out, determined how each of these Field Centers eventually ended 

up supporting NASA’s human spaceflight activities for the next 40 years, roles 

that continue today.6 

One of the principals on the TSSG was H. William Wood. A member of Ed Buckley’s team at Langley, Bill Wood was investigating X-ray and 

gamma ray sensing instruments for possible use aboard spacecraft when he got 

the call to help plan a network for Project Mercury. Said Wood: 

At Langley, we worked under the supervision of Hartley 

Soule, an assistant laboratory director who helped us cut through 

the red tape and made us realize early on that we were engaged in a 

very unique and challenging undertaking. However, the Langley 

Center did not want to become distracted from its primary role 

as a research organization. . . . In my opinion, it did not wish to 

evolve into an operational hub for space activities. Thus tracking, 

data acquisition and computer activities for Project Mercury were 

assigned to the Goddard Space Flight Center prior to the first 

manned orbital flight.7 

Wood and others who agreed to help were told by Soule that they 

could return to Langley whenever they wished. Those who agreed to consider 

a transfer soon met at the new Space Projects Center with Director Harry J. 

Goett. Some ended up staying at Langley, and others transferred with the 

STG to the MSC in Houston. 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 69 

america’s first human spacecraft was Mercury. It flew six astronauts into space (two 

sub-orbital, four orbital) from May 1961 to May 1963. Weighing some 1,360 kilograms 

(3,000 pounds), the vehicle was launched into space atop the U.S. army redstone 

rocket and later, the air Force atlas-D intercontinental ballistic missile. pictured is Wally 

Schirra’s Mercury 8 capsule Sigma 7 being readied in hanger S at Cape Canaveral in 

September 1962. (NaSa Image Number GpN-2000-001441) 
70 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

The TSSG began addressing the network issue in earnest in the 

fall of 1958. The job soon turned out to be bigger than anyone had anticipated. Network requirements for human spaceflight were rather different 

than those needed to support unmanned satellites. Unlike the Minitrack 

Network—which passively received spacecraft signals and did not make an 

accurate orbit determination until several orbits had been complete—human 

spacecraft tracking had a much more instantaneous contact requirement. Towards 

that end, radar tracking rather than interferometry, was essential. Telemetry 

now had to be augmented, for example, to monitor the health of the astronaut. The complexity of command functions also greatly increased over what 

was needed for science satellites in order to ensure the safe orbiting and, more 

importantly, return of the crew. Finally, a manned spaceflight network was 

obviously needed to establish two-way voice communication between the 

ground and the vehicle.8 

By the end of the year, the TSSG had identified three major areas of 

concern associated with a Mercury tracking network, concerns which had up 

until then been widely underestimated. First, and somewhat to their surprise, 

the group found that there was no such thing in existence as either a commercial or a military, real-time, worldwide communication system. Here was a 

vital ingredient of mission control that was completely missing! Second, there 

was no existence of reliable, high-capacity data links that could carry the 

large amounts of data between the computer facilities and the mission control 

center. Third, good radars were available, but they were designed primarily to 

track DOD ballistic missiles and reentry vehicles, their beams too narrow to 

expeditiously locate and keep track of a fast-moving spacecraft in orbit.9 

The Space Task Group began to feel that the weight of the network 

job was diverting too much attention from its primary job of designing the 

Mercury spacecraft. In January 1959, Charles W. Mathews, a member of the 

STG, recommended to Abe Silverstein, Director of Space Flight Development 

at NASA Headquarters, that the STG be formally relieved of the responsibility for building the network and that the responsibility be given to the TSSG. 

This was a seemingly reasonable request since the TSSG had already been 

studying the network problem for nearly a year. On 16 February, Silverstein 

formally directed this change in a memorandum to J. W. Crowley, Director 

of Aeronautical and Space Research at NASA Headquarters. 

Silverstein’s memorandum asked the TSSG to “complete and 

refine” network plans so as to satisfy requirements generated by the STG 

and to “place and supervise” contracts for generating procurement specifications and a final network deployment. Langley officials were to make use,, 

wherever practical, of DOD personnel and facilities in the Pacific Missile 

Range (PMR) in Point Mugu, California; the Atlantic Missile Range (AMR) 

in Cape Canaveral, Florida; the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in 

Alamogordo, New Mexico; and the Eglin Gulf Test Range (EGTR), Eglin 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 71 

Air Force Base, Florida. In this manner, the practice of NASA leveraging 

DOD assets wherever practical began early on in the construction of the 

Mercury Space Flight Network (MSFN). 

On 16 February 1959, the Langley network study group was officially renamed the Tracking And Ground Instrumentation Unit, or TAGIU. 

Two years later, TAGIU would be relocated to GSFC when the new Center 

opened. Leadership of TAGIU was assigned to Barry Graves who had been 

part of the TSSG since the beginning. Several key participants from TSSG 

also continued their assignments on the new team. Leading their respective 

disciplines were: 

George B. Graves, Jr., Electronics and Head of TAGIU 

James J. Donegan, Computers 

Ray W. Hooker, Site Selection and A&E (Architecture and 

Engineering) 

Paul Vavra, Assistant to Graves 

H. William Wood, Logistics 

TAGIU quickly grew to 35 people. This nucleus was in essence heir 

to Langley’s radar and high-speed flight experience, plus six months’ worth of 

network studies. Although TAGIU engineers knew roughly what a Mercury 

Network should entail, they did not yet have the detailed specifications needed 

to procure hardware and to begin building up stations. Getting industry help 

under contract and enlisting the aid of the Air Force was among the first 

items of business. (The USAF was at the time building up their own network: 

the Air Force Satellite Control Network.) TAGIU’s effort went from turning 

studies into requirements, requirements into specifications, specifications into 

hardware, and finally, hardware into stations. Even though the major functions 

of the Mercury Network had already been decided on: tracking, telemetry 

reception, voice communication, and capsule command; the team fully realized that these functions could be performed in a number of different ways. 

By early spring 1959, TAGIU was ready to generate detailed network specifications. To this end, four contracts to industry were awarded: 

1 Ford Aeronutronics, Study radar coverage and trajectory computation 

requirements 

2 MIT Lincoln Laboratories, General consultation and proposal 

evaluation 

3 RCA Service Corporation, Write the network specifications 

4 Space Electronics, Design the Mission Control Center 
72 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Things moved quickly. Said Wood: 

We were told that we had about two years to complete the 

job; then we would return to basic research. Of course, that is not 

the way it turned out. . . . I was told one morning that I would 

be managing the RCA contract and that same afternoon we had 

our first meeting with the contractor. We moved pretty fast! At 

the time, a great deal of attention was being given to the Mercury 

spacecraft itself: how to get a man into orbit and how to return 

him safely to Earth. But very little attention had been given to 

communications and tracking which had to support those flights. 

So we were asked to get busy and develop a set of specifications. 

This we did by 1959. They were no thicker than an issue of the 

Aviation Week magazine.10 

The network developed around 12 ground rules: 

1	 The launch azimuth of approximately 32.5o was fixed early on. 

It enabled maximum use of DOD range facilities and kept the 

ground track of the spacecraft over the continental United States 

much of the time to preclude over-flight of countries that might 

not cooperate. It also resulted in acceptable recovery areas close 

to U.S. Naval facilities. 

2	 The Atlantic Missile Range based at Cape Canaveral was to 

be employed for launch and recovery operations. This was an 

easy decision because of AMR’s already superb facilities and 

experience. 

3	 The network was to be worldwide, using stations in foreign 

countries where necessary, and operate on a real-time basis to 

monitor spacecraft status and astronaut health. 

4	 The space medicine community strongly advocated continuous 

voice contact with the astronaut, but this requirement proved 

impractical. Despite the controversy, STG and TAGIU moved 

ahead using the goal of a maximum 10 minute,loss-of-signal and 

voice contact in between stations (the so-called 10-minute “dead 

time” rule).11 

5 A centralized control center was to be built, but controllers 

would be located at each ground station in case of communications difficulties. 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 73 

7 

6	 Proven tracking and communications equipment was to be 

employed to the extent possible with a minimum of research 

and nonrecurring engineering development. 

In order to enable a go/no-go decision to be made, and to effect 

emergency reentry prior to orbit insertion before the spacecraft 

approached the African land mass, continuous tracking from 

network radars downrange of the launch site was needed to 

give the computers enough real-time data for accurate orbit 

prediction before the spacecraft passed beyond the Bermuda 

tracking station. 

8	 After orbit injection, intermittent tracking was sufficient. 

Continuous tracking was again to be required during deorbit 

and reentry so as to accurately pinpoint the splashdown point. 

9	 These existing radars would need acquisition aids because of 

their narrow beamwidths. 

10	 Only computers could cope with the flood of tracking and 

telemetry data arriving from all the network stations. A centralized computer facility with data link to the Mission Control 

Center would therefore be needed. 

11	 Frequent network simulations and exercises would be needed to 

train the operators. 

12	 Redundancy would be required to provide the reliability needed 

for manned flight. 

The team started with the assumption that the network would 

support a three-orbit Mercury mission at an inclination of about 33o to the 

Equator. Next, it determined just how long a communication gap could be 

tolerated between stations. The first design iteration had 20 stations scattered 

around the globe; eventually, the number was reduced to 18. The procedure 

was definitely quite straight forward. As Wood put it, the team literally just 

“took [out] a world atlas and tentatively located these sites.”12 

By early 1960, site surveys for the entire network had been conducted and the building of the MSFN began. During Mercury, Mission 

Control was located at Cape Canaveral, Florida, adjacent to the launch site, 

while the network computer center was located at Goddard. All the computer 
74 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

activities were handled on a remote basis with Goddard computers, for example, to drive the displays and plot-boards at the Cape. (This would be the case 

until 1965, when starting with Gemini 4, the Manned Spacecraft Center in 

Houston acquired the necessary computer capability for human flight operations when the new Mission Control Center opened.) 

Satellite programs and STADAN had already given GSFC quite a 

head start, providing the expertise and experience needed for network communications, simulations and data processing. Furthermore, Goddard management under Center Director Harry Goett desperately wanted the work. 

GSFC could claim, with justification, that to expand the staff and facilities at 

Greenbelt rather than build new ones at Langley or Houston was more economical and technically feasible. Some thought was given by Headquarters to 

locating the Mercury ground computers at Cape Canaveral. But the Cape was 

already heavily involved in Air Force and Navy launches. In addition, NASA 

wanted to keep its computing facility separate from the DOD. These factors 

all made Goddard the most logical choice to lead this work. 

On a Mercury flight, the network computer facility would receive 

reams of data from its field stations. Jack Mengel, who four years earlier led 

the development of the Minitrack Network and who, along with most of his 

original Naval Research Laboratory staff now at Goddard, was asked by Graves 

to develop the MSFN computing capability. This made sense since Mengel’s 

group was still in the throes of expanding their computing facilities and had just 

taken over the Vanguard Computation Center formerly under ownership of the 

Naval Research Laboratory. Before long, some 60 Goddard and IBM contractors were assigned to support the MSFN under Niles R. “Buck” Heller who 

became Chief of the Manned Space Flight Support Division at Goddard.13 

The network relied on proven C-band and S-band radars for tracking; for redundancy, some stations used both. Radar skin-tracking (which uses 

direct reflections of radio waves transmitted from the ground to the target) 

while fine for tracking ballistic missiles, was not considered reliable enough at 

orbital altitudes to be used in the Mercury program. Instead, two radar-triggered onboard beacons (or transponders) at these wavelengths were located on 

the spacecraft to provide the ground with more robust radar returns. 

The C-band FPS-16 and the S-band VERLORT (Very Long 

Range Tracking) radar built by the Reeves Instrument Corporation were 

specifically stipulated by the TAGIU, as both were considered proven systems, 

having been used for years by the DOD. Manufactured by RCA and used 

by the Army at White Sands since 1957, the FPS-16 was a 3.6-meter (12­

foot) dish, high-precision radar capable of tracking to an accuracy of seven 

meters at a range of 925 kilometers (500 nautical miles). The VERLORT, a 

3-meter (10-foot) transportable dish operated by trailer-housed equipment, 

had a slightly longer range of 1,300 kilometers (700 nautical miles). It was a 

radar developed in World War II for tracking aircraft. Limited in range and 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 75 

accuracy, it did have a reputation for being able to acquire an object with great 

reliability and begin tracking in a very short amount of time. 

The only new piece of major tracking equipment specified was 

an Active Acquisition Aid (AAA) required for spacecraft acquisition by the 

narrow-beam radars. The acquisition antenna was actually an array of 18 

small antennas mounted on a screen. By locking onto a radio signal transmitted from the spacecraft, this arrangement allowed it to begin coarse tracking to an accuracy of about half a degree. This pointing information was 

then made immediately available via a cable and switching system called the 

“Acquisition Bus” to aim the other antennas. The AAA, made by the Cubic 

Corporation, had a very wide beam of 20o, effective out to 1,500 kilometers 

(800 nautical miles).14 

Proven equipment was also stipulated for other elements of the 

ground-to-space link, which included telemetry, command, and voice. 

TAGIU selected systems that were already available or, as a minimum, not 

too difficult to adapt from existing hardware. Telemetry from the Mercury 

spacecraft was downlinked at 226.2 MHz using the analog modulation technique of Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM)/Frequency Modulation (FM), 

a scheme commonly used for ballistic missile and aircraft testing work. Two 

separate telemetry links between network sites and the spacecraft were utilized for redundancy. Each station had dual-redundant FRW-2 transmitters 

for command uplink. These were commonly used by the military for high 

performance aircraft testing. The FRWs were connected to a 10 KW high 

power amplifier to give them the needed range to send commands to a spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. This capability enabled ground controllers at the 

MSFN sites to issue commands to a spacecraft in the event the astronauts 

were to somehow become incapacitated. Common VHF radio was used for 

two-way, air-to-ground voice communication; a backup was operated on the 

international military aircraft emergency frequency.15 

A seminal ground rule that TAGIU stipulated was that nonrecurring 

engineering costs for equipment research and development could be minimized 

through reliance on off-the-shelf hardware. Radars, radios and computers 

existed, but no one had ever tried to mold them together into a cohesive, realtime network on a global scale. Not unlike a jigsaw puzzle, when TAGIU tried 

to put the electronic puzzle together, it found that most of the available pieces 

did not fit well together. And most did not have the requisite reliability to support human spaceflight. Modification of available equipment also became a 

frustrating problem. Modifications were often made after equipment had been 

fielded just to bring them up to MSFN standards. Equipment that could not 

be modified had to be backed up with 100 percent spares to ensure operating 

redundancy. Network equipment reassigned from the DOD was considerably 

more reliable than common off-the-shelf equipment, not surprising as military 

specifications were more rigorous and based on operating environments similar 
76 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

to those of the MSFN. However, obtaining priority military equipment was, 

for the most part, difficult due to availability.16 

Before the MSFN could be used to support a mission, it of course 

had to be checked out, first on a station by station basis and then as an integrated 

network. One of the most valuable testing methods during network shakedown 

was simulated spacecraft tracking using aircraft flyovers. Although ground stations had a collimation tower at the edge of the antenna field, it was used only 

to get a first order calibration. Calibration airplanes, or “cal planes,” flying at 

7,600 meters (25,000 feet) were needed for final system calibration and verification of an antenna’s ability to actually track a moving object. Graves had asked 

Bill Wood to develop a “real world” method to accept the stations after they 

were constructed. Wood’s people came up with a variety of ideas, ranging from 

using balloons to devices mounted on towers. Each had its technical advantage 

as well as disadvantage, and there was really no clear-cut choice. During initial 

discussions at Goddard, there were, in fact, as many votes against using calibration planes as there were for it. When Barry Graves finally pressed for a recommendation, Wood would later say, “I suppose in self defense, I said airplanes.”17 

To do this, NASA procured a Douglas DC-3, two DC-4s and later a Lockheed 

L-1649A Super Constellation (known both affectionately, and sometimes not so 

affectionately by those who had to track them, as “Connie”) and outfitted them 

with Mercury TT&C flight-qualified electronics.18 

Calibration aircraft were used in different ways to test the status of 

network stations. For STADAN, they were used to calibrate the Minitrack 

system and to conduct acceptance testing for new antennas. The DC-3 and 

DC-4 primarily supported the STADAN while the L-1649A supported the 

MSFN. Calibration of the Minitrack sites for instance, was performed by flying at 7,600 meters and making East-West crossings of the main Minitrack 

beam in 10 percent steps north and south of the station zenith. The RF (at 

108MHz, and later, 136MHz) crossings of the main beam were electronically 

compared with the positions obtained from the flashing lamp on the belly of 

the aircraft and measured against the stellar background. Flyovers were done 

for a period of up to six weeks prior to a scheduled mission and usually took a 

couple of hours. The aircraft made multiple passes at predetermined altitudes, 

speeds and directions to simulate a spacecraft passing overhead. The antenna 

would attempt to autotrack the calplane during each pass. These station simulations (“sims”) were designed to uncover any hidden anomalies and to help 

prepare station operators for their upcoming mission. Unlike a spacecraft 

orbiting Earth, however, the calibration airplanes did not fly in well-defined 

trajectories. As such, they actually turned out to be more difficult to track 

than the spacecraft. After a few exercises, the prevailing thought was that “if 

you could track the cal plane, you could track the real thing.”19 

Since the DC-3 was not pressurized, the crew had to go on oxygen bottles when flying over 3,600 meters (12,000 feet). Later, Hal Hoff at 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 77 

Goddard required all NASA members of the calibration team to undergo high 

altitude chamber orientation at Andrews Air Force Base. This turned out to 

be smart. Former Goddard engineer Dave Harris recalled an episode where a 

crew member monitoring the transmission equipment suffered from a classic 

case of oxygen deprivation and the response of the others “was quite rapid.”20 

There were also simulated ditching sessions held to prepare for any contingency. Besides serving as a flying target for tracking tests, another benefit 

of these calibration planes was to ferry necessities to the foreign sites. Toilet 

paper was a frequent cargo when heading to South America. 

In addition to these site-specific exercises, computer-based simulations were used to exercise the entire network. The principal tool of computerized simulation was the Computation and Data Flow Integrated Subsystem, 

or CADFISS, developed by James Donegan and Goddard’s IBM contractors. 

During an “integrated-sim,” CADFISS interrogated the various stations via 

the Mercury ground communications network (and later the NASCOM) while 

GSFC computers analyzed the response and determined the status of each element in the dataflow. In this way, stations could be checked simultaneously, 

faults isolated and debriefings held with Goddard engineers directly “over the 

loop” immediately after a simulation session. As a mission date approached, 

these integrated-simulations were conducted with increasing frequency.21 

★ ★ ★

When the STG was officially formed on 7 October 1958, it fell under 

the jurisdiction of GSFC rather than Langley because NASA Headquarters 

had every intention of moving the group to the new Greenbelt Center. As 

the human spaceflight program expanded, however, it became apparent that 

Goddard would no longer be able to absorb STG responsibilities while still 

carrying out its prime responsibility of directing unmanned satellite programs. It was also evident that human spaceflight was going to continue well 

beyond just Project Mercury and that it required a new center of its own. Due 

to its very charter and the work it was already doing on Mercury, the STG 

was identified as the nucleus of the proposed MSC and in the fall of 1961, the 

group literally picked up and moved to Houston (the location having recently 

been selected by Capitol Hill as the site for the new Field Center). 

The official word on delegating MSFN network responsibility to 

GSFC was given in a 3 April 1961 letter from Abe Silverstein, Head of the Office 

of Space Flight Programs at Headquarters, to Harry J. Goett, the first Director 

of Goddard, entitled “Mercury Network Operating Responsibilities.” On 12 

May 1961, Langley center director Floyd L. Thompson and Harry Goett met 

at Greenbelt to arrange the transfer of network operating responsibility. They 

established a committee (with a Langley chairman) to oversee the transfer 
78 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

which was scheduled to take place during the third quarter of calendar year 

1961. To help meet this new directive, Goett brought in Ozro M. Covington 

to Goddard from the WSMR where he had been the Technical Director of 

the Army Signal Missile Support Agency. His experience in organizing the 

White Sands range instrumentation was exactly what Goett was looking for, 

experience that soon proved invaluable in the buildup of the MSFN.22 This 

was a strategic move on Goett’s part as Covington brought with him a veryabled manager named Henry Thompson from White Sands to serve as his 

deputy.23 Thompson, in turn, recruited George Q. Clark from White Sands. 

(Clark later became the first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System Project 

Manager at GSFC, responsible for both the pioneering technical solution and 

the innovative procurement approach. See Chapter 7.) 

In addition to his tangible technical abilities, Covington had unique 

intangibles which were greatly needed to soothe rifts that immediately began 

developing between Greenbelt and Houston. It was in the midst of these organizational changes that “turf wars” between the two NASA Field Centers 

appeared regarding ownership and the role that the network was going to play 

in the upcoming human space program. Commenting on this touchy issue, 

Covington recalled: 

During those early days there were many debates and conflicts 

as to the assignment of the manned spaceflight program. There 

was a time when the Goddard Center was to be its base of operation. The center had already been charged with major unmanned 

flight programs, all of which also required sophisticated tracking and communications support. But soon it became evident 

that a separate NASA organization had to be created to plan and 

direct America’s man-in-space efforts. It was, after all, a mammoth undertaking, particularly after President John F. Kennedy 

had told the world that the United States would send a man to the 

Moon and return him safely to Earth in the 1960–1970 decade. 

Indeed, this was not the only conflict as to who would be responsible for the manned missions. There were similar conflicts as to 

who would be charged with the difficult and challenging tracking 

and communications tasks supporting these flights. There was the 

U.S. Air Force which was launching and tracking its missiles from 

Cape Canaveral. It certainly wanted the job, and always there 

was the question of the wisdom of separating the mission control 

center and the network. As Goddard’s representative for manned 

space flight, I attended many of those early planning sessions, and 

it was during one of those meetings that I had occasion to spend 

some two hours with Dr. Christopher Kraft who was then planning some of the early Mercury missions. We met in a hotel room 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 79 

near Cape Canaveral and discussed at length the difficulties arising from the separation of mission and network responsibilities. 

We developed a very productive relationship which continued 

throughout the years, ranging from the Mercury and Gemini 

through the Apollo programs.24 

The “Not Invented Here” syndrome was by no means unique to 

GSFC and MSC. In developing the Mercury Network and its Control Center, 

it was clear early on that NASA was conducting a very different kind of launch 

than what the Cape was used to. Besides the obvious presence of having a 

man on board, the payloads that NASA was launching were generally active 

in all phases of a launch, from prelaunch countdown through insertion into 

orbit. This was generally not the case, though, for DOD payloads which were 

mostly dormant and were powered up only after orbit insertion. NASA thus 

had to install its own network equipment at the Cape and at key downrange 

stations. The DOD and its contractors were naturally not very happy when 

TAGIU insisted that all equipment used to interface directly with the manned 

payload were to be designed and controlled by MSFN engineers and that they 

be operated in accordance with NASA procedures. Happy or not, there was 

really no other way to reliably implement the network.25 

There was also not always complete agreement as to the GSFC role 

when it came to manned tracking. Goett questioned the wisdom of committing his people and resources to a major program not entirely under his control. 

But Covington would explain years later, Goett came to see it the other way: 

When he saw the impressive team we had assembled for the 

tracking job, he agreed and relented. ‘Let’s go after it’, he agreed, 

and the Center did indeed, becom[ing] the nerve center of NASA’s 

worldwide manned spaceflight tracking network, just as it was also 

supporting major unmanned missions in the near-Earth regions. 

We assembled a team of some 350 top flight people, supported by 

a large number of contractor employees. Goddard’

s administrative staff under Dr. Michael J. Vaccaro gave us the critical support 

services we required to tackle the job, from personnel recruiting 

to budget planning and contract administration. We needed this 

support very badly.26 

Covington,for one,realized the importance of open communications 

between the two Centers and treated MSC as a customer rather than a rival: 

I considered it to be my primary function to maintain the closest possible liaison with our ‘customer’, the Manned [Spacecraft] 

Center in Houston. We created a reliable system of tracking sta­
80 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

tions around the globe along with communications links and 

computer facilities all designed to provide the mission controllers 

with the information they needed to get our men into space.27 

At the conclusion of Project Gemini in 1967, Covington was 

named Goddard’s Director for Manned Flight Support, overseeing all network activities in preparation for the Apollo Moon program. The management structure at NASA Headquarters also shifted during this time so as to 

meet the changing requirements of human spaceflight. Since leaving Langley 

in early 1958, Edmond C. Buckley, as Director of Space Flight Operations, 

had headed NASA’s network operations, reporting directly to Abe Silverstein. 

To streamline operations, one of the first things Buckley did was to consolidate all of NASA’s tracking and data networks (STADAN, MSFN and DSN) 

under him to form the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition (OTDA) on 

1 November 1961.28 

On 21 May 1959, Graves and his team sent out requests for proposals formally soliciting industry bids to build a manned spaceflight tracking network for NASA. On 30 June, a team led by Western Electric Company, Inc. was 

awarded the prime contract.Of the roughly $80 million spent in constructing the 

MSFN, about 85 percent ($68 million) went to the Western Electric team.The 

company named Rod Goetchius as Program Manager. In addition to Western 

Electric, three major subcontractors were on the team.Their roles were: 

Western Electric: Overall program management, procurement, production, transportation, installation and testing of equipment. Design and implementation of the ground communication 

subsystem. Training of maintenance and operating personnel. 

Bell Telephone System: Analysis and development of operation plans and tests. Design of command and control displays at 

Cape Canaveral and Bermuda. (Bell selected Stromberg-Carlson 

to build and install the flight control displays.) Provide a simulation system for flight controllers and astronauts. 

Bendix Corporation: Design and fabricate telemetry and 

tracking display equipment. Systems design, fabrication and integration of radars not already furnished by the government. 

(Bendix obtained new radars from RCA and Reeves Instrument 

Corporation.) Design and fabrication of all Mercury spacecraft 

communication equipment. 

IBM: Computer programming and operations at GSFC and 

Bermuda. Maintenance and operation of the launch and display 

subsystem at Cape Canaveral.29 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 81 

Construction of the Mercury Space Flight Network ground stations proceeded swiftly in 1960 and 1961. Site surveys had established a set of 

minimum requirements for geographical locations: 

No physical obstructions to the transmission and reception of signals greater than 1 ̊ elevation angle 

Existence of adequate separation distance between receiving and 

transmitting antenna to prevent electromagnetic and physical 

interference 

Minimum outside radio interference (a quiet RF location) 

Existence of housing and utilities 

Availability of good roads30 

One of the first stations to be established on foreign soil was also 

one of the most critical. With the exception of Cape Canaveral, Bermuda, 

some 1,450 kilometers (900 miles) due east of the Carolina coast, was the most 

complex and important of the 15 MSFN ground stations. This was because 

the flight path of the Mercury Atlas took it almost directly over the island, 

providing a short but crucial 25 second window to track and make decisions 

on its status during ascent into orbit. 

As Bill Wood explained, the station was important at the time for 

these and several other reasons: 

The first station to be definitely decided upon was Bermuda. 

It was needed because of the high failure rate of the Atlas booster 

which in those early days was about 50 percent, and since an abort 

situation was a highly probable reality, we needed Bermuda to 

keep an eye on the Cape Canaveral launches and the first critical 

phases of the flight downrange. We planned a control center there 

as well as at the Cape to give us reliable communications and controls should we be forced to make abort decisions. We were, after 

all, dealing with manned missions and unproven, even unreliable 

communications.31 

Lynwood C. “Lyn” Dunseith, one of the original MSFN engineers who in 1982 became the Director of the Data Systems and Analysis 

Directorate at the Johnson Space Center, also recalled that in those days: 
82 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

We had great difficulties with our communications from 

Bermuda, a key station during the launch phase of any mission. 

So, a control center was established there in the event Bermuda 

had to enter the picture for launch and abort decisions.32 

The schedule was tight. On 15 March 1961, less than two months 

before Alan Shepard’s scheduled suborbital flight, Washington finally reached 

a formal agreement with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern 

Ireland to operate a tracking station on the island.33 The main site was on 

Cooper’s Island, a small 77-acre rock-coral shelf just off of Saint David’s Island 

on the northern shores of Bermuda. The station was located on an eastward 

extension of Kindley Air Force Base, on land already managed by the United 

States Air Force. Its use dated back to a World War II agreement between 

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. Another site was in Town 

Hill on the main island. The station cost $5 million to build in 1961.34 

NASA employed a large workforce to operate this station—60 contractors along with 20 Bermudians. Since the tracking network (as well as the 

space agency itself) was still young, everyone was put to work immediately. 

Robert E. Spearing, who today is the Director of Space Communications at 

NASA Headquarters, was 22-years-old when he began working at the GSFC 

to help get Bermuda up and running. He recalled: 

When I started, I was placed with another engineer who was 

fairly experienced working on what we call UHF command systems. . . . These are high power transmitters that are used to 

actually send information to the spacecraft and are also used for 

what we call command destruct range safety options. About three 

or four months after I started, the fellow I was working with 

informed me that he was leaving the Agency for another job. I, 

of course, went to see his supervisor and asked him what I should 

do since this fellow was leaving. He looked up at me and he said 

‘You’re it!’ . . . That is the way NASA operated back in those days. 

We were not heavily populated. We were definitely not overstaffed and everyone was given a lot of responsibility to get things 

done in the best way you could.35 

The criticality of the station to make the key go/no-go call was 

not lost on the Bermudians. When construction began in April 1961, the local 

island newspaper headlined “Bermuda Tracking Station Has Vital Part to Play 

in First Manned U.S. Spaceflight,” going on to boast that “an order from here 

could bring it down.”36 For fiscal reasons (along with perhaps more importantly, 

diplomatic expediency and promotion of international goodwill), maximum 

use of the local workforce was exercised in Bermuda. This worked out well, for 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 83 

the most part, not only in Bermuda but in other places as well. Some problems 

did arise, particularly in nonindustrialized countries where work was mostly 

done by hand. Even in more advanced places such as Australia, contractors 

often ran into “specifications and standards” discrepancies where, for instance, 

electromechanical devices made in the USA did not interface correctly with 

local, European-based standards like voltages and the imperial versus metric 

systems—something that any traveler can relate to even today.37 

Even as construction was underway on Bermuda, an agreement 

was reached to build another critical station, this one in the South Pacific. 

On 6 April 1961, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, H. C. Hainworth, 

exchanged signatures with Walworth Barbour, Charge d’Affaires ad interim 

Designated as Site No. 11, the Canton Island tracking station was located four and 

one-half miles southeast of the airport terminal in an area used as a fighter strip during 

World War II. Designed only for telemetry and voice communications, the site was rather 

sparse with no radar or spacecraft command capability. Communication was maintained with the Mission Control Center by the Goddard teletype and voice loop networks 

while communication with the hawaiian area was maintained over a teletype circuit and 

by a limited traffic single sideband circuit. the island was staffed by 47 U.S. contractors. 

(Unnumbered photograph. Folder # 8810, NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa 

history Division, NaSa headquarters, Washington DC.) 
84 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

of the British government, formally establishing a tracking station on the small 

island of Canton. This was the culmination of planning by NASA which first 

started in 1959. When LRC was first delegated by Headquarters with the 

responsibility for establishing the Mercury network, a chief aim was to identify locations that maximized communication coverage over three orbits, this 

being the then planned duration of the Mercury orbital missions. 

As the TAGIU examined the ground track map, it was found that 

a large gap existed from the time when the spacecraft left the Australian station at Woomera to when signals could be acquired by the Hawaii Station on 

Kauai. During the first orbit, the ground track of the Mercury capsule took 

it well south of the Hawaiian Islands such that acquisition-of-signal would 

not have been possible until the capsule was over the North American continent—a communication gap of over 25 minutes! A loss-of-signal of this 

duration was not considered at all acceptable when Mercury was first being 

planned (even though longer quiet periods were to become common place on 

later missions). A site had to be found to close this gap. It turned out that the 

ground track of the Mercury spacecraft took it almost directly over Canton 

Island in the Kiribati Republic. 

Canton (also known by its Kiribati name of Kanton or Abariringa) is 

the largest and most northern of the Phoenix Islands, located in the middle of 

the Pacific Ocean just south of the Equator. It is a volcanic atoll, made of a low, 

narrow rim of land surrounding a large shallow lagoon. As with most atolls in 

this region, it is relatively small, only seven kilometers (four and one-half miles) 

wide on the west, from which it narrows to a southeast point some 14.5 kilometers (nine miles) away. Since its discovery by independent sailors in the early 

1800s, mostly American whalers, the island served mainly as a stopping point 

for American and British ships traversing the Pacific shipping lanes. Canton 

broke into the news in 1937 when American and New Zealand astronomers 

chose it as a spot from which to view the total solar eclipse of 8 July; enough 

publicity was generated to at least put the tiny spot on the map. Prior to this, 

about the only news coming out of the island was the continual British efforts 

to reassert their jurisdiction over the Phoenix Islands and the speculated role 

Canton may have played in the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan. In 1938 and 1939, Pan American Airways developed an 

extensive airport on the island, deepening and clearing the lagoon to initiate air 

travel to New Zealand using Canton as one of their ports of call. 

On 9 August 1959, NASA Administrator Keith Glennan wrote a letter to the Department of the Interior proposing to establish a tracking station on 

the island. (At the time, the United States had codominion status along with the 

United Kingdom for the island.) In a reply to Mr. Glennan, Interior Secretary 

Fredrick A. Seaton granted permission, saying “We wish to assure you of any 

further cooperation your Administration may require of this Department in 

furtherance of this most important project.”38 In December, Langley sent a del­
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 85 

egation to the island for a site survey and to begin negotiations with the local 

authorities. Construction began the next year, and the station was well prepared 

by the time John Glenn orbited Earth on 20 February 1962. 

Located 3,200 kilometers (2,000 miles) northeast of Canton are the 

Hawaiian Islands. Situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii provided 

an ideal setting for a network ground station, picking up spacecraft as they 

emerged from the South Pacific. Construction of the Kokee Park Tracking 

Station on the southwest hills of Kauai began in May 1960. Eleven months later, 

the station was completed, coming online in time to support the first unmanned 

orbital Mercury Atlas test flight (MA-4) in September 1961. Five months later, 

Glenn completed the first U.S. human orbital mission on MA-6.39 

Even though Hawaii was designed to support the human spaceflight 

program, it was also frequently tasked to support Goddard’s unmanned science satellites because of its good location and full compliment of equipment. 

In fact, multitasking of this station went beyond NASA. Hawaii was a shared 

effort between the space agency and the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range (PMR). 

Beginning with its construction, the Kokee Station was a joint venture between 

the two departments, with the Navy operating a tracking and data acquisition 

facility on the grounds of what had been Bonham Air Force Base on the western side of the island.When construction was finished in August of 1961, it was 

integrated into the PMR command at Kaneohe, Oahu. In this arrangement, the 

Barking Sands (U.S. Navy) and Kokee (NASA) facilities operated as a single, 

integrated station even though they were separated by some 3.5 kilometers (2.2 

miles) and 1,200 meters (4,000 feet) in elevation.40 

In the spring of 1965, the DOD transferred control of the facility 

to the Air Force Western Test Range, headquartered at Vandenberg Air Force 

Base in Lompoc, California. According to Virg True, former Station Director, 

there was little change as result of this reorganization other than adding one 

more scheduling office into the mix. True himself, though, transferred to the 

Air Force in order to remain in what he felt was the more exciting space program as opposed to the Navy’s missile programs. Such was the appeal of human 

spaceflight in the 1960s.41 

It should come as little surprise that squabbles existed between NASA 

and the Air Force. Disagreements often existed on things ranging from operations control and information flow to daily responsibilities, particularly during 

human spaceflight operations.At Hawaii,these disagreements quickly magnified 

in a short amount of time soon after the station became operational. By late 

summer of 1965, something had to be done.The problem was eventually settled 

in sweeping fashion and in NASA’s favor: the station was transferred to NASA. 

Again, daily operations at the station level changed very little. All range users 

received support on a priority basis, allotting first priority to NASA human 

flight activities, second priority to Air Force ICBM launches, followed by naval 

fleet missile evaluation and training exercises, and lastly, support of Nuclear Test 
86 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Cultural dichotomy was very evident in this 1962 photograph of the Kano tracking station in Nigeria. Security was not an issue as the station was an object of curiosity for the 

local hausa villagers. (Unnumbered photograph, Folder Number 8819, NaSa historical 

reference Collection, NaSa history Division, NaSa headquarters, Washington DC.) 

programs.All scheduling was coordinated through the Station Director who did 

his best to accommodate all users. In this arrangement, all agencies eventually 

became very cooperative and service was virtually never denied to any legitimate user.42 

Contractors were relied upon throughout the network. At Hawaii, 

the Chance Vaught Aircraft Company and its Hawaiian subsidiary, Kentron 

Hawaii Limited, initially played the major role. But in 1971, the operations 

and maintenance effort of all network stations was combined under a single 

contract. Bendix, already the major NASA contractor for tracking and data 

acquisition, was awarded the contract, one which it would keep until the station 

closed in 1989.43 

Hawaii was, by all accounts, the busiest station in the worldwide 

network, due primarily to its location. First, launches from the Cape at a 28o 

inclination (that is, launches directly due east from the Cape) yielded more 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 87 

visible passes at Bermuda, Carnarvon, and Hawaii than at any other station. 

Second, its location on a path from Vandenberg Air Force Base to the Kwajalein 

atoll provided an ideal location for midcourse tracking of Air Force ICBM tests. 

Third, PMR operations in the surface-to-air and air-to-air missile test programs 

required a large and rather continuous demand for radar and telemetry services. 

Fourth, periodic nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific brought significant workload in support of Sandia Corporation and its subcontractors. Finally, 

the demands of the Pacific Fleet for support of weapons testing as an adjunct to 

the Vietnam War at the time called for significant resources from the station.All 

this yielded the heaviest workload experienced by any of the NASA stations.44 

As the Mercury network took shape, ground station locations were 

determined by a number of factors. These ranged from geography to the 

willingness and political alliance of the local government, and to language. 

Perhaps no other station in the MSFN better illustrated a dichotomy in cultures than the one that sat among the shrubs and parched red clay on the outskirts of the ancient city of Kano in central Nigeria. On 19 October 1960, an 

agreement was reached in the capital city of Lagos, allowing the United States 

to construct “NASA Tracking Station 5” in the Federation of Nigeria. This 

news was announced with great fanfare to the Nigerians. The local Hausa villagers living around Kano described the site as “the place the Sardauna built 

to get the message from the stars.”45 

A NASA ground station often provided the most visible and sometimes the only tangible look into America’s space program on foreign soil. 

Because of this, the station staff was often looked upon as unofficial ambassadors of international goodwill to the native populace, representing American 

goodwill and know-how in these countries. Kano exemplified this more than 

any other station. It was quite the “hi-tech” tourist attraction of its time, where 

open-door was the norm, drawing the curious from all parts of Nigeria. An 

unguarded gate leading to the station welcomed visitors. Albert E. Smith, the 

first Station Director said at the time, “There’s nothing here that’s classified; 

we are at home to all visitors.”46 

Life in Kano was simple, unchanged for centuries. Touareg warriors still lived in pressed-earth dwellings; naked children played along the 

roadside; camel caravans presided over by nomads shared the dusty washboard roads with donkey-drawn wagons and automobiles. Such was the setting for NASA’s first tracking station in central Africa. Although the station 

would be short lived—officially closed down on 18 November 1966 just one 

week after Gemini 12 splashed down, a victim of technology evolution as 

NASA revamped the MSFN in preparation for Apollo—it met a crucial need 

at the time. Depending on the orbit, Kano provided anywhere from a three 

to six and a half minute communication window with the Mercury (and later 

Gemini) spacecraft as it passed over the continent after leaving the Grand 

Canary Island coverage area. 
88 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

The station was also important because it could monitor (but not 

remotely trigger) a retrofire over Africa for an Indian Ocean recovery in the 

event of an emergency. It was operated and maintained by 30 Bendix and 

General Electric workers along with 10 technicians from the British Cable and 

Wireless Company who maintained the cross-continent and trans-Atlantic 

ocean floor cable between Kano and Cape Canaveral. The Air Force also had 

on-call a 30-person rescue team there to aid in ocean or land recovery operations if needed during Mercury and Gemini. 

As the infrastructure of the MSFN was being established, international cooperation was just as crucial as it had been back in the Minitrack 

days. This was best illustrated at Guaymas, Mexico where diplomacy played 

the major role in getting the station built. The establishment of the Guaymas 

Station could best be described as a labored process, one that required great 

patience and perseverance. NASA considered a station in Mexico very important since it would be the first North American land station to establish contact, and if needed, enable the ground to command a first orbit retrofire 

for an Atlantic Ocean recovery in case of an emergency with the Mercury 

spacecraft. 

In the spring of 1959, NASA presented to the State Department a 

list of foreign locations for tracking stations. The Department told NASA that 

it was reasonably optimistic about the chances to obtain entry to all areas but 

Mexico where, it felt, the space agency would have extreme difficulty due 

to internal political strife and anti-American sentiments. The Department 

agreed to provide assistance in every way possible in getting approval in 

Mexico. Initial overtures by the U.S. embassy in Mexico, however, received 

no response. 

In the summer of 1959, Milton S. Eisenhower, advisor to his older 

brother President Dwight D. Eisenhower, on a trip to Mexico, made a personal appeal to President Adolfo Lopez Mateos to open negotiations. This 

resulted in at least an expression of interest. It was followed by discussions at 

a White House dinner attended by NASA Administrator Glennan during the 

visit of President Lopez Mateo and Mexican Ambassador Antonio Carrillo 

Flores later that summer. Again, interest was at least verbally expressed by the 

Mexican government to, at a minimum, consider the proposal. There then 

ensued a lengthy period of inactivity in which nothing constructive happened. NASA could not get an answer from anyone on where Mexico stood. 

It was emphasized by the U.S. Embassy throughout this process that the political climate in Mexico at that time was questionable at best. By then, planning 

of the Mercury network was well underway and the Mexican situation was 

beginning to impact the schedule. Great pressure came from the Langley team 

assigned to lead in the planning and implementation of the Mercury ground 

network to get an answer, either a yes or a no. 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 89 

Edmond Buckley and E. J. Kerrigan made a visit to Mexico in January 

1960 in a final effort to determine whether the Mexican government was really 

interested at all. With the very active cooperation of U.S. Embassy officials, discussions were finally held with the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and other 

top Mexican officials. The talks were deemed favorable, enough so to gain 

approval from President Lopez Mateo for further negotiations. Arrangements 

were made by Mexico City for meetings to be held between the University 

of Mexico and NASA on the basis of mutual scientific cooperation. This was 

the breakthrough that NASA had been looking for. Doing so provided the 

scientific impetus that Mexico deemed essential to provide the public support 

needed for any cooperative effort between the two countries. It was personally 

obvious to Edmond Buckley, though, that the actual possibility for mutually 

beneficial scientific cooperation of the sort desired by the Mexicans would be 

for projects other than Mercury. But he also felt that collaboration was necessary 

considering the importance of a Mercury station in Mexico. 

Operating in this not entirely ideal but at least workable framework, 

negotiations proceeded over the next four months of 1960. The Mexican government presented several guidelines around which they felt the talks should 

be centered. These were designed primarily to assuage the prevailing negative 

American public sentiment: 

1	 Great care must be taken in all actions and public announcements so that the Mexican people not misunderstand the scientific and peaceful nature of the activity. 

2	 It was important that the military not participate in the operation of the station. 

3	 It was desirable that the activity be described as an international 

cooperative activity of many nations and not as a bilateral agreement between the United States and Mexico. 

4	 To further emphasize wide international participation, it was 

desirable that Australians or other nationals be present at the 

Mexican station; that Mexicans be present at other stations, for 

example, at Cape Canaveral. 

It was preferable to have the agreement negotiated between the 

president of an American university and the president of the 

University of Mexico.47 

A formal agreement between Mexico and the United States establishing the tracking station at Guaymas was finally signed on 12 April 1960. 

5 
90 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

With great fanfare, an inauguration ceremony officially opening the station was held 14 months later on 26 June 1961, presided by NASA Deputy 

Administrator Hugh Dryden, the Mexican Foreign Minister and others in a 

large Mexican delegation. The cost to establish the station was $2.25 million 

in 1960, one of the biggest projects in that area at the time.48 The significance 

of an agreement establishing a spaceflight tracking station in Mexico was no 

small matter. Scientific and cost reasons aside, it was the first real cooperative 

project between the two neighboring states since before World War I and, as 

such, was quite momentous. Both the State Department and the U.S. Embassy 

made it clear that this represented a big step to bettering relations with its 

neighbor to the south, one that went beyond merely space exploration and 

Project Mercury. 

One of the first actions taken during these negotiations was the 

establishment of the Mexico-U.S. Commission for Space Observations. The 

decision to establish a commission was not arrived at in a cavalier way. The 

U.S. State Department and General Counsel at the time required a good deal 

of thought before agreeing to such an arrangement, since intergovernmental commissions generally tend to establish rules which are binding on the 

countries involved, and thus require congressional approval. It was recognized 

that in this case, though, the commission would be established primarily to 

provide assurance to the Mexican people that this was truly a cooperative, 

civilian, scientific project in which their government was fully informed at 

the highest levels. Without the appointment of this commission, the tracking 

station in Mexico likely would not have materialized on schedule, if at all. 

Mexico City’s emphasis that, in their view, this was primarily a scientific and not political cooperative was reflected in the makeup of the commission. The Mexican Section was led by Ing. Ricardo Mongas Lopez, former 

Dean of the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Mexico. Mongas 

Lopez was a well renowned scientist with diverse experience in multiple fields 

who had served on many government panels. He was joined by Dr. Eugenio 

Mendez Docurro, Director of the National Polytechnic Institute and Ing. 

Jorge Suarez Dias, a former Dean of the Polytechnic Institute. 

Their carefully selected counterpart, the U.S. Section, was composed of Edmond C. Buckley, Assistant Director for Space Flight Operations, 

NASA Headquarters; Ralph E. Cushman, Chief of Field Installations, NASA 

Headquarters Procurement Office; and G. Barry Graves, Head of the Langley 

TAGIU team responsible for planning and implementing the Mercury network. 

The U.S. also appointed Raymond Leddy, Counselor of the U.S. Embassy in 

Mexico City, as the permanent liaison officer for the U.S. Section of the commission. This last appointment was done so as to comply with Mexican wishes 

to have someone in their country who could handle day-to-day affairs.49 

But the appointment of a commission did not translate into immediate progress. It was actually quite the contrary. Originally, meetings were to 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 91 

be held every two months. In reality, however, the commission only convened 

when pressure from the U.S. Embassy forced its scheduling. The Mexican 

government still tended to proceed cautiously and kept a close watch over the 

actions of the commission. This caution was evident when, in the first official 

meeting, Ambassador Oscar Rabasa, Director in Chief for American Affairs, 

kept a firm control of the proceedings until he was satisfied that the direction 

of the meeting was headed where it was supposed to: science; only at that point 

did he relinquish control to Chairman Mongas Lopez. This was somewhat of a 

sobering process for the United States in general, and NASA in particular.50 

Mexico has always had (and still has) a deep government bureaucracy based on Latin American heritage. Thus, NASA needed real assistance 

to properly work with the Mexicans so as to avoid becoming snared in bureaucratic and jurisdictional entanglement. Take for example that as many as five 

to seven separate Mexican bureaus ordinarily had to approve imports into the 

country. The use of this commission, backed by the President of Mexico and 

his Foreign Affairs Office, proved crucial to help cut through bureaucratic redtape so that real work could get done. Although interbureau difficulties still 

arose, the United States did not become involved in them, but rather, utilized 

the Mexican Section of the commission to work out the often thorny issues. 

In addition to dealing with governmental bureaucracy, an intangible and even more volatile issue was also at work, an issue that really called 

for careful diplomatic attention. Anti-American sentiment in Latin America 

was high at the time and strong feelings about the United States were rampant among the Mexican populace. In June 1960, Dr. Glennan invited members of the Mexican Section to Washington, at NASA’s expense, to visit the 

Goddard, Wallops, and Langley facilities. Even though only two members 

came, they returned to Mexico with invaluable publicity from the traveling 

Mexican press. Over time, the Mexican Section of the commission turned 

out to be extremely helpful by giving wholehearted support to the station 

and keeping unfavorable press and perhaps possible demonstrations about the 

“United States Missile Station” at a minimum.51 

The commission produced many favorable television and radio 

spots promoting the American tracking station and provided newspaper interviews in support of the project. Patience and perseverance paid off for NASA 

in Mexico. It was very apparent as the station finally opened that the commission (on both sides) had served its purpose well. Even Ing. Mongas Lopez and 

Raymond Leddy doubted that the Mexican government would ever allow it 

to be dissolved. “The assurance desired by both governments that the procedures be carried out in a manner that would promote good will between 

Mexico and the U.S. seems to have been observed,” Edmond Buckley was to 

reflect years later on the effort it took to build up the Guaymas station. Simply 

put, “Different approaches were needed in different countries.”52 
92 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the Mercury Control Center was located near the launch area at Cape Canaveral, apart 

from the computers which in those days were still centralized at the Goddard Space 

Flight Center in Maryland. Unlike the high resolution, computer graphical displays of 

today, the ground track of the capsule on the ‘big board’ was moved mechanically by 

wires. this picture was taken on 20 February 1962 during america’s first human orbital 

flight, Mercury atlas 6. (NaSa Image Number 62-Ma6-161) 

While it was quite true that different approaches were indeed 

needed in different places, one common denominator generally permeated 

all negotiations regardless of the country involved. In setting up its network, 

NASA took great care to always emphasize the civilian nature of the project 

to the host country. The Agency’s stance was that 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is a civilian scientific organization and that Project Mercury is a scientific 

experiment being conducted for the purpose of ascertaining the 

problems of man’s existence in space. Furthermore, the results 

from this experiment will be made available to all the world.53 

The promotion of the peaceful nature of the work and the sharing of results had worked well back in 1957 during the IGY when the NRL 

was first setting up Minitrack. Fueled by increasing East-West tensions, this 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 93 

approach was needed all the more as suspicion tended to exist among many 

countries as to the true nature of the American space program. This was 

especially true of African states. Ray W. Hooker, Assistant Chief of Langley’s 

Engineering Service Division, reported following a trip to Africa in rather 

blunt and sobering terms that 

In the case of the Kano and Zanzibar sites, the British have 

sold the local government on the fact that this is an American 

experiment, harmless in nature and would contribute to the scientific knowledge of the world. [But] In both the Nigerian and 

Zanzibar governments, there is the general native population 

which is capable of believing almost anything and getting quite 

excited about it. A rumor was circulated in Kano at the time of 

the site team’s visit there to the effect that the team was tied in 

with the French atomic bomb experiment in some manner.54 

Such gross misconceptions on the part of the local government had to 

be resolved diplomatically. In the Nigerian situation, personal assurance to the 

Emir of Kano by the Langley advance delegation was done. To do this, NASA 

had to enlist someone the Emir trusted, in this case Arnold W. Frutkin from 

the National Academy of Sciences who had established considerable positive 

reputation with foreign countries during the days of the IGY.55 The American 

Embassy or Consulate usually served as a good starting point for such negotiations, enabling dialogue with the right officials who were in a sufficiently 

high position to initiate action. The case of Nigeria was especially sensitive as 

the British were at the time trying to end their rule in that country on good 

terms and most of their actions had that particular goal in mind. This turned 

out to benefit NASA as the British helped to clarify the peaceful intent of the 

Americans. 

While it is entirely true that NASA’s charter has always been civilian in nature, the Agency nevertheless, and from the onset, has had to work 

closely with the DOD to accomplish certain missions. Still true today, this 

was inescapable in the early 1960s: the DOD owned all the launch facilities 

and had a wealth of experience and knowledge in the areas of missiles and 

rockets. It was also in the midst of setting up its own satellite network (the Air 

Force Satellite Control Network, or AFSCN). Securing the “high ground” 

was (and is) a national security objective for the DOD. 

No where else did NASA rely on the DOD more than at Cape 

Canaveral, Florida, where launches took place.To manage this interface, the Air 

Force created the position of a Department of Defense Manager for Manned 

Spaceflight (DDMS). DDMS was given the job of interfacing with the civilian 

space agency’s newly created Project Mercury representatives to work through 

common problems.When Mercury came onboard at the Cape, the DDMS sup­
94 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

ported NASA in such areas as launch operations, range safety, contractor support 

services and the construction of a new control center at the launch facility. 

It was in this capacity that Henry H. Clements (Associate Director 

of the Johnson Space Center from 1981 to 1984) began his association with 

NASA. As a Captain in the Air Force, he was reassigned to the DDMS, 

becoming the first Network Controller (NC) during the suborbital Mercury 

Redstone missions. “This was really a one-man operation, keeping tab on 

some 15 remote sites, verifying that they were ready to support the mission 

and that the capsule communicators stationed at various tracking sites were in 

position and linked to the control center at the Cape via Goddard,” Clements 

recalled in 1982 the rudimentary setup that was Mercury Control. 

Much of the equipment and technology used in those early 

days was rather rudimentary. We had a display map on which the 

capsule was simply moved by wires and the status of our tracking 

stations was merely indicated by red or green lights. Our tracking stations often found it difficult to stay on the radar beacon—a 

beeper signal generated by the orbiting space capsule. Then, there 

was the problem of a smooth handover from station to station as 

the spacecraft circled the Earth. There were also problems when 

sunspots caused microwave dropouts in ground communications 

and pipe layers accidentally cut vital telephone cables. Yet, despite 

it all, we had extremely high reliability due to the outstanding 

support from NASA’s civil service team and our contractors. 

They all were very anxious for this program to succeed and for 

our astronauts to return safely. In this effort, reliable tracking, 

computer and communication support was vital.56 

The State Department was instrumental in helping to secure international cooperation not only with third-world countries but also with established United States allies. An agreement with Spain was needed, for example, 

for a Grand Canary Island station. A good telemetry and radar capability in 

the Canaries was considered critical by mission managers for orbit establishment, particularly in the case of an abort. 

The Canary Islands are an archipelago of seven volcanic islands 

located 180 kilometers (110 miles) off the Moroccan coast of northwest Africa. 

These islands were known from antiquity. Prior to their conquest in 1402 by 

Spain, they were inhabited by the Guanches, native peoples related to the early 

Berbers of North Africa. The conquest of the Canaries took almost 100 years 

and set a notorious precedent for the conquest of the New World. Due to the 

terrain and staunch resistance of the native Guanches, this conquest was not 

completed until 1496 when the Canaries were incorporated into the Castilian 

kingdom. The Spanish imposed a new economic model based on single-crop 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 95 

Table 3-1: The Mercury Space Flight Network (Three Orbit Configuration)57 

Station 

Abbreviation

Location S-Band RadarC Band RadarAcquisition*TelemetryCommandCApCom** 

North America 

Cape Canaveral, Florida CNV 28°28’N 80°34’W • • FA • • •

Corpus Christi, Texas TEX 27°39’N 97°23’W • FA • •

Eglin AFB, Florida EGL 30°46’N 86°53’W • FA 

Guaymas, Mexico GYM 27°57’N 110°43’W • FA • • •

Point Arguello, California CAL 34°39’N 120°36’W • • FA • • •

White Sands, New Mexico WHS • FA 

Australia 

Muchea, Western Australia MUC 31°35’S 115°56’E • FA • • •

Woomera, South Australia WOM 31°23’S 136°53’E • FA • •

Africa 

Kano, Nigeria KNO 12°03’N 08°31’E SA • •

Zanzibar ZZB 06°13’S 39°13’E SA • •

Atlantic 

Bermuda, United Kingdom BDA 32°15’N 64°50’W • • FA • • •

Grand Bahamas, British West Indies GBI 26°38’N 78°16’W • M • •

Grand Canary, Spain CYI 27°44’N 15°36’W • FA • •

Grand Turk, British West Indies GTK 21°28’N 71°08’W M • •

Pacific 

Canton Island, Kiribati Republic CTN 02°50’S 171°40’W SA • •

Kauai, Hawaii HAW 22°07’N 157°40’W • • FA • • •

SHIPS 

Atlantic Ship (Rose Knot Victor) ATS FA • •

Indian Ocean Ship 

(Coastal Sentry Quebec) CSQ FA • •

* FA: fully automatic SA: semiautomatic M: manual ** CAPCOM: capsule communicator 

32°21’N 106°22’W 

-
96 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the staff at Canary Island about 1967. Standing: John adams, Chuck rouillier 

(Station Director), tom White, percy Montoya, Matt harris, ed Bender, ed Crough. 

Sitting: Clay Krugman, Dick Kelly, roger Lee, Glenn Smith, russ Lutz. (photograph 

courtesy of Gary Schulz) 

cultivation, first the sugar cane followed by wine, an all-important trade item 

with England. The islands eventually became an important stopping point in 

the trade routes with the Americas, Africa and India, and the port of La Palma 

turned into one of the most important ports in the Spanish Empire. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the English introduced a 

new cash-crop, the banana, and the islands prospered. In 1936, Francisco Franco 

traveled to the Canaries as General Commandant from where he launched 

the military uprising of 17 July. He was able to quickly take control of the 

archipelago. Despite the fact that there was never actually a war in the islands 

during the 1940s, it was one of the places where post-war repression was most 

severe. Organized opposition to Franco’s regime did not begin to materialize 

until the late 1950s, when groups such as the Spanish Communist Party and 

various nationalist, leftist and independence factions such as the Free Canaries 

Movement came onto the political scene. 

When NASA approached Madrid about Grand Canary Island on 

10 September 1959, Mr. William Fraleigh, First Secretary of the Consul 

Political Office, was told that the situation was “rather delicate.” Evidently, a 

South American leftist newspaper that was run by exiles of the Spanish gov­
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 97 

ernment had published a misleading article disclosing the fact that Madrid 

was in the midst of negotiating with the United States to give a portion of 

the Canary Islands in order to establish an airbase. Madrid was rather sensitive about the matter since the Spanish Moroccans were already beginning 

to talk about the independence of the Canaries following the example set 

by the French Moroccans in 1956. The Spanish government quickly advised 

the State Department that care must be taken to clearly delineate that the 

MSFN station was not going to be related in any way to the U.S. airbase 

already there. Otherwise, Madrid could not guarantee permission to use the 

station. This bit of warning was passed down through Headquarters such 

that by the time formal negotiations were held, the civilian versus military 

nature of the station project did not become the showstopper that it easily 

could have been.58 

NASA always tried, to the extent possible, not to disturb the everyday lives of the local populace when building its foreign stations, but relocating the local tenants was sometimes unavoidable. This was the case on Grand 

Canary Island. Here, three groups of transient dwellings housing migrant 

farmers were located within the site of the station boundary. NASA was at 

first inclined to leave these dwellings alone, intending that they continue to 

be used after the station was up and running. But as construction progressed, 

it became clear that this arrangement was probably not going to be in the best 

interest of the Agency; that leaving the structures in their present locations 

and allowing people to occupy them were going to inevitably interfere with 

station operations. The houses had to come down. 

Whenever it was necessary to displace or disrupt local property, 

it was NASA’s standard policy to determine the removal and replacement 

cost prior to starting any actual work. Alternatives were pursued if the 

cost was deemed unacceptable. In the case of Canary Island, an agreement 

was reached—with the assistance of the U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering 

Command—to replace the structures in kind but just outside the boundary of 

the tracking station.59 

★ ★ ★

Construction of the MSFN began in April 1960; by mid-summer, 

all stations were under construction. The last one, Kano, Nigeria, was completed in March 1961. On 1 July 1961, 24 months after awarding contracts, 

NASA officially accepted the new MSFN. It was quite an impressive achievement, considering that the first American human orbital flight was not 

scheduled for another six months. A significant amount of research and 

development and nonrecurring engineering went into the effort. That also 

included all the land and ocean-floor cable links between the GSFC core, 

the Cape Canaveral launch site and the individual field stations. Table 3-1 
98 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

presents a summary of the MSFN as it appeared during Project Mercury, 

and Appendix 1 shows the network on a world map. 

The standard or baseline Mercury network was set up initially 

to track three orbits. This was augmented during the program so that by 

Mercury Atlas 8 (the fifth piloted flight), missions had been extended to six 

orbits. In order to accommodate the additional three orbits, the Atlantic Ship 

was equipped with command uplink transmitters, redesignated the Pacific 

Command Ship (PCS) and repositioned south of Japan. Three Navy ships 

(American Mariner, Huntsville and Watertown) also supported the mission from 

the vicinity of Midway Island in the north-central Pacific. 

These were not the only augmentations. To support the final 

Mercury mission—L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.’s MA-9 launched on 15 May 1962 

which was 22 orbits, the standard, three-orbit Mercury network had to be 

modified significantly as follows: 

Indian Ocean Ship Coastal Sentry Quebec was moved south of Japan. 

Atlantic Ship Rose Knot Victor was moved to the South Pacific near 

Easter Island. 

DOD ship Range Tracker was stationed northeast of Midway Island. 

DOD ship Twin Falls Victory was stationed between Bermuda and the 

U.S. East Coast. 

The DOD Eastern Test Range station on Ascension Island and 

Puerto Rico provided FPS-16 radar and telemetry recording. 

The new MSFN Gemini/Apollo station at Antigua was turned on to 

record telemetry and voice. 

Temporary voice communication sites were erected on Kwajalein 

Island, San Nicholas Island and Wake Island. 

DOD aircraft were assigned to provide voice and telemetry relays. 

Also starting with this mission, the radio link between Bermuda and Cape 

Canaveral was supplanted by submarine cable and the GSFC computers were 

upgraded to IBM 709s.60 

Stations had different roles and different equipment depending on 

their roles. Not all stations used flight controllers for instance. Sites like White 

Sands and Eglin were used only for tracking. The primary stations with full 

TT&C capabilities were the Mercury Control Center (MCC) at Cape Canaveral, 

Florida; Bermuda; Muchea, Western Australia; Kauai, Hawaii; Point Arguello, 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 99 

California; and Guaymas, Mexico. At these stations, commands—still few in 

number—could be transmitted up to the spacecraft as combination of tone 

pulses. Telemetry was received, demodulated and displayed in the form of strip 

charts and analog meter readings for flight controller evaluation. They read the 

health and status of the spacecraft, for example, marking readouts with different 

color grease pencils, each denoting the different times at which readings were 

taken. Between passes, summaries and reports were sent to the MCC via teletype; few telephone voice circuits were available at the time.61 

The relative importance of a given site varied depending on what 

was happening during a flight. Cape Canaveral and Grand Bahama, for example, provided vital telemetry, tracking, command, and voice coverage during 

launch and ascent. Conversely, Grand Turk Island provided radar tracking 

during Atlantic Ocean reentries. Bermuda bore the responsibility of deterpanoramic view of Launch Complex 14 as Mercury atlas 9 is readied for flight in this 

picture taken eight days before its launch as the last Mercury mission. (NaSa Image 

Number GpN-2000-000609) 
100 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

mining whether a mission should continue or be aborted. Should Bermuda 

order a “no-go”, Grand Canary Island then provided the crucial tracking 

needed for an emergency reentry. Finally, Kauai could transmit command 

tones up to the spacecraft to set off the timers used to fire deorbit retrorockets 

in the event of crew incapacitation.62 

One capability that was common to just about all the stations was, as 

one would expect, air-to-ground voice communications. Not all stations used 

astronaut Capcoms, though (which by tradition is always an astronaut).63 For stations where a NASA Capcom could not be assigned,a Communication Technician 

(or Comm Tech) handled voice calls to the astronaut. Before September 1962, the 

“Original 7” were all the astronauts that NASA had, so being able to speak with 

an astronaut on a space mission in those pioneering days was beyond privilege 

and quite an honor. The communications console at the Muchea station, for 

instance, was memorialized for years with a plaque which read: 

This plaque is to mark the spot where an Australian first 

spoke to a space traveler. The Australian was the communication 

technician at Muchea, Mr. Gerry O’Connor, and the space traveler was astronaut John Glenn.64 

A key to maintaining network reliability was the utilization of 

built-in operational redundancy using spares and backup equipment (plus frequent exercise of that equipment). During the first piloted orbital flight on 

Mercury Atlas 6, controllers worst fears came true when the prime computer 

used for orbit determination at GSFC “crashed.” But the built-in redundancy 

of the system had another computer available which was immediately brought 

online. Station personnel and equipment were kept sharp through exercises, 

simulations and frequent system checkouts. Although not part of the active 

network of stations when it first started, Wallops Island, just off the Virginia 

coast, served as a personnel training and network equipment test facility. This 

network training center was established by GSFC in July 1961 shortly after 

its networks became operational. There, equipment was prepared, tested and 

checked-out prior to shipment and field installation. At Wallops, all NASA 

and most of the contractor supervisory, maintenance and operation personnel 

were trained before their deployment overseas. Students at the Center were, 

for the most part, new engineering college graduates or electronics technicians in their 20s or early 30s. By 1963, the final year of Project Mercury, 

enrollment at the Center had reached 255 students.65 

★ ★ ★

A hallmark of the NASA spaceflight tracking networks has been 

the simple but distinguishing fact that a mission has never been compromised 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 101 

because of network problems, an enduring value that Covington espoused to 

the men and women who worked under him. The MSFN, nevertheless, did 

have its share of drama during Mercury: 

Mercury Atlas 5 (MA-5):On the flight of Enos the chimpanzee, 

a tractor accidentally plowed up cable outside Tucson,Arizona, cutting off communications with the Hawaii and California stations. 

Unfortunately, the alternate DOD circuit that had been provided 

in case something like this happened was also severed at the same 

time.To compound the situation, telemetry revealed that fuel was 

literally boiling away from the capsule, thus vapors—not fuel—was 

getting to the spacecraft thrusters needed to control the orientation of the spacecraft in the weightlessness of space. An inordinate 

amount of fuel was being consumed based on the data obtained by 

the MSFN. Mission Control decided to cut the flight short by one 

orbit and commanded retrorocket fire from Guaymas (exactly what 

the station was there for). AT&T, who owned the ground cables, 

worked frantically to come up with a solution. Just as the spacecraft approached North America, NASA communications traffic 

was rerouted around the cable break. Mission Control had just 12 

seconds left in the window to initiate reentry. Enos was saved. 

MA-6: As mentioned before, during astronaut John H. 

Glenn, Jr.’s pioneering flight, the backup computer at GSFC came 

in handy, performing computations for three minutes while the 

prime computer was being rebooted. 

MA-7: Using radar data from Point Arguello, California 

immediately following retrofire, the Goddard computers correctly determined that astronaut M. Scott Carpenter had overshot 

the intended splashdown point by 386 kilometers (240 miles). 

Mercury Control was at first skeptical when informed of this and 

the news was received with disbelief. Subsequent network tracks 

at Whites Sand and Corpus Christi confirmed Goddard’s initial 

prediction of the overshoot. 

MA-8: Solar activity was high and serious communication 

problems were experienced by the MSFN. Navy instrumentation 

ships were also used to augment the ground stations. On the next 

to last orbit, a power failure occurred at Point Arguello and a 

backup DOD site on San Nicholas Island was used to provide 

radar tracking. As an experiment, astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr. 

turned off the tracking beacon on his spacecraft during the fourth 

and part of the fifth orbit to see if ground radars could skin-track 

the Mercury capsule reliably. They could not. 
102 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

A problem also developed on the flight with the onboard 

thermal control system that was due to, of all things, wax buildup. 

The problem was serious enough that after the first orbit, MCC 

had to decide whether to bring Schirra back or give the problem 

a chance to correct itself on the next orbit, which it did. During 

this critical period, flight controllers had a constant flow of data 

on which mission-critical decisions were made for example, temperature measurements from the spacecraft to assure them that 

Schirra would not become dehydrated by excessive heat. 

MA-9: On the last flight of Project Mercury, 15 incidents of 

radio interference were reported by the network. Bermuda, for 

example, reported hearing the Voice of America and that of a 

Greenville, North Carolina, amateur radio operator. DOD frequency controllers were able to contact the offending operator and 

clear the NASA channels. On several occasions, however, amateur 

radio operators actually succeeded in contacting astronaut Gordon 

Cooper! (He was directed by Mercury Control Center not to 

respond.) More serious were instances where industrial equipment 

generated excessive radio interference around ground stations. 

NASA, for the most part, was able to convince local equipment 

owners to shut off the equipment on station passes during the 34 

hour flight.66 

Mercury Atlas 9 splashed down on 16 May 1963, bringing 

America’s first human space adventure to a successful end. Particular praise 

for the unsung heroes of the invisible network came from Cooper himself 

at the Project Mercury summary conference in October 1963. When asked 

about his experience and the people who made the program a success, Cooper 

paused and then replied: 

It would be difficult to single out any one group or organization for special praise because they were all a wonderful team and 

a smooth blending of extraordinarily competent technical skills. 

However, I do think that if one could be mentioned organizationally, certainly I would have mentioned the worldwide network. It 

is certainly comforting to know when you are out there, that the 

world’s finest communications network and the finest electronic 

facilities that man can devise are functioning with a fantastic 

computer complex that will allow the onboard systems specialists 

to break out their diagrams and tell you immediately what your 

situation is in the event of trouble, and this is indeed what happened on several occasions. Without this marvelous organization, 

it might have been a little more difficult to get back home.67 
Chapter 3 \ The Mercury Space Flight Network 103 

By the end of Project Mercury, there was little doubt that the 

MSFN had more than met the expectations of its designers. In a span of less 

than five years, NASA’s manned spaceflight network went from a concept 

on the drawing board of the Tracking System Study Group to a $125 million global network that safely brought four Americans back from orbit. This 

price tag—of which $53 million went into network facilities and $72 million to operating cost—came out to just under one-third of the $400 million 

total that NASA spent on Project Mercury. The yearly budget just to operate 

NASA’s tracking stations stood at $225 million. To illustrate the changing 

times, just six years earlier, the entire Minitrack Network was constructed and 

operated for a mere $13 million.68 

As 1963 turned into 1964, Goddard’s two networks, the STADAN 

and the Manned Space Flight Network (note the name change from “Mercury” 

to “Manned”) were a key and proven part of the five year old space agency. 

Workforce at the GSFC now accounted for 11 percent of the NASA total. 

Stations had been established spanning Alaska to Australia. Conceived as 

a “manned-satellite” program, Project Mercury was just the beginning. It 

allowed America to not only send astronauts into space for the first time, but 

also to man-rate its worldwide tracking and data acquisition network. This 

network matured quickly to become the dependable safeguard that NASA 

was counting on. Changes would soon be coming as the United States picked 

up its pace, sending more astronauts into Earth orbit and beyond in a determined race that would culminate with humans on the Moon. 

Chapter 4 

PREPARING FOR 

THE MOON 

Despite the significant progress made during Project Mercury, in 

1963 the United States still trailed (and trailed badly) the Soviet Union in terms 

of flight hours spent in space. The six Mercury missions flown between May 

1961 and May 1963 had only accumulated a total of 53 hours in space. Thirtyfour came on Mercury Atlas 9, Gordon Cooper’s 22-orbit program finale. 

Of the six flights, two were suborbital. In contrast, Soviet Vostok cosmo

nauts had accumulated a total of 382 hours in space on six missions. Valentina 

Tereshkova, a 25-year-old textile worker from Yaroslavl who became the first 

woman in space in June 1963 on Vostok 6, was in orbit 17 hours longer than 

all the American astronauts put together. 

-

It was clear by now that space had become the new global high 

ground for ideology and Cold War international prestige. “Now let the other 

countries try to catch us. Let the capitalist countries catch up with our coun

try which has blazed the trail into outer space,” was the unabashed challenge 

from Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev upon Gagarin’s triumphant return 

from space.1 

-
106 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

A week after the Gagarin flight, in a White House correspondence 

dated 20 April 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave Vice President Lyndon B. 

Johnson a directive. It had a definite sense of urgency. The President wrote: 

I would like, for you as Chairman of the Space Council, to be 

in charge of making an overall survey of where we stand in space. 

Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory 

in space, or by a trip around the Moon, or by a rocket to land on 

the Moon, or by a rocket to go to the Moon and back with a man? 

Is there any other space program which promises dramatic results 

in which we could win?2 

Kennedy wanted results. Even more so, he wanted something dramatic, something that would capture the imagination of Americans everywhere 

to allow the U.S. to regain, in no uncertain terms, the upper hand in space. 

To answer the President’s directive, Johnson and Dr. Jerome 

Wiesner, Kennedy’s science advisor, turned to NASA. Anticipating this, 

the Agency’s top management triad of James E. Webb, the new Kennedyappointed Administrator, Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden and 

Associate Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr. had been working to prioritize a list of Agency objectives since the previous fall. To this end, they 

commissioned a study on 6 January 1961, chaired by George M. Low of the 

Manned Lunar Landing Task Group, to determine the technical, schedule, 

and cost requirements of a human lunar program. Table 4-1 lists the conclusions reached by the Low study. 

Spurred on by these generally encouraging findings, Kennedy 

went forth with the commitment before a joint session of Congress on 25 

May 1961, of “achieving the goal before the decade is out, of landing a man 

on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” This was a bold move 

by a young President who had been in office for just five months. While the 

Table 4-1: Results of the Low Study on a Manned Lunar Program3 

Mission Spacecraft Launch Vehicle Date 

Earth Orbiting 

1 Man, Short Duration 

Mercury Atlas 1961 

Earth Orbiting 

3 Men, Long Duration 

Apollo “A” Saturn C-1 1965 

Circumlunar, Lunar Orbit 

3 Men 

Apollo “B” Saturn C-2 1967 

Manned Lunar Landing 

Orbital Operations 

Direct Approach 

Apollo “B” 

Apollo “B” 

Saturn C-2 

Nova 

1968–1969 

1970–1971 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 107 

the Gemini spacecraft was basically a two-seat version of the Mercury capsule. It did, 


however, have an equipment section which enabled it to stay in space for up to two 


weeks. Gemini allowed NaSa to gain the necessary experiences and man-hours in 


space needed before an attempt to the Moon was possible. here, astronauts James 


McDivitt and ed White train for their Gemini 4 mission in May of 1965. 


(NaSa Image Number GpN-2000-001018)
108 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

technical basis for his decision came from the NASA study, Kennedy felt that 

this gamble was one in which the United States had a chance to win and that 

it was sufficiently bold and dramatic enough to invigorate the nation and place 

America once again on the world center stage. 

Before astronauts could fly to the Moon, many questions still had 

to be answered. For instance, what features of the Mercury spacecraft needed 

to be improved? Can a spacecraft be made with greater endurance so it can 

orbit Earth longer to find out the physiological affects of long-duration missions required to travel to the Moon and back? Can two spacecraft rendezvous 

and dock in space? Can astronauts work effectively outside the protection of 

his spacecraft? Even though America had decided to go to the Moon, NASA 

was not yet ready. To bridge the rather significant technology gap between 

Mercury and the emerging Apollo program, the Agency endorsed plans for 

a two-person spacecraft program called Mercury Mark II in December of 

1961. The following spring, the name was changed and the program was officially christened Project Gemini—after the twin gods of Greek mythology— 

befitting of NASA’s new two-person spacecraft.4 

GSFC engineers made their first presentation to the newly formed 

Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) on the outskirts of Houston in the first 

week of June 1962. The topic was technical requirements they would like to 

see implemented in a Gemini network. These included: 

Unification of all command,telemetry,and radio signals onto a single 

carrier frequency. 

Conversion from analog to the newer and much more bandwidth 

efficient Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) digital telemetry. 

Use of two acquisition aids at each tracking station (one for the 

Gemini spacecraft and one for the unmanned Agena docking target) 

and the ability to slave the radar to either vehicle. 

Modification of network station computers to accommodate processing both command uplink and telemetry downlink.5 

Consumed with their primary job of developing the new two-seat 

Gemini spacecraft, MSC was lukewarm to the proposed changes. In their mind, 

they were just too much of a departure from what had just been done successfully on Mercury. Houston’s thinking was correct. The Goddard suggestions, 

taken collectively, did in fact represent a major change in the way tracking and 

data acquisition would be done. The proposed technique was a harbinger of 

the (Unified S-Band) system that would later be used on the Apollo spacecraft. 

USB was revolutionary in its time, enabling spacecraft command, telemetry, 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 109 

voice, and television to all be transmitted using a single, combined data link. 

The technique was not entirely new, however, to NASA as the DSN had used 

USB since 1958. 

The proposed changes broke ground with the conservative reliance on time-tested technologies such as analog telemetry, which had been 

in use since the 1940s. By the mid-1960s, digital systems had been under 

research at the White Sands Missile Range for some time. NASA had even 

tried it experimentally at the Bermuda Station on the final Mercury mission. 

After initial discussions, Houston agreed to make the switch to PCM telemetry but objected to the others on the grounds that complete dependence 

upon a single TT&C link could lead to total mission failure if just part of the 

system failed. 

Most of the Goddard proposals were in effect rejected. Despite this 

initial disagreement, GSFC knew what they had and was convinced it would 

work. The two NASA Centers held a series of technical interchange meetings 

and working groups to discuss the changes over the next 12 months, with 

Greenbelt making its case for the new tracking and communication technique. By June 1963, Houston was persuaded for the most part, agreeing to 

the proposed changes but with one important stipulation: that computers at 

network stations be employed only for telemetry processing but not for commanding. The idea was to preclude inadvertent or erroneous commands from 

being uplinked to the spacecraft in the event of a computer anomaly.6 

One Gemini guideline that had a significant effect upon the MSFN 

was the relaxation of the 10-minute “dead-time”, which was now relaxed to 

one primary ground contact per orbit. Astronaut performance and the Mercury 

spacecraft had shown that having the ability to remotely send commands to 

the spacecraft from every network outpost, while nice, did not turn out to be 

the necessary requirement that it was thought to be. With this decision, the 

MSFN no longer had to spread its valuable resources equally over the globe. 

It could now concentrate on a limited number of primary sites supplemented 

with a number of secondary stations. In this arrangement, primary stations 

were those that had command uplink capability in addition to voice, radar and 

telemetry while secondary stations did not have command capability.7 

Another change in network philosophy was network centralization 

in terms of mission control and mission computing. Back before John Glenn’s 

first orbital flight, many had simply presumed, even at Goddard, that some of 

the communication links between Mission Control and the tracking stations 

would be lost, at least intermittently. But this did not turn out to be the case 

at all as Mercury proved that reliable network communications were the rule, 

not the exception. NASA then had the confidence to remove flight controllers from the network stations and centralize all control activities at the new 

MCC in Houston. As a precaution, Capcoms remained at a few of the primary 
110 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

ground stations where there was still lingering skepticism on the part of MSC 

about the reliability of communications. 

At least this was the official position coming out of Houston. It was 

well known within NASA circles that such assignments were a way for Donald 

K. “Deke” Slayton, head of Flight Crew Operations at MSC, to give his astronauts some much needed rest and relaxation at attractive places. As former Flight 

Director Eugene F.Kranz put it,“Slayton would send astronauts out at the very last 

moment to all of the sites that were generally good locations to go to—Bermuda, 

Hawaii, California,Australia.”8This was generally not a problem for those working at the station,except when the astronaut crossed the line and began “throwing 

his weight around” as happened when Pete Conrad showed up in Australia on 

Gemini 3 saying that Slayton wanted him to be in charge during the mission. 

The other network centralization implemented by GSFC involved 

the computer system. On Project Mercury, computing was performed in 

Greenbelt, Maryland. The only other network computers were at the Florida 

launch site itself and at Bermuda. This architecture—identical to what was 

used on Mercury—continued through the first Gemini mission (Gemini 3) in 

March 1965. As preliminary telemetry processing plans were first being laid 

for Gemini, this was the computing baseline computer that engineers worked 

from. A rather limited architecture, it was capable of processing and sending 

only four groups of spacecraft health and status parameters back to the MCC 

for monitoring and evaluation. To meet the increased data requirements of the 

more complex Gemini spacecraft, the MSFN now had two UNIVAC 1218 

computers installed at each primary outpost. Additional submarine (oceanfloor) cables were also laid to meet the increased data flow demands. These 

improvements had the aggregate effect of greatly improving real-time data 

decommutation and processing allowing much more spacecraft information 

to now be sent to Mission Control than was possible on Mercury. Former 

MSC network chief Lyn Dunseith captured it succinctly when he said, “Voice, 

telemetry, command, and tracking data acquired by the Goddard managed 

communications and tracking network represented some of the most critical 

information available to the flight controllers at their display consoles”9 

As network changes continued and Gemini missions took place, 

Houston gained more and more confidence in the network. Take the role 

of computers. Two U1218 computers were originally set up in dual redundant mode, operating in parallel to process telemetry data. As they began 

demonstrating their reliability and as spacecraft TT&C burdens increased, 

MSC relented, finally agreeing to let computers handle both telemetry and 

command (“fire retro rockets,” “turn on telemetry transmitters,” “ring astro 

alarm,” etc.). The digital processing capability of the U1218s made a dramatic jump during Gemini, increasing from 2 input/output lines to 32, with 

transmission rates reaching the then state-of-the-art 50,000 bits-per-second. 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 111 

the now famous Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in 

houston, officially assumed mission network operations beginning with the third piloted 

Gemini flight (Gemini 5) in august of 1965. two identical Mission Operations Control 

rooms, or MOCr, were located on the second and third floors of Building 30 on the 

grounds of MSC. In 1996, the Department of Interior designated NaSa’s Mission Control 

Center as a National historical Landmark. pictured here is Mission Control during 

Gemini 5. (NaSa Image Number GpN-2000-001405) 

Eventually, one computer was tasked entirely to telemetry while the other 

to commands.10 

Project Mercury had shown mission control and mission computing to be so inter-related that the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition at 

NASA Headquarters decided that they should be best managed by the same 

Center. Since the MCC was going to be at the MSC, the MSFN computing 

system was reassigned to Houston. Gemini 4 in June of 1965 marked GSFC’s 

finale as the primary computing center for NASA human spaceflight. On this 

flight, MSC computers were placed in a so-called “ghost mode” where they 

were checked out and accepted in preparation for its upcoming assumption of 

primary computing duties. When Gemini 5 left the launch pad on 21 August 

1965, the MSC in Houston officially took over the mission computing function from Goddard. From that point on, the GSFC system was relegated to a 

backup role and employed mainly for network development, testing, and mission simulations, a role it performed until the end of Apollo.11 

Mercury flights had been very basic, limited to circular, low-Earth 

orbits of less than 320 kilometers (200 miles) in altitude. Gemini, though, 

would fly many high apogee elliptical orbits, some as far as 1,600 kilometers 
112 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

(1,000 miles). To improve tracking at these altitudes, RCA FPQ-6 skin-track 

C-band radars were added to the network. One of the most accurate and powerful tracking radars of the time, the FPQ-6 had an output power of 2.8 megawatts and was effective out to 60,000 kilometers (37,000 miles). All equipment 

was housed in a two story building. Its operation was fairly simple. It could be 

operated from a single console by two or three technicians depending on the 

tracking mode used. A team of at least seven people was required, however, 

for maintenance of the equipment. The reflector was an 8.8-meter (29-foot) 

dish and the combined weight of the moving parts and hydraulic drive was 

over 30 tons, controllable using a small joystick on the control console. For 

rigidity and stability, the antenna tower foundation extended nearly 10 meters 

(30 feet) underground.12 The older VERLORT and FPS-16 radars used on 

Mercury were kept in service. This provided redundancy so that, in the event 

of spacecraft beacon failure, the MSFN could still skin-track. With these combined capabilities, the potential for any tracking losses or blackouts was greatly 

reduced, if not eliminated altogether.13 

Lighter TELTRAC telemetry antennas and associated telemetry equipment were also installed across the MSFN to serve as acquisition aid for simultaneous tracking of both the Gemini and the unmanned Agena docking target 

during rendezvous missions. A major objective of Project Gemini was to demonstrate and test-out the rendezvous procedures being developed for the upcoming 

Apollo lunar missions.These missions required the Command Module (CM) and 

the Lunar Module (LM) to rendezvous with each other as the latter returned from 

the surface. On Gemini, the unmanned Agena spacecraft served as a surrogate rendezvous and docking target. For command uplink, the network continued to rely 

on FRW-2 UHF transmitters using 10 kilowatt high-power amplifiers.14 

Communications between the MCC and the ground stations also 

became much more efficient during Gemini. Air-to-ground voice transmissions, in particular, garnered special attention. Former Project Gemini 

Director at NASA Headquarters, William C. Schneider, recalled that 

Early in Project Gemini . . . we found that voice communications from the spacecraft left much to be desired.A near-perfect mission received bad notices because the people on Earth couldn’t hear 

what was happening.So we went to work to fine-tune the system to 

be ready for the more advanced Gemini and Apollo flights.15 

This is true even today. Despite crystal clear digital videos from 

space, the quality of voice transmissions—which is limited by the microphones worn by the astronauts—still leaves room for improvement. 

The first stations to transmit telemetry back to Houston were Bermuda 

and the early-ops sites downrange of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) at Grand 

Bahama, Grand Turk, and Antigua. When Houston supported its first mission in 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 113 

June 1965, the telemetry transmission rate from Bermuda to Houston was 2,400 

bits-per-second (2.4-kbps). Commands could be sent from the MCC to remote 

ground stations in one of two ways. In one method, used for routine or so-called 

housekeeping commands, Mission Control teletyped the command sequences 

prior to a scheduled pass over a given site which were then stored at the station. 

Later on as the orbiting spacecraft passed over the station, an onsite technician 

would uplink them up to the craft. For more urgent matters, Houston could 

send command messages over the 2.4-kbps master circuit to KSC for immediate 

relay via dedicated government priority “T-1” landlines and submarine cables to 

the next MSFN station in the spacecraft’s ground track. 

Communications between Houston and NASA tracking ships were 

enhanced whenever possible by collocating NASA vessels with Navy communication ships. This provided a network of UHF daisy-chain, relay points 

from sea-to-land and vice versa. The Coastal Sentry Quebec, a converted Class 

1 World War II freighter, was usually situated in the Western Pacific covering 

the South Pacific gap between Australia and Hawaii. The Air Force Eastern 

Test Range and Western Test range operated the Rose Knot Victor and Range 

Tracker, which were moved around in the South Pacific, Atlantic, or Indian 

Oceans depending on a specific mission’s requirement.16 

One final measure of the increasing capability of the ground communication network was at GSFC itself, where the SCAMA (Switching, 

Conferencing, and Monitoring Arrangement) was updated. SCAMA was the 

telephone switchboard at the Center that handled all voice communications 

from around the world. In the early days of Project Mercury, it could simultaneously conference only 10 worldwide voice circuits. This number jumped 

Wives of Gemini 4 

astronauts James a. 

McDivitt and edward 

h. White talk with their 

husbands in orbit from 

the new Mission Control 

Center at the Manned 

Spacecraft Center on 

3 June 1965. patricia 

White is on the left, and 

patricia McDivitt is on 

the right. (NaSa Image 

Number S65-28922) 
114 “Read You Loud and Clear!”

Table 4-2 The Manned Space Flight Network in the Mid-1960s17

Station (location) Abbreviation Network Role* Ownership**

North America

Canaveral (Kennedy Space Center, Florida) CNV Primary NASA

Texas (Corpus Christi, Texas) TEX Primary NASA

Eglin (Florida) EGL Secondary DOD

Goddard Space Flight Center

(Greenbelt, Maryland)

GSFC Secondary NASA

Guaymas (Mexico) GYM Primary NASA

Houston (Texas) HOU Primary NASA

California (Point Arguello, California) CAL Primary DOD

Wallops (Wallops Island, Virginia) WLP Secondary NASA

White Sands (New Mexico) WHS Secondary NASA

Atlantic

Antigua (British West Indies) ANT Secondary DOD

Ascension (Ascension Island, United Kingdom) ASC Secondary DOD

Bermuda (United Kingdom) BDA Primary NASA

Grand Bahama (British West Indies) GBI Secondary DOD

Grand Canary (Spain) CYI Primary NASA

Grand Turk (British West Indies) GTK Secondary DOD

Africa

Kano (Nigeria) KNO Secondary NASA

Pretoria (South Africa) PRE Secondary DOD

Tananarive (Malagasy Republic) TAN Secondary NASA

Australia

Carnarvon (Western Australia) CRO Primary WRE

Perth (Western Australia) MUC Secondary WRE

Woomera (South Australia) WOM Secondary WRE

Pacifi c

Canton (Kiribati Republic) CTN Secondary NASA

Hawaii (Kauai, Hawaii) HAW Primary NASA

Ships

Coastal Sentry Quebec CSQ Primary NASA

Range Tracker RTK Secondary DOD

Rose Knot Victor RKV Primary DOD
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 115

Remarks

Launch Control Center

Located at the abandoned Rodd Naval Auxiliary Air Station; an original Mercury station

Located at the Air Force Eglin Gulf Test Range 50 miles northwest of Panama City, FL; an original Mercury station

Overall network responsibility; development and test facility

Located in northwest Mexico on the shores of the Gulf of California; an original Mercury station

Manned spacefl ight Mission Control Center

Located some 40 miles north of Santa Barbara, part of the Navy Pacifi c Missile Range; an original 

Mercury station

Training and test facility just off the shores of Virginia

Located on the grounds of the Army’s White Sands Missile Range near Alamogordo; an original Mercury 

station

Air Force ETR station

Air Force ETR station

Go/No-Go decision site; an original Mercury station

Air Force ETR radar site

Located 120 miles off the African coast; critical abort tracking site; an original Mercury station

Air Force ETR radar site

Original Mercury station in west-central Africa

Air Force ETR station

Replaced the Zanzibar Station; last land site before crossing the Indian Ocean to Australia

Collocated with the NASA STADAN site

The original Mercury site at Muchea was used until Perth became operational; call sign was retained

Original Mercury station; collocated with STADAN site

Original Mercury station

Original Mercury station

Usually stationed in the western Pacifi c near Japan

Usually stationed in the central Pacifi c near Midway Island

Usually stationed in the south Pacifi c off the South American coast

*Primary stations were those that could uplink system commands to the spacecraft. Secondary stations were 

those used primarily for radar and telemetry downlink. All had UHF air-to-ground voice capability.

**DOD: Department of Defense; NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration; WRE: Weapons 

Research Establishment, Australian Department of Supply
116 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

to 220 when the Mercury Space Flight Network became the Manned Space 

Flight Network for Project Gemini.18 

From mid-1963 into the spring of 1964, a number of tracking stations were added. Overall, the MSFN expanded from 14 land stations to 23 

(9 primary, 14 secondary) plus an additional Navy ship. As before, coordination with the DOD played a central role in this evolvement; DOD support 

was just as essential for Gemini as it had been for Mercury, the STADAN and 

Minitrack. By the time Project Gemini came around, coordination between 

the two departments at the working level was well established. The Air Force, 

in particular, remained a key player in the MSFN, providing support via 

the Eastern and Western Test Ranges. The network for manned spaceflight 

tracking was indeed a well-balanced, well-orchestrated effort between NASA 

and the DOD, with the latter even assuming primary station responsibilities 

at some places. Table 4-2 summarizes some key characteristics of NASA’s 

Manned Space Flight Network as it appeared in 1965 and 1966 when America 

flew 20 astronauts into space. (Also see Appendix 1.) 

★ ★ ★

Network expansion in the mid-1960s was not designed merely to 

meet Project Gemini requirements. It prepared the MSFN for the soon to 

come, and the ultimate goal, of Apollo flights to the Moon. Since Apollo 

would be progressively more complex—first Earth orbit missions followed 

by circumlunar and finally lunar landing flights—network complexity also 

increased incrementally. Augmentation to many existing stations, along with 

new stations with totally new capabilities, was necessary. Several new sites 

around the world were founded during 1964. One of them was on Ascension 

Island, the network’s most isolated location. 

Located just south of the Equator in the Atlantic some halfway 

between South America and Africa, the desolate 88-square-kilometer (34- 

square mile) island was originally discovered by the Portuguese on Ascension 

Day in 1501. Due to its remote location, it remained unoccupied until 1815, 

when it was garrisoned by the British Navy in an effort to prevent any attempt 

to snatch Napoleon Bonaparte from St. Helena some 11,000 kilometers (6,850 

miles) to the south. At the turn of the century, the British Cable and Wireless 

Company set up a relay station on the island for telegraph cables that ran 

between Britain to Cape Town and South America. Little activity took place 

on the island after that until the Second World War, when it took on more 

importance, becoming a key refueling base for cargo planes of the Cannonball 

Express which the militarized Pan Am crews flew, rushing high priority supplies between Miami, Florida and Karachi, India. “If you can’t go to the 

Moon, the next best place is Ascension Island,” was ironically the airline’s 

advertising catch phrase in those days.19 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 117 

Ascension Island emerged as a key network location during Apollo 

network planning in 1964. From August 1964 to July 1965, Ed Buckley initiated a series of technical notes and memorandums to Bob Seamans and GSFC 

and KSC Center Directors Harry J. Goett and Albert F. Siepert, pushing to 

establish Ascension and Antigua in time to support Apollo. A feasibility study 

was conducted. It concluded that the various program requirements in the 

planned Apollo (and Deep Space) missions confirmed the necessity of putting 

a station in the middle of the South Atlantic. Voicing their support, the JPL 

in Pasadena also independently concluded that flights of certain lunar exploratory probes would have to be delayed until this station came on line.20 

In August of that year, the U.S. approached the British government with a proposal to add a spaceflight tracking station on the island to 

support both piloted and unpiloted missions. No difficulties were expected 

as Ascension already played host to a U.S. Air Force radar installation. The 

island was also the mid-Atlantic relay point for data coming from and going 

to Africa via cable. An agreement was reached three months later between the 

two governments paving the way for NASA to establish a MSFN station on 

the dormant volcanic island. 

To minimize construction and operating costs, as well as potential 

interference to existing and future facilities, island assets supporting the DSN 

and those for Apollo were consolidated into a single complex at a desolate area 

on the southeast side of the island aptly named Devil’s Ashpit. Engineers chose 

Devil’s Ashpit as it was in a very RF quiet location, being separated from the 

Air Force Eastern Test Range radar site and two British ground stations by the 

859-meter (2,819-foot) Green Mountain. All community support and common use facilities such as barracks, the mess hall and recreational facilities for 

the men stationed there were integrated with the existing Air Force station 

already on the island. 

Under this arrangement, NASA operated and maintained all its 

technical facilities on Ascension while the Air Force provided logistical support to NASA. (A very similar agreement between the DOD and NASA was 

reached for operations on Antigua in the Eastern Caribbean.) Transportation 

of supplies was mostly provided by the Air Force Military Airlift Command. 

Potable drinking water was always a concern on the remote island. To alleviate this burden, a 144,000-liter-per-day (36,000-gallon-per-day) fresh water 

desalinization plant was one of the first facilities constructed on the island.21 

Civil engineering upgrades (road work, ground preparation, power) 

at Devil’s Ashpit began in late 1964, first on the Deep Space side followed by 

the Apollo side. Construction followed in February 1965 on the Deep Space 

9-meter (30-foot) antenna and its 55-square-meter (600-square-foot) air conditioned service building. It was operational six months later. This was soon 

followed by another 9-meter antenna, this one for Apollo, with its own 37- 

square-meter (400-square) foot air conditioned service building. This power-
118 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

ful system was to be used specifically for high gain USB communications with 

the spacecraft (2.1 GHz operating frequency with a +43 dB antenna gain) 

with a 10 kilowatt command transmitter—sufficient for sending commands to 

the Apollo spacecraft in the near-Earth portions of its journey.22 

By January 1966, construction was finished for the most part, in 

time to support mission AS-201 on 26 February, the first test flight of the 

Saturn 1B launch vehicle. Not as large as its “big brother” the Saturn V, at 

68.3 meters (224 feet) the Saturn 1B was still by far the most massive launch 

vehicle NASA had ever flown, capable of delivering 18,600 kilograms (41,000 

pounds) into low-Earth orbit. In addition to the large tracking antennas, a 

30-meter (100-foot) free-standing collimation tower with a 9.3-square meter 

(100-square foot) air conditioned service building was added to support the 

autotracking antennas. NASA did not skimp in establishing the Ascension 

Station, spending some $10.8 million in 1965. When it was all done, Ascension 

(ACN) proved to be a state-of-the-art, full service station, with operations 

conducted at a brand new 1,330-square meter (14,300-square foot) air conditioned operations building. Rounding out the facilities on MSFN side was a 

185-square meter (2,000-square foot) storage building and a 2,500-kilowatt 

power plant.23 

With the rapid buildup on the island came traffic problems, which 

NASA had anticipated. At the request of the representative of the local British 

government on Ascension, the Agency constructed access roads on a new 

southern route to the station from the airport. The route traversed the south 

facing slopes of Green Mountain allowing traffic to bypass the area around 

Two Boats Village in the more heavily populated central part of the island. 

NASA began bringing the Ascension Station online in the spring of 

1965, phasing in approximately 10 people each month. ACN was exercised as a 

secondary tracking station during Project Gemini in preparation for its fulltime 

role on Apollo. By the following March, some 110 station workers were on the 

island. Due to its remote location and sustainment cost, normally half of the 

contingent assigned to Ascension was transient personnel who was on the island 

only during actual missions. The station was unique as it was the only “singlesonly” outpost in the network. The prime contractor Bendix apparently thought 

its remote location and harsh living conditions would pose a hardship, and so 

company employees were not allowed to bring their families.24 

A particular concern on Apollo was the launch phase of its trajectory. Attenuation of communication signals by the Saturn V rocket plume 

placed some limitations on the spacecraft’s S-band antenna. USB stations, 

therefore, had to be placed closer together than first planned. The problem 

was not only one of needing to be geographically positioned correctly to see 

the vehicle from the ground, but also one of being able to maintain a reliable, 

low bit-error rate and continuous telemetry link between the two. To meet 

this Atlantic Ocean Area support requirement, NASA had to have a string 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 119 

the volcanic landscape of ascension Island is clearly evident in this photograph taken 

by the Ikonos satellite on 24 February 2003. the island is less than 14 kilometers (9 

miles) wide. the MSFN apollo station was located on the eastern side of the island, 

just to the right of the center, large cloud cover on this picture. (From the NaSa earth 

Observatory Data & Images archive) 

of stations along the ground track at the Cape, Bermuda, Grand Bahama, 

Antigua, Grand Canary, and Ascension. This chain of stations was needed 

so as to provide communications coverage for the range of launch azimuths 

(the direction a rocket is launched with respect to true North) being planned 

to accommodate the various lunar landing sites. For instance, for launches of 

72o, Cape Canaveral, Grand Bahama, Bermuda, and Grand Canary provided 

support. For the more southerly launch angle of 108o, Cape Canaveral, Grand 
120 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Bahama, Antigua, and Ascension provided support. For launches in between, 

a combination of these sites was used.25 

In the summer of 1965, NASA approached the United Kingdom 

to discuss adding stations on Antigua and Grand Bahama Island. Diplomacy 

was once again the key. Paving the way for formal negotiations between the 

two governments, the senior British representative to the Air Force Eastern 

Test Range at Cape Canaveral, who had earlier arranged for and participated 

in the site surveys of Antigua and Grand Bahama Island with NASA officials, 

had earlier (informally) acquainted the British Colonial Office of the proposed 

NASA needs on these two territories. This preliminary work greatly expedited formal negotiations with the London Embassy when the time came. The 

selection of these two islands was by no means arbitrary and was the end result 

of surveys conducted on several South Caribbean islands including Barbados, 

Saint Incia, and Eleuthera by joint NASA and Air Force teams.26 

Antigua, a 280-square kilometer (108-square mile) island in the 

British West Indies, already had an Air Force ground station which at the time 

was being used by NASA as a secondary station for voice communications with 

the Gemini spacecraft. The Antiguan government enthusiastically embraced 

the idea of establishing a “Moon Station” on their island. The rare opportunity to play host to one of the tracking stations for Apollo with its publicity 

and potential economic fallout were just too good to pass up. This enthusiasm 

was shown by the actions that quickly followed the initial discussions. 

On 20 July 1966 (exactly three years to the day before the Apollo 

11 lunar landing), Chief Minister Bird of Antigua signed an agreement with 

NASA making available a 168-acre plot of land near Dow Hill for NASA to 

construct a station. Since approximately one-third of this land was privately 

owned at the time, the Antiguans agreed to negotiate the purchase of this 

land from the island owners and finance it themselves. NASA would pay the 

Antiguan government a bargain sum of $336,000 ($2,000 per acre) plus interest over the next eight years under the agreement, as long as NASA guaranteed full payment even if the station were to be abandoned prior to 1974.27 

NASA, at its own expense, widened and paved the roads needed to 

access the station from the airport, the existing Air Force base and from the 

local municipalities. In this mutually beneficial arrangement, rights-of-way 

and easements needed for widening the roads and for installing communication lines were furnished by the Antiguans at no cost to NASA. It was estimated by the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition that about half a million dollars of road improvements were made on the island in 1966. 

As soon as the roads were completed, a single 9-meter (30-foot) 

USB antenna system was constructed at Dow Hill near the Shirley Heights 

region on the southern tip of the island. Logistics and site support were provided by the U.S. Air Force. All the personnel support facilities such as barracks, mess hall and recreation for the new NASA station were integrated into 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 121 

the existing Air Force base, as was done on Ascension Island. As a further sign 

of interagency cooperation and cost savings, site construction was managed 

for NASA by the U.S. Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks under a continuing 

arrangement with the Air Force Eastern Test Range. It did not take long for 

Antigua to become operational in May of 1967. The station reached its peak of 

operations two years later with 92 people, mainly Bendix and its subcontractors, assigned to the island.28 

The complexity of NASA’s working relationship with other U.S. 

government agencies increased as the MSFN expanded. Take Canton Island 

in the Kiribatis. Prior to NASA assuming responsibility for Canton, three 

American agencies used the island under an agreement with the Kiribati 

government. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had 50 people on 

the island to provide refueling and communication services. Meanwhile, the 

United States Navy had 26 people on the island assigned to the Pacific Missile 

Range. In addition, there were six people who worked for the Weather 

Bureau. After the completion of Mercury Atlas 9 in May of 1963, a two 

year period of relative inactivity in human spaceflight ensued. Still, NASA’s 

expenditures on Canton were $1.2 million a year even though there were no 

missions to support.29 

Original plans had called for NASA to operate Canton only through 

the first three Gemini flights, or about the middle of 1965. But during this 

hiatus in missions, the role of Canton was reevaluated by OTDA. Meanwhile, 

the FAA officially notified NASA in early 1964 of its intention to withdraw 

operations from the island. Up until that point, NASA was fully prepared to 

continue supporting Canton. With this sudden withdrawal, OTDA now felt 

like the FAA had suddenly left it “under the gun” to make a decision as to 

whether or not the Agency was going to continue supporting work on the 

island. OTDA needed additional time to consider the alternatives. In particular, it wanted to know whether the two other agencies, namely, DOD and the 

Weather Bureau, still had any requirements for the island. 

In a meeting held at the Department of Commerce on 31 July 1964, 

the various stakeholders of Canton laid out each of their agency’s position 

for the island. NASA had two requirements. One was for tracking and data 

acquisition on the first orbit after launch. Canton, as a secondary station, had 

only voice and telemetry. But it would be decisive in the event of a first orbit 

abort. Under the planned trajectories for Gemini and early Apollo, Canton 

was the last ground station that would be in contact with the spacecraft before 

retrofire sequence had to be carried out. 

The second NASA requirement was one that was still several years 

away. Apollo reentry in the Pacific Ocean could be either in the Northern or 

Southern Hemisphere. Canton Island was ideally situated, being just to the 

south in one case and just north in the other. In other words, at this stage in 

Apollo planning, it appeared that Canton would be a key weather observa-
122 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

tion site for both Pacific reentry areas. But in 1964, this requirement was still 

several years in the future, and it was difficult to justify NASA expenditures to 

keep a site operational to meet a possible future requirement that was perhaps 

as far as five years away. 

At this meeting, the DOD indicated they really no longer had any 

need for Canton that was directly related to defense. It had two positions, 

though, both based on an unwritten, good-faith commitment specifically to 

support NASA. The first was the Navy’s original plan to support the Agency 

for one more year, until July 1965. The Navy was prepared to honor this commitment using remaining FAA funds available for base support through fiscal 

year 1965. The Air Force then “volunteered” to pick up the support after 30 

June if NASA still had a requirement, but would do so only on a fully cost 

reimbursable basis from NASA since they no longer had a specific requirement for Canton. It was further made clear that NASA would have to let the 

Air Force know within the next 30 days whether Canton would be needed so 

that they could make appropriate budgetary plans. 

The Weather Bureau’s position was that Canton Island was the only 

equatorial site it had which possessed a full weather balloon observation capability to above 30 kilometers (100,000 feet). It was therefore extremely important for meteorological research purposes as well as providing data for storms 

moving northward towards Hawaii and southward towards American Samoa. 

Even though this presented a very important (almost mandatory) requirement 

to the Weather Bureau, they made it clear to the other stakeholders that the 

bureau would be forced to reconsider this requirement if it were required to 

fully support the island on its own. The bureau’s conclusion was essentially 

that they would be willing to pay its pro rata share of cost, provided “it didn’t 

cost too much.”30 

The final arrangement reached between the agencies was for one 

single agency to manage and fund both the technical and administrative support on Canton, coordinating the latter with other interested stakeholders. 

NASA, with the most at stake, ended up assuming the lead role. In a letter 

written on 21 January 1965 to James Webb, Ed Buckley recommended this 

action, specifically pointed out that Bendix is also the major support contractor 

to the other agencies on Canton. To this end, he suggested that Headquarters 

could easily arrange to amend the Bendix contract to include Canton without 

significant change in technical personnel.31 Many FAA government workers 

were also receptive to on-the-job transfer to contractor employment status. 

Jurisdiction and logistical responsibility on Canton began to transition from 

the DOD to NASA with the launch of the first crewed Gemini flight in 

March of 1965. This transition was complete by the time the second Gemini 

mission took place in June. DOD operations on Canton, along with what was 

left of the FAA, were completely phased out. 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 123 

But it turned out that NASA was not to keep Canton open very long 

either. In November 1966, after Gemini 12 splashed down bringing the program to a successful conclusion, the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition 

and the Office of Manned Space Flight jointly conducted a thorough review 

of MSFN requirements. Their conclusion was that future requirements in the 

mid-Pacific could be met more flexibly and effectively by one of the Apollo 

reentry ships. One important reason was that a ship could provide S-band support, something that the Canton Island ground station could not. 

With its fate sealed, a step-by-step phase out of the station followed. 

Canton Island ceased participation in all network activities by July 1967. An 

advance notice was given by the State Department to the British government followed by a final meeting held at the Department of the Interior on 

10 August. It was verified then that no other U.S. government agency was 

interested in assuming responsibilities for the island. This was soon followed 

by a FAA Notice to Airmen that, except for emergencies, the Canton Island 

Airport would be closed to all traffic on 1 September. 

Station staff was immediately reduced and preparations initiated for 

assuming a caretaker status until a complete evacuation of the station could 

take place. By September 1967, the approximately $3.2 million of NASA 

equipment invested in the station had been removed and reassigned to other 

stations. Contractors and their families left the island. The final inspection 

flight left Canton on 20 December 1967, ferrying out the remaining few facility support workers, along with a handful of Standard Oil engineers and geologists who had remained on the island to finish out their scientific research. 

Such joint and sometimes convoluted decisions were not uncommon since NASA (a civilian organization) and the DOD (a military organization) both had—and continue to have—a stake in the frontier of space. They 

generally served each other’s interests well. Issues relating to the sharing of 

cost and resources could be found simmering but were often easily settled 

with the stroke of a pen. They ranged from the trivial such as funding of 

recreational facilities to who would provide office equipment, to the more 

serious requirements of cooperative use of water production, transportation, 

station operations, and maintenance costs. 

In the summer of 1965, for instance, a dispute over who should pay 

the cost of running the power generation equipment on Ascension Island had 

gotten quite bitter with neither the onsite DOD official nor the NASA Station 

Director budging an inch. To break the stalemate, Ed Buckley recommended 

that the KSC make available $58,500 to Patrick Air Force Base to run the 

power plant.32 Some of these conflicts could have been perceived as perhaps a 

bit petty by those looking in from the outside. But for the people stationed at 

remote locations, these otherwise “petty” issues could directly affect everyday 

quality of life where access to resources could not always be taken for granted.
124 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Senior management on both sides back in the States was often called on to 

keep such issues from escalating. 

While interagency problems were one thing, strife between collocated STADAN, MSFN, and DSN personnel was a different matter all 

together. It had the potential to not only be ugly but also impact the ability of a station to perform its mission. A case in point was Ascension Island 

in 1967. As the MSFN started operations, a lack of cooperation began to 

develop between Bendix contractors working the manned spaceflight system 

and those working the unmanned planetary Deep Space program. This refusal 

to coordinate their efforts eventually led to the Goddard side of the house 

failing to adequately provide their assistance to help maintain and support the 

DSN antenna. The condition deteriorated to the point where Ascension was 

faced with the problem of having to refurbish the antenna which had become 

severely corroded. Most of the metal had to be refinished and the electrical 

wiring replaced. 

In the spring of 1967, James Bavely, Chief of Network Operations 

at the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition, directed E. J. Stockwell and a 

representative from Goddard to the island to get first hand information on the 

problem. The detrimental effect on station maintenance eventually got to the 

point where installation of a radome to protect the antenna was considered. 

However, with the need at the time to use MASERs to support Deep Space 

missions, the real possibility existed of burning a hole in the radome. A solution would have been to remove the radome during a mission and then replace 

it afterwards. The alternative (and the one eventually implemented) was much 

more attractive: proper preventative maintenance through better cooperation 

among those working the two networks on the island.33 

While this was happening, one of the most volatile episodes to 

befall the network played out halfway across the world on the eastern shores 

of Africa. The MSFN station in Tananarive, Madagascar was one in which the 

beginning and end were tied to the political unrest and instability of not one 

but two governments. Unfavorable circumstances surrounding the government of the host country have, on just a handful of occasions, led to station 

closures. These included, for example, Cuba (see Chapter 2) and South Africa 

(see Chapter 6). None, though, were as severe and dangerous as what happened in East Africa in 1963 and 1964, where the disruption impacted operations for both the MSFN and STADAN. 

Just off the eastern coast of Africa some 5o south of the Equator is 

the island of Zanzibar. Its written history dates back to the Persian empire 

of the sixteenth century. Occupying a prominent spot along the east African 

shipping lanes, the control of Zanzibar was the object of multiple conflicts 

that occurred amongst various ruling sultans in the 1800s. The British Empire 

with its powerful Navy was also gradually taking over offshore islands in the 

area during this time. In 1890, the island became a protectorate of the United 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 125 

Kingdom, anchoring the Commonwealth’s very important Bombay-Zanzibar 

shipping route to the Far East. 

Zanzibar was needed to provide spacecraft coverage after loss-of-signal at Kano, Nigeria. It was also the last land station to see a spacecraft before it 

crossed the Indian Ocean. Despite some mistrust on the part of the local British 

client Sultan, on 14 October 1960, the United States signed an agreement with 

the United Kingdom to place a NASA station on the island. With the completion of stations in Kano and Zanzibar in 1961, the MSFN was essentially finished. The Zanzibar Station was located about 16 kilometers (10 miles) east of 

Stone Town near the village of Tunguu. Assigned in a totally foreign environment, the Americans, to their delight, were well received by the local villagers. 

Technicians and their families blended in as just another minority group in 

the ethnically diverse region. The staff usually lived in Stone Town with their 

families when they were not at the station supporting a mission. 

Although the station successfully supported all four Mercury orbital 

flights without major disruption, it could not avoid operating under a continuous umbrella of scrutiny from the local authority. Zanzibar, in the early 

1960s, was a highly unstable country of some 300,000 people, ripe for strife 

with factions like the proindependence Afro-Shirazi Party and the Ittihad 

ul’Umma, pro-Peking, pro-communist party that favored Chinese expansion into East Africa, all trying to seize power. Tensions had reached the 

point by 1963 where NASA was realistically concerned and keenly aware that 

hostilities could erupt with little or no warning. In July 1963, less than two 

months after the conclusion of Project Mercury, the State Department issued 

a memorandum warning of imminent potential riots in Zanzibar pending the 

outcome of national elections. In a Confidential letter (since declassified) to 

Goddard Center Director Harry Goett foreshadowing things to come, NASA 

Headquarters recommended that station personnel, as a precaution, formulate 

1) an emergency escape plan, and 2) a plan to reduce staffing of the station 

to a caretaker status that could be implemented by no later than 3 July, when 

elections were slated to begin.34 

A period of political unrest did follow the elections but station personnel did not have to implement their evacuation plan, at least not yet. But 

the situation deteriorated rapidly soon thereafter. By year’s end, the British, 

who had dealt with over 70 years of factions and strife on the east African 

colony, finally granted Zanzibar its independence, establishing it as a constitutional monarchy on 19 December 1963. This state of independence was 

short lived, though, as the ruling Sultan was overthrown less than a month 

later in a bloody military coup instituted by the Afro-Shirazi Party. The new 

socialist regime then went on to merge with the neighboring mainland state 

of Tanganyika to form the country of Tanzania. 

Meanwhile, the original tracking network agreement had expired 

in July 1963 after the last Mercury mission. NASA was literally in the midst 
126 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Letter of gratitude from Bendix to NaSa on successfully navigating the circumstances 

of what could have been a tragedy in Zanzibar. From a station safety standpoint, this 

was probably the most tense moment in the history of the Goddard networks.35 (Folder 

Number 8824, NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa history Division, NaSa 

headquarters, Washington DC) 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 127 

of negotiating a renewal with the Sultan when the revolt happened. With 

safety of Americans now at stake, NASA Associate Administrator Robert C. 

Seamans ordered the immediate evacuation of the station on 14 January 1964. 

The three dependents of Station Director Tom Spencer (Spencer himself was 

away on business in Malagasy at the time), along with eight Bendix workers 

and their 18 dependents were evacuated out of the country by the U.S. Navy 

as a destroyer stood by on alert offshore.36 

The drama of these events (coming on the heels of Gordon Cooper’s 

triumphant 24-hours in space just six months earlier) was well publicized in the 

United States.The behind-the-scene (and, some would later say, heroic) diplomatic intervention of State Department officials in Zanzibar to buy more time 

making possible a rescue mission and to keep the events from escalating into an 

international incident was critical,the importance of which cannot be overstated. 

In letters of appreciation to Secretary of the Navy Paul H. Nitze and Secretary 

of State Dean Rusk, NASA Administrator James E.Webb officially recognized 

the cooperative efforts of their departments, and credited several individuals by 

name, especially mentioning on-the-spot actions of Charge d’Affaires Fredrick 

Picard, in resolving this incident as successfully as possible without tragedy.37 

After the station staff was safely home, L. F. Griffin, then President of Bendix 

Field Engineering Corporation,expressed his appreciation and gratitude in a letter to the space agency, personally thanking Buckley “in behalf of our people.” 

But after the staff were evacuated, there still remained the question 

of what to do with the approximately $3 million worth of communications 

equipment that was abandoned. The new Zanzibari President Abeid Amani 

Karume, who had originally given the United States a 60-day window to 

remove the assets, withdrew that offer and demanded in a meeting with Frank 

C. Carlucci, the new Charge d’Affaires, that the U.S. completely rid all station equipment from the country by the end of that April. (It was thought at 

the time that President Karume did this as a reprisal to statements made by 

William H. Attwood, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, that communist China was 

turning Zanzibar into “a kind of non-African state” to be used as a staging 

area for their base of operations against other governments in Africa.) Also 

to be dismantled as an adjunct to the Zanzibar tracking station was a nearby 

communication facility that relayed data to Kano, Nigeria, for transatlantic 

communications to Florida and Houston via cable.38 

While the State Department deemed it necessary to physically 

remove station assets in the interest of preserving national security, NASA’s 

position was somewhat different. Norm Brockett, the Director of Network 

Operations and Facilities, thought that the actual reuse value of the equipment 

was fairly negligible when compared with the risk to Americans who would 

have to be flown back into Zanzibar, tear down, load the hardware, and then 

be flown back out again. (A team of 19 workers were, in fact, standing by in 

neighboring Nairobi for just this purpose.) With NASA making it quite clear 
128 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

that any effort to remove station equipment would be carried out only because 

it was the desire of the State Department to do so, no attempt was ever made. 

President Karume’s deadline came and went. No retrieval team was sent and 

the station was eventually abandoned in place.39 

NASA’s official stance at the time was that the loss of Zanzibar 

would have no real effect on future plans for Gemini and Apollo. These programs would stay the course. But the Office of Manned Space Flight had 

in the meantime placed a requirement on Gemini for voice communication 

and telemetry in that geographical area: on at least 50 percent of the orbits, 

Zanzibar was the last station just before the astronauts fired retrorockets for 

deorbit and reentry. 

To meet this strictly technical requirement, a couple of contingency 

plans were considered, both involving the use of tracking ships. One was to 

move the Indian Ocean Ship Coastal Sentry Quebec farther west. The OTDA 

quickly eliminated this option, though, since it would have left an unacceptably 

large void over the Indian Ocean prior to acquisition-of-signal at Carnarvon, 

Western Australia. OTDA also looked into what it would take to acquire and 

configure another ship off the coast of east Africa. It was also quickly determined, however, that this could not be done in time for the first crewed Gemini 

flight, at the time scheduled for October of 1964. (It had already been postponed 

from April. Gemini 3 eventually flew in March 1965.) Fiscal constraint was also 

a factor as the annual cost to operate a ship was expensive, over twice that of a 

land station. NASA had to find a more permanent solution. 

A few locations were considered where a transportable system could 

be emplaced, such as in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) or in South Africa, 

where there was already a DSN and STADAN site. Yet another possibility 

was the Malagasy Republic on the island of Madagascar. Just three months 

earlier on 19 December 1963, the U.S. had entered into a 10-year agreement 

for the installation of a transportable STADAN station outside the port city of 

Majunga in northwest Madagascar. The two countries had reached the agreement in accordance with the spirit of a United Nations resolution calling for 

the application of results of space research to benefit all peoples. In addition to 

generating much needed weather forecasts, especially during hurricane season, the station would provide jobs for some 200 local residents in nontechnical positions for handling day-to-day maintenance work. 40 

Initial equipment consisting of five 30-foot trailers—one each housing a 136.2 KHz and 400 MHz telemetry receiver—were set up at Majunga. 

More equipment soon began arriving from the Australian sites of Muchea and 

Woomera, which were phased out at the conclusion of Project Mercury. A MPS26 radar was temporarily deployed prior to the addition of a FPQ-6 radar. All 

together, NASA spent some $600,000 in additional funds to finish-out a transportable station in the east Africa region to replace the one lost at Zanzibar.41 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 129 

In the summer of 1964, as it became apparent that the first mission 

of the new Gemini spacecraft was not going to occur until the following year, 

Goddard officials began giving thought to moving the station to a more permanent establishment. In September, construction began at Imerintsiatosika, 24 

kilometers (15 miles) outside the capital city of Tananarive (now Antananarivo) 

in the central High Plateau region of the island. By the time the move was 

completed, American staff at Tananarive had increased from 21 to 58. As 

a transportable STADAN site, the station had been one of the simplest in 

the network, requiring only 18 Bendix and Motorola contractors along with 

three GSFC-assigned supervisors. These requirements were further reduced 

in between missions when it was routinely reduced to caretaker status, requiring only an American representative onsite to supervise the Malagasy nationals employed to take care of day-to-day maintenance. By the time Tananarive 

ramped up to support Gemini 3 on 23 March 1965, such down times were a 

thing of the past as 44 fulltime American contractor employees along with 13 

trained Malagasy nationals were reporting to the NASA Station Director.42 

The disruptive environment that plagued the station at Zanzibar 

was a sharp contrast to what NASA experienced on the island of Guam. The 

Agency’s work on the island would turn out to be one of the most amicable 

and long lasting in the history of the NASA networks, one that continues to 

this day. It began in the spring of 1964 as OTDA began looking at new locations for the Apollo network. To support lunar flights, several new capabilities 

were required: 

Tracking and data acquisition for Apollo rendezvous tests in 

Earth orbit 

Establishing the spacecraft orbit in preparation for and to make the 

go/no-go decision for Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) 

Continuous voice and telemetry contact during the critical lunar 

injection phase 

Continuation of coverage during premidcourse flight to confirm the 

“go” status of the lunar mission on the outbound trajectory 

NASA needed a ground station to provide coverage in the broad 

ocean area between loss-of-signal at Australia (Honeysuckle Creek) and acquisition-of-signal in Hawaii. After looking at trajectory ground tracks, mission 

planners determined that the Mariana Islands afforded the best geographical 

location from which the Apollo requirements could be met in the Pacific. 

Site survey teams were sent to Saipan, Tinian, and Guam in April 1964. They 

found that although suitable geographic locations existed on each of these 
130 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

islands, Guam was the best for several reasons. First, an international ocean 

cable between the island and the U.S. had just recently been put into service. 

Second, radio noise in the southern part of the island was virtually nonexistent (a very RF quiet, -87.5 dB per square meter). Third, Guam already had 

an established and well used logistics pipeline to the United States. Finally, it 

did not hurt that the proposed site was on a private parcel of land owned by 

U.S. citizens that could be leased. 

Located in a large, flat valley some 25 kilometers (16 miles) southeast of the capital city Agana (Hagatna), the Guam MSFN station occupied 

an area known as Dandan, which means “to knock at the door” in the native 

Chamorro language. The 550-square kilometer (212-square mile) island is 

some 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles) west of Hawaii. It is today one of five 

well traveled insular areas of the United States (the other four being American 

Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands). The 

origin of its once primitive habitat is, surprisingly, completely obscure. The 

ancient inhabitants left no decipherable records. Latte stones found upon the 

arrival of European discoverers were so ancient that neither their origin nor 

their true purpose is known. 

Spain first laid formal claim to Guam in 1565, 44 years after its 

discovery by Ferdinand Magellan, but actual occupation of the island did not 

begin to take place until 1668, when Padre Luis de Sanvitores led a group of 

missionaries onto the island. Spanish rule ended in 1898, following the SpanishAmerican War when Spain ceded Guam and the Philippines to the United 

States. President McKinley then placed the administration of the island in the 

hands of the Navy and for expediency, appointed the Naval Station Commander 

as the governor. The island fell to the Japanese in World War II and became the 

scene of some of the fiercest battles of the war. It was recaptured in the summer of 1944 when U.S. marines once again raised the Stars and Stripes over the 

island in its island-hopping campaign towards Tokyo. Five years after the war, 

Congress passed an act making Guamanians citizens of the United States, giving Guam self-government under a U.S.-appointed civilian governor. 

One factor that made Guam very attractive besides its excellent 

geographical location was the unabashed enthusiasm of the host. Manuel 

Flores Leon Guerrero, the 50-year old American appointed Governor of 

Guam, made it no secret to the survey delegation that there was no better place in the Pacific to locate the first new Apollo tracking station than 

on his island. Affable and gregarious, Guerrero proactively campaigned for 

the proposed station, taking a very personal and active interest in the whole 

affair. He personally entertained the survey team and hosted a reception at 

the gubernatorial mansion so that NASA officials could meet face-to-face the 

leading citizens and merchants of Guam. He then volunteered the services of 

the government of Guam to aid the Americans in any way possible. 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 131 

Two areas of vital importance to NASA were specifically addressed 

by Guerrero. First, he offered to secure or aid in securing the land necessary 

for the Apollo station. To this end, he offered to buy the necessary land in the 

name of the government of Guam and lease it to NASA. But if that did not 

work, he offered to negotiate for the direct lease to NASA by the owner, and 

if needed, to negotiate for the purchase of the land by NASA. As eventually 

implemented, land was leased by the owners to NASA.43 The second issue pertained to the island’s support of the NASA contractor employees who would be 

stationed on Guam. He felt certain that private enterprises would be up to the 

economic challenge of providing housing and community services that would 

be needed, offering his personal commitment to stimulate the private sector. 

Two months after the survey team’s return from Guam, Governor 

Guerrero personally visited Ed Buckley in Washington to again express his government’s eagerness for a Guam station.The campaigning paid off. On 10 June 

1964, the position of the OTDA was put forth in a letter to Hugh Dryden. In the 

letter, Buckley wrote,“The interest and support by the government of Guam will 

facilitate an early decision probably this week on the final site selection in southern Guam,” and recommended the obligation of $170,000 in advanced funds to 

the Bureau of Yards and Boats to begin design of the Dandan site.44 

Construction of the Guam Station began in January 1965. There 

was pressure to get the station operational, not only due to the pace of the 

Apollo schedule but also because there was fear on the part of the Agency that 

the DOD might, in some way, lay claim to the job first. In 1965, the Air Force 

was also building its own ground station on Guam (on the north part of the 

island, not the south where NASA was). Charles Force, Guam’s first Station 

Director, said there was a feeling that “if NASA got its Guam station up first, 

then [we] would have the role supporting the manned missions, whereas if [we] 

didn’t put one there, then the Air Force would have that role, and NASA didn’t 

want the Air Force to have a key NASA station.”45 That fear may have driven 

the pace of construction as the station was completely done by September 

1966. (As for the DOD station, it too became operational but was used strictly 

for its own purposes.) 

Guam’s capabilities were second to none, including its centerpiece, 

a USB 9-meter antenna system that provided telemetry, tracking, commanding, and voice communications to the Apollo spacecraft. Backup TT&C functions in the VHF range were accomplished using TELTRAC, SATAN, and 

Satellite Command Antenna on Medium Pedestal (SCAMP). The Dandan 

site had a large central operations building and a “diner”.46 A NASCOM 

Switching Center to handle Pacific circuits was later added on the south side 

of the building. Three other structures housed water, fire, power, flammable 

storage, and automotive equipment. The collimation tower and other support 

equipment buildings were located on a hill about three kilometers (two miles) 

from the main operations building (see figure on next page). As the station 
132 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the Guam apollo Station had as its centerpiece a 9-meter USB antenna used to communicate with the apollo spacecraft during the near-earth and trans-lunar portions of 

the mission. the station was one of the longest lived in the network, operating for over 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 133 

two decades, from 1967 to 1989. (Folder Number 8813, NaSa historical reference 

Collection, NaSa history Division, NaSa headquarters, Washington DC) 
134 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

neared completion, it was integrated without delay into the manned network 

towards the end of Gemini, checked out and declared operational in March 

1967, in time to support the historic (unmanned) first flight of the Saturn V 

on Apollo 4. 

Like Bermuda five years earlier, the Guamanians were very proud 

of their station. NASA had the very active support of the community in that 

regard, from the Governor down. Force recalled a story as the station was 

about to open: 

When the station became operational, I decided it would be 

appropriate to have a dedication ceremony for the station,so I tried 

to get somebody from NASA Headquarters to participate. They 

declined. . . . [Apparently] Guam wasn’t high enough up on their 

priority list for whatever reasons that they were going to participate. But when I called the Governor’s office, they were out there 

with ‘bells on’ immediately and everything.We did have a very nice 

dedication ceremony. The Navy, who had physically constructed 

the station, heavily participated as did the government of Guam. 

Station Director Charles Force welcomes dignitaries and guests to the Guam Station 

dedication ceremony on 21 January 1967. Seated to his right are Jose a. Leon Guerrero 

and a. W. Baumgartner, Bishop of Guam; to his left are Governor and Mrs. Guerrero; 

Marilyn Force, president of the apollo Wives Club; and Cdr. eugene pickett, Officer In 

Charge of Construction, USN; who oversaw the station construction for NaSa and presented a symbolic key to the facilities. (photograph courtesy of Charles Force) 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 135 

We had a lot of good local publicity.That was the first time I think 

it dawned on the local people that they had a future role in that 

station, and from there on out, we had very popular support.47 

A bronze plaque at the station’s main entrance proclaimed: 

This Apollo Tracking and Data Acquisition Facility, established by 

the Goddard Space Flight Center of the National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration, is hereby dedicated to providing exemplary 

support for the peaceful exploration of Space as mankind, using his 

God given powers, ventures forth to other celestial bodies in his 

continuing search for knowledge48 

Guam was significant in that it was the first station built from 

the ground up specifically for Apollo. Though it had to endure its fair share 

of typhoons—being located in the middle of the Western Pacific typhoon 

alley—the station went on to support all six Moon landings as well as Apollo 

13, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, and the Space Shuttle until 1989, plus numerous 

scientific satellite programs. Following a 10-year hiatus in the 1990s, NASA 

once again chose Guam, this time as host to the overseas ground terminal for 

the TDRSS (see Chapter 7). The establishment of the original tracking station 

is still considered one of Guam’s crowning achievements and a source of pride 

for the Guamanians. 

One of the existing stations overhauled during Gemini in preparation for the coming lunar landing program was Bermuda. As on Mercury and 

Gemini, Bermuda was a critical station immediately after launch and would 

now monitor the ascent of the Saturn V into orbit. First of the downrange 

stations to electronically see the rocket, Bermuda provided the critical go/ 

no-go data to Mission Control for flight continuation or abort decision making. It was located in the right place, enabling one to observe a large portion 

of the S-II second stage burn and most of the S-IVB third stage burn at high 

elevation angles. 

Apollo presented several first time technical challenges to the network. Saturn launches out of KSC with azimuths between 72 to 90o required 

the addition of a C-band radar capability on Bermuda to meet Houston’s flight 

mission rules for acquisition of data needed to evaluate the spacecraft while it 

was in Earth “parking orbit” prior to the TLI burn. These evaluations served 

three primary purposes: guidance system analysis, propulsion system analysis, 

and overall malfunction analysis of the Apollo spacecraft prior to committing 

it on a trajectory to the Moon. 

On 8 April 1965, Goddard awarded RCA a $4.6 million contract 

to provide an Apollo tracking and data acquisition system on Bermuda. The 

company was to install its most sophisticated long range radar, the FPQ-6, on 
136 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Cooper’s Island. This C-Band system was state of the art for its time, accurate to within two meters (six feet) at 48,000 kilometers (30,000 miles). The 

previous system on Bermuda, the RCA FPS-16, tracked only to an accuracy 

of 5 meters (15 feet) at 800 kilometers (500 miles). It was kept as a backup. 

Bermuda was the second “Q-6” in the MSFN, the first having been installed 

earlier in Carnarvon, Australia to support Gemini and the early Saturn booster 

development tests.49 

On 10 March 1965, Ed Buckley submitted a $1.6 million request 

to James Webb to consolidate and upgrade the existing MSFN facility on 

Bermuda to meet the combined requirements for projects Gemini and Apollo. 

This much needed upgrade was designed to put under one roof, the various 

telemetry facilities located in prefabricated metal structures and in trailers 

scattered about Town Hill and Cooper’s Island. The corrosive effect of sea 

salt spray and moisture had over the years taken its toll, making a facility 

construction project imperative if NASA were to entertain any thought of 

continued operations on the island. 

The upgrade was very thorough. It included an air conditioned, 

1,100-square meter (12,000-square foot) Operations Building along with a 

300-square meter (3,200-square foot) Generator Building to house the diesel 

generator. Adjacent to the USB antenna was a windowless 45-square meter 

(500-square foot) building housing the hydro-mechanical equipment to point 

the massive antenna. Concrete foundations were also dug for the 9-meter (30-

foot) dish and the collimation tower. Extensive cabling between the existing 

Tracking and Communications Building and the new Operations Building 

were installed; an existing microwave terminal was relocated. Maintenance 

and administration staff increased by 30 percent. Twenty-six additional technicians were soon added as the site ramped up to support Gemini and Apollo. 

Once the Cooper’s Island upgrade was complete, the old telemetry site at 

Town Hill was dismantled.50 

By far the biggest change in gearing up for Apollo was the use 

of USB. It affected, rather extensively, network operations. Adding to the 

complexity was that some USB stations had dual capability and could support 

two spacecraft—the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) and the Lunar 

Module (LM), for example—simultaneously if they were in the antenna beam. 

Others were “single” and could handle only one spacecraft at a time. To illustrate the complexity of network planning during this time, one can look at 

how USB capability was added at Grand Bahama and Grand Turk. 

The first thing that GSFC and MSC did was to correlate USB 

antenna patterns with trajectories to arrive at a preliminary set of ground station 

locations. This was done for Apollo even before the first Gemini mission took 

place. The result of this preliminary investigation, along with a later GSFC/ 

KSC meeting held on 1 September 1964, was presented to the 11th Manned 

Spaceflight Instrumentation and Communications Panel in October 1964. 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 137 

These studies showed that because of a severe antenna pattern pull 

towards the rear of the launch vehicle, a serious gap in Apollo Saturn V command coverage would be encountered somewhere between the Merritt Island 

Launch Area (MILA, just downrange of the launch point) and at Bermuda or 

Antigua—which one depending on the actual launch azimuth. The immediate recommendation of the panel was that alternate locations at MILA and 

Cape Kennedy be considered for a USB site. Houston also suggested that 

additional stations at Grand Bahama, Grand Turk, and Vero Beach be considered. Their priorities were to be made mandatory, highly desirable, and 

desirable. But since abort requirements and antenna configurations used in the 

studies were new and still evolving at the time, the panel also recommended 

that more analysis be performed. To this end, a new subpanel was formed. 

The mission of this Subpanel on Launch Area Instrumentation was to make a 

comprehensive assessment of additional coverage requirements that were still 

needed. W. F. Varson from GSFC was appointed chairman of this subpanel.51 

Its first meeting was held on 22 October 1964. At the end of the 

day, Varson’s team had reached three conclusions: 1) The need to select a generally southern MILA location for the launch area USB station; 2) Continuous 

coverage from launch to Grand Bahama Island was probably not going to be 

feasible and that a station at Vero Beach would have to be considered if continuous coverage were to be made mandatory; and 3) Further analysis was again 

still necessary prior to committing to building a station at Vero Beach. The 

next meeting of the subpanel (now redesignated the “USB Implementation 

Subpanel”) was held at Greenbelt on 10 November 1964. There, a more 

definitive plan of action began to materialize. The panel gave the go-ahead for 

a transportable USB system to be placed at MILA. It also made the very key 

decision that the three stages of the Saturn V launch vehicle would not require 

continuous coverage from launch to orbit, but that additional coverage for the 

Apollo spacecraft itself (the CSM) would be required to close a two to three 

minute gap between the Cape and Bermuda. It was concluded at this meeting that this additional requirement could be met by placing a transportable 

system on Grand Bahama supplemented with a planned Air Force USB station 

on Grand Turk. This action essentially took Vero Beach out of the picture. 

An all-hands meeting took place 10 days later, this time with Varson’s 

panel meeting with Major General Samuel C. Phillips, then the Director of the 

Apollo Program. Solutions for USB coverage were presented advocating the 

emplacement of a station on Grand Bahama and possibly one on Grand Turk. 

The panel also recommended that any site selected between Cape Canaveral 

and Bermuda—to ensure link closure immediately down-range of the launch 

area—be transportable so as to accommodate various launch azimuths. Based 

on these recommendations, it appeared that Grand Bahama would definitely 

be needed but that the probability of a station on Grand Turk was still “50-

50” at best. Despite this uncertainty regarding Grand Turk, launch area abort 
138 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

a gathering of NaSa Station Directors at GSFC in early 1967. Front row (left to right): Bill 

Wood (head of the MSFN Operations Branch), Walt LaFleur (StaDIr Bermuda), Bryan 

Lowe (StaDIr honeysuckle), Don Gray (honeysuckle), tecwyn roberts (Chief of the 

Manned Flight Operations Division), Virgil true (StaDIr hawaii), Dale Call, unidentified; 

Second row: unidentified, Jack Dowling (StaDIr MILa), George Fariss (StaDIr Goldstone), Fred healey (assistant StaDIr Bermuda), Charles Force (StaDIr Guam), Dan 

hunter (assistant StaDIr Madrid), Chuck Jackson (Chief of the Logistics Management 

Office); Back row: Larry Odenthal (StaDIr Grand Bahama), Lewis Wainright (StaDIr 

Carnarvon), Otto Womack (StaDIr Guaymas), hank Schultz, (StaDIr Corpus Christi), 

Otto thiele, (NaSa representative on the Vanguard), Bill easter, Joe Garvey, (StaDIr 

antigua), Chuck rouillier (StaDIr Grand Canary). (NaSa Image Number G-68-206) 

coverage was considered sufficiently critical that steps had to be taken so as 

to prepare a location on the island should it be called on. The fiscal year 1965 

budget process was already well underway by this time and the Air Force in 

the mean time decided not to put its own USB system on Grand Turk. The 

Agency thus decided that the best approach was to request FY 1966 funds be 

allocated for transportable systems on both Grand Bahama and Grand Turk. 

But the Grand Turk issue was still up in the air as late as March 1965. 

Engineering analysis continued at GSFC and MSC, but no definite conclusions were reached. The analysis was not easy since uncertainties still existed 

in the Apollo spacecraft antenna patterns and in the predicted magnitude of 

the Saturn V booster plume attenuation. A progress report was submitted to 

the 12th Manned Spaceflight Instrumentation and Communications Panel 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 139 

Gemini 5 is launched 

from Launch Complex 19 

atop its titan II booster 

for an 8 day mission, 21 

august 1965. at launch, 

the vehicle stood 33 

meters (109 feet) tall and 

weighed 154,200 kilograms (340,000 pounds). 

although Gemini carried 

a crew of two, the entire 

vehicle was not greatly 

bigger than the singleseat Mercury atlas, which 

stood 29 meters (94.3 feet) 

and weighed 117,930 kilograms (260,000 pounds) 

at launch. (NaSa Image 

Number 65p-0160) 

on 25 February. Varson felt that conclusions one way or the other regarding 

Grand Turk could be reached by the end of March and recommended that 

the Apollo Program Office be briefed as soon as his team was ready. A month 

later, the panel was ready with its decision. 

The final conclusion of the Varson subpanel was presented to Phillips 

on 1 April. It recommended that a single USB transportable system be stationed 

at Grand Bahama with the capability to support a single spacecraft. The Grand 

Turk USB site, which throughout this process had consistently been deemed 

secondary and needed only for contingencies, was duly eliminated.52 

In addition to augmenting early-ops operations in the Caribbean, 

the Guaymas Station in Mexico was also upgraded to accommodate a 9-meter 

(30-foot) USB single spacecraft system (one transmitter, two receivers). The 
140 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

United States had renegotiated with Mexico City when Project Mercury 

ended in May 1963 to expand the station for tracking of unmanned science 

satellites. International goodwill between the two governments was further 

promoted as the United States and Mexico agreed upon other areas of scientific cooperation, in particular, meteorological sounding rocket programs. Just 

three weeks before Gemini 3 on 4 March 1965, an agreement was reached 

to extend operations at Guaymas to the year 1970. Over the next two years, 

upgrades were done to bring the station in line with the other primary sites 

to enable simultaneous tracking of both the Gemini spacecraft and the Agena 

rendezvous target.53 

Construction began in the fall of 1965 and the upgraded Guaymas 

station was declared fully operational by GSFC in the spring of 1967. The 

$5 million expansion was a rather large project that necessitated the facility 

grounds to increase dramatically, from 30 to 114 acres. This was needed to 

ensure a noninterfering perimeter and to eliminate potential obstructions and 

personnel trespasses into the antenna beam—a real hazard when the antenna 

was transmitting. Strict perimeter control was required since the antenna 

would be, for the most part, operating at low elevation pointing angles from 

its location in northwest Mexico.54 

As the first Apollo flight drew near and tracking stations were 

geared up, these foreign outposts began to take on more and more visibility on 

the international scene. The one person in charge of a station was the Station 

Director, or STADIR. As his title suggests, the STADIR was the person ultimately responsible for the everyday operations of a tracking station. But running the station turned out to be only one part of the job. The STADIR of a 

foreign station had another big responsibility: act as a spokesman for NASA. 

This “other duty as assigned” made publicly representing NASA a routine 

part of the job. In this regard, overseas NASA STADIRs were part of the 

Embassy staff, subject to direction from the Ambassador. 

In the 1960s, the world was watching as America prepared to send 

men to the Moon. NASA was fully aware that the country’s prestige (and 

Cold War standing in the international community) rested on the outcome. 

As Project Gemini continued to pioneer a series of American space firsts, 

international interest in the U.S. space program was intense. How a station 

was run could play a key role in influencing the public opinion in that country, being that it was often the most visible (and sometimes only) evidence of 

the space agency on foreign turf. Every local government, in addition, wanted 

reassurance that they were playing an important part in going to the Moon. 

This was especially important at locations where American sentiment may not 

have been at the best. 

Sometimes a STADIR asked for guidance from GSFC management or Headquarters on handling of public affairs; sometimes they were just 

directed as to what to say. Other times, it was a little of both, as illustrated 
Chapter 4 \ Preparing For The Moon 141 

by the following letter from Ed Buckley to Morton Berndt, the Guaymas 

STADIR in 1965, on how he should convey the importance of the station to 

the local press (the word “Guaymas” appears four times in the statement; the 

word “important” six): 

If it should prove necessary during the coming missions to explain 

the importance of the Guaymas Station to the press, I suggest that 

you speak along the following lines: 

It is important to recognize that the data from the spacecraft 

systems and the astronaut’s performance during every orbit passing 

Guaymas is a very important piece of information to the overall 

conduct of the flight. The Guaymas site is a very important part 

of the network from a standpoint of operational control, and the 

information to be gathered from this site during all periods of the 

operation is very important to the overall program. Guaymas is 

used in many ways such as the place where important retrofire information is obtained and initial contact with the North American 

continent after long periods of silence from the spacecraft while 

over the Pacific.We should never lose sight of the importance of 

Guaymas to the conduct of the manned space flight operation.55 

By 1967, the MSFN had matured into a sprawling but centralized structure, an interconnected framework of over two dozen ground stations spanning three continents. It supported 10 very successful Gemini flights 

from March 1965 to November 1966. These missions produced a series of 

impressive firsts: NASA’s first two-person spaceflight (Gemini 3); America’s 

first extravehicular activity (EVA) or spacewalk (Gemini 4); the world’s first 

spacecraft rendezvous (Gemini 6 and 7); the first docking (Gemini 8); and the 

highest apogee orbit to date of 1,370 kilometers (850 miles) above the surface 

of Earth (Gemini 11).56 

The record was indeed impressive. By the end of the program, the 

United States had leapfrogged the Soviet Union in almost every aspect of 

human spaceflight. Americans had flown into space 16 times, accumulating 

over 1,000 hours in mission time (Gemini 7 alone completed a two-week 

marathon, 220 orbit flight). In sharp contrast, the Soviet pace slowed considerably after Tereshkova’s Vostok 6. Only two Voskhod (USSR’s two-person 

craft) flights took place during this time, bringing the Soviet time spent in 

space to 432 hours.57 

The bridge to the Moon had been built. President Kennedy’s goal 

of placing an American on the lunar surface by 1970 now seemed much more 

achievable. 

NASA’s tracking network was ready. 

Chapter 5 

THE APOLLO YEARS 

As Apollo became the centerpiece of the national space program, 

major decisions had to be made about the proposed missions before tracking 

and data acquisition requirements could be fully defined. Tracking Apollo 

was obviously going to be much more than just an extension of tracking 

Mercury and Gemini, both of which remained in Earth’s orbit. The complex

ity of Apollo trajectories and its flight phases were many: 

­

1	 The spacecraft was launched from the KSC into a parking orbit 

around Earth. 

2	 The vehicle was inserted from this parking orbit into lunar trajectory in a maneuver called Trans-Lunar Injection, or TLI. 

3	 The vehicle coasted on a ballistic trajectory for three days, from 

Earth to the vicinity of the Moon, making minor course corrections when needed. 

4	 The spacecraft performed a braking maneuver placing it in orbit 

around the Moon. 
144	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

5	 A Lunar Module (LM) separated from the Command/Service 

Module (CSM) to descend to the lunar surface. 

6	 After exploring the surface, the Ascent Stage of the LM lifted-off 

from the Moon and rendezvoused with the CSM in lunar orbit. 

7	 The LM was jettisoned after which the CSM performed a burn 

to insert it into an Earth-bound trajectory in a maneuver called 

Trans-Earth Injection, or TEI. 

8	 The vehicle coasted in a ballistic trajectory for two days back to 

Earth, making minor course corrections when needed. 

9	 The CM reentered Earth’s atmosphere along a narrow corridor 

at 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) per hour. 

10	 The Command Module parachuted to a predetermined splashdown location in the Pacific Ocean.1 

Many of the fundamental steps outlined above required capabilities 

well beyond the Mercury and Gemini configurations of the MSFN. Tracking 

and communicating with a spacecraft a quarter of a million miles away posed 

many new and different challenges for the network.For instance,ground stations 

required new equipment to expand into a USB system where tracking, telemetry, and command used a single carrier frequency. More powerful 26-meter 

(85-foot) dish antennas such as those used by the DSN to communicate with 

planetary space probes were added to meet the much more demanding range and 

data requirements.These were supplemented with 12-meter (40-foot) antennas 

to provide wider beamwidth coverage across this vast distance. The GRARR 

system was added to track the Apollo spacecraft while it was out of radar range. 

Rounding out the changes were new ground stations along with a contingent of 

ships and planes to fill coverage gaps and meet data relay requirements.2 

Studies for the Apollo network began at Goddard in early 1962 

in the TDSD. TDSD originally envisioned a network based on the emerging Mercury and Gemini MSFN stations, supplemented by STADAN sites. 

In this early plan, MSFN radars would be used for low-Earth orbit support 

of the Apollo spacecraft prior to the Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) burn committing it on a trajectory to the Moon. The existing sites were prepared to 

handle this role, a role that was very similar to that of Projects Mercury and 

Gemini. This ostensibly made sense as technical and cost considerations both 

advocated that an Apollo network be built around the existing Gemini network of radar stations. In this way, the Apollo network would not have to be 

built from scratch. 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 145 

this vintage 1964 drawing shows the relative sizes of the Mercury, Gemini and apollo 

spacecraft, as well as the atlas, titan and Saturn V used to launch them. the combined 

weight of the apollo Command Module, Service Module and Lunar Module at launch 

was 47,630 kilograms (105,000 pounds). By comparison, typical weight of the Mercury 

capsule was only 1,950 kilograms (4,300 pounds) and the Gemini 3,760 kilograms (8,300 

pounds). (NaSa Image Number S64-22331) 

Augmentation of the Gemini network with range and range rate 

equipment along with the use of large S-band antennas for portions of the mission away from Earth were well understood early on in these Goddard trade 

studies. Table 5-1 shows the original Apollo network as envisioned in 1962. 

This plan called for three block upgrades to bring the network up 

to its final form to support the original Apollo timetable. The so-called “1B 

Network” would have been used to support early test flights of the Apollo 

spacecraft in low-Earth orbit launched on the Saturn 1B rocket (missions 

AS-111 through AS-114). This first iteration would have essentially used the 

primary MSFN Gemini sites to provide radar tracking and TT&C support. 

The “V Network” would have been an interim block upgrade to support 

Earth orbit and high apogee missions of the Apollo spacecraft launched on the 

massive Saturn V launch vehicle (missions AS-201 through AS-205). Apollo 

Ships would have started joining the network along with an upgrade of the 
” ”

146 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Table 5-1: Apollo Network as First Proposed in 1962 

Station 

Earth Orbit 

Missions (Early) 

The “Ib Network 

Earth Orbit Missions 

(Late) 

The “V Network Lunar Missions 

Coastal Sentry Quebec s

Grand Canary Island s

Bermuda s s s

Cape Canaveral s s s

Carnarvon s s s

Guaymas s s

Hawaii s s s

White Sands s s

Madagascar s s

Apollo Ship 1 (Atlantic) s s

Antigua s

Canberra s

Houston s

Palermo s

Apollo Ship 2 (Indian) s

Apollo Ship 3 (Indian) s

Apollo Ship 4 (Pacific) s

Apollo Ship 5 (Pacific) s

Madagascar site for full global USB capability. A third and final block upgrade 

completing the Apollo network would have added four more ships, airplanes, 

a USB site on Antigua, plus three 26-meter USB facilities to be located in 

Houston, Texas; Canberra, Australia; and Palermo, Sicily.3 

As it turned out, but for use of existing MSFN radar sites, the first 

incarnation of the actual Apollo network bore little resemblance to what was 

first proposed. By the fall of 1962, TDSD had decided against using STADAN 

stations for Apollo, opting instead to collocate with major DSN sites. This rather 

significant decision was based on a combination of factors: 1) The requirement 

to have a backup for the 26-meter USB antenna; 2) Similar requirements for 

long range spacecraft communications on Apollo and deep space missions; and 

3) STADAN scheduling concerns. The STADAN was fully occupied with its 

mission of supporting unmanned application and science satellites, the number 

of which NASA continually added into Earth orbit. 

Early planning had pinpointed fairly well the necessary primary 

ground stations for the near-Earth phases of Apollo missions. Secondary sites 

were added as planning progressed. Twelve-meter telemetry antennas at exist­
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 147 

ing MSFN stations were replaced with a new generation of smaller, 9-meter 

(30-foot) USB antennas. NASA continued to pool its own MSFN equipment 

with DOD assets to fill needs where necessary. Five instrumentation ships and 

eight aircraft were also employed. By the time Gemini 12 splashed down in 

November 1966, the first of the MSFN stations to be reconfigured for Project 

Apollo had appeared. In March 1967, Guam came online as the first new site 

constructed specifically for Apollo. The process of assembling the remainder 

of the Apollo stations continued through the following year and was essentially completed by February of 1968.4 

During this time, the early test missions actually began before the 

network was completed. Apollo 4, the first flight of the Saturn V, took place 

on 9 November 1967 with partial participation of the emerging network. This 

flight was an important milestone that demonstrated Saturn V performance 

and verified the CM heat shield ability to withstand the 2,750oC (5000oF) 

searing heat experienced on reentry. The following month witnessed the 

launch of the first Test and Training Satellite (TTS-1), designed specifically to 

exercise the capabilities of the Apollo MSFN. (TTS checkouts continued sporadically over the next several years with TTS-2 in December 1968 just prior 

to the first circumlunar flight of Apollo 8, and TTS-3 in September 1971.)5 In 

January 1968, the network supported TT&C activities of the LM on its first 

unmanned test flight on Apollo 5. 

A major difference between the earlier planned and the final configuration of the network was the location of the all important 26-meter (85­

foot) USB sites for tracking and communications during the lunar phase of the 

mission when Apollo was in the vicinity of and on the Moon. The underlying 

geographical requirement was actually very simple: provide continuous coverage with three stations separated by approximately 120o in longitude. In North 

America, engineers liked the original plan calling for a Houston USB site 

since it would have eliminated the need for White Sands and Guaymas. But 

TDSD’s decision to collocate the Apollo antenna with DSN made this impractical. Because Houston was only 20o east of Goldstone, California, where there 

was already a DSN station, there was really no justification to put a USB 

station near Houston—as the original plan had called for. (The Goldstone 

Communications Complex in the Mojave Desert would become the largest 

concentration of NASA tracking and data acquisition equipment in the world, 

encompassing sites for all three networks: DSN, MSFN, and STADAN.)6 

Locating the 26-meter (85-foot) antenna near a backup was a written requirement for Apollo lunar operations. Redundancy using the DSN relied 

on a microwave relay connection between the MSFN primary antenna and the 

JPL-directed DSN antenna.The DSN system was referred to as an Apollo “wingstation” in this arrangement.With this link, the DSN antenna was slaved to and 

driven by the MSFN antenna, providing a full backup capability. At Goldstone, 

the original Pioneer site (DSS 11) served as the Apollo wing-station. 
148 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

In the Southern Hemisphere, the proposed Canberra, Australia station (Honeysuckle Creek) was kept as in the original plan and collocated near 

the Tidbinbilla DSN wing-station some 30 kilometers (20 miles) away. That 

left a third site which had to be in the European area. Factors such as cost of 

operations, ease of accessibility, topology, and as always, cooperation of the 

foreign government involved, all went into the decision. On 28 January 1964, 

the United States and Spain reached an agreement to put the third 26-meter 

(85-foot) MSFN station at Fresnedillas some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of 

Madrid, again located near a DSN site that was then being built (the Robledo 

DSN Station). 

These, the three most powerful primary stations, were joined in the 

network by 11 other ground locations also classified as primary but featuring 

aerial view of the apollo Station at honeysuckle Creek, australia with its 26-meter 

(85-foot) Unified S-Band antenna. at the upper left are the diesel fuel tanks for the 

power generators. Because of its remote location in a national forest, this crucial apollo 

Station was run entirely off generator power. (Un-numbered photograph, Box 18, NaSa 

australian Operations Office, Yarralumla, aCt) 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 149 

the smaller 9-meter antennas. In February 1965, Goddard awarded the Dallas 

Division of the Collins Radio Company $2.74 million to install the USB systems at the three sites. It was the follow-on to the $20 million contract that 

Collins received the previous year to install the 9-meter (30-foot) systems.7 

The Apollo 26-meter diameter tracking antenna was quite large, the 

biggest of its kind in the Goddard networks—only the 70, 64, and 34-meter 

(230, 210, and 111-foot) dishes of the DSN were bigger. A novel sight is seeing 

these big dishes move, almost effortlessly, as they tracked an object across the 

sky. Much of this had to do with how well the weight of the antennas was balanced. Its ability to move smoothly and point accurately to within 1/100th of 

a degree directly affected how well it could stay tracked—or autotrack—on a 

spacecraft. These antennas were moved using gear-box mechanisms (gimbals) 

driven by hydraulic servos. With the large dish carefully balanced using counterweights, relatively low torque electric motors could be used to drive even 

the largest antennas. Most of today’s modern tracking antennas allow for rotation in all three axes. In the 1960s, however, systems could move only in two 

axes. Many, like the MSFN 26-meter antenna, had a so-called ‘X-Y mount’ 

where an X-axis gear wheel drove the antenna in the north-south direction 

while the Y-axis gear wheel (mounted above the X-axis) drove the antenna 

in the east-west direction. This design allowed horizon-to-horizon tracking 

as the antenna could be pointed on the horizon in any direction to pick up 

a spacecraft ascending into view. These largest of the MSFN antennas could 

move at a good pace, tracking a spacecraft at rates of up to three degrees per 

second in both axes.8 

In addition to DSN, several STADAN and DOD stations were also 

assigned to support Apollo in a backup or standby capacity. Three STADAN 

stations in the Southern Hemisphere—Lima, South Africa, and Tananarive— 

were tasked as needed. But it was the Air Force that furnished the majority of 

the supplemental stations, some of which were also located near MSFN sites. 

These were mainly radar sites in the Eastern Test Range; none were involved 

in USB operations. Across the network, different stations had different jobs. 

For example, the three 26 meters provided coverage for operations in the 

lunar vicinity and for EVA while the astronauts were on the lunar surface. 

The 9-meter antennas monitored the spacecraft during its transit to and from 

the Moon. Bermuda continued in its familiar role as the go/no-go decision 

site. Stations like Carnarvon and Hawaii were critical for near-Earth portions 

of a mission, both during outward bound (TLI) and when returning from 

the Moon and reentry. Grand Bahama, Antigua, and Ascension monitored, 

respectively, the early (S-IC first stage) and late (S-II and S-IVB second and 

third stages) phases of the Saturn V’s powered flight into orbit.9 

★ ★ ★
150 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the station on the desolate outskirts of the town of Carnarvon (CrO) was located 960 

kilometers (600 miles) north of perth, the largest city in Western australia. the township 

derived its name from Lord Carnarvon, a former Secretary of State for Colonies in Britain. 

the NaSa station was a popular tourist attraction along with Carnarvon’s “Blows”, natural hole formations in the rocky australian coastline that, due to high pressure caused by 

pounding seas, caused water to shoot up like fountains. CrO was operational from 1964 

to 1974. (photograph courtesy of CSIrO) 

Range instrumented ships had been an integral part of the manned 

network since Project Mercury. Ships have the distinct advantage over land 

stations because of their mobility; their big disadvantage is the higher operating cost (about twice that of land stations). Early network plans in 1962 had 

called for five Apollo Instrumentation Ships (AIS), two to be assigned to the 

Indian Ocean, two to the Pacific, and one to the Atlantic. By early 1966, 

however, Goddard had refined the plan so as to accommodate several Apollo 

mission profiles to where three TLI insertion ships were needed, one each for 

the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. In addition, two reentry ships were 

to be stationed in the Pacific. The five ships assigned to the Apollo network 

replaced the three that had been in service from the Mercury years, including 

the aging Coastal Sentry Quebec and Rose Knot Victor. In October 1968, just 

prior to Apollo 7 (the first human flight of the new Block II CSM), NASA 

returned the Watertown—one of its two reentry ships—back to the U.S. Navy. 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 151 

TDSD evidently felt confident that it had adequate coverage in the Pacific 

with Guam, Hawaii, plus the Huntsville, to the point that a second ship was 

really not necessary. 

This contingent of ships was the AIS fleet as deployed through Apollo 

11. They had the obvious advantage over their land counterparts in that they 

were able to change their area of coverage from mission to mission depending on what was needed. On Apollo 8—the historic first human circumlunar 

flight—for instance, one insertion ship (Vanguard) was stationed in the Atlantic 

and one was in the Indian Ocean (Mercury). The third insertion ship (Redstone) 

along with the reentry ship (Huntsville) took up positions in the Pacific.10 

Apollo was launched from the Kennedy Space Center at azimuths 

between 72 and 108°, depending on the particular mission (90° is a launch 

due east). Culminating the boost phase was the first burn of the S-IVB third 

stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle to provide the necessary impulse to insert 

the spacecraft into Earth orbit. As early as 1964, the OTDA had imposed 

the requirement for continuous two-way voice communications, reception of 

telemetry, command capability, and tracking during ascent into Earth orbit. 

The primary use of the tracking data was to verify that a proper parking orbit 

had been achieved, while command uplink and telemetry downlink were 

requirements for flight control operations to evaluate the health and status of 

the spacecraft and astronauts. 

Since the third stage burn occurred about 2,250 kilometers (1,400 

miles) downrange of the Cape, it was outside the coverage area of the Bermuda 

Station, and for most launch azimuths, also outside that of the Antigua Station. 

It was thus necessary to have a station farther downrange in the mid-Atlantic 

that was east of both of these islands. The ideal spot for such a station was at 

24° North by 48° West. Unfortunately, no island or suitable land mass exists 

in the immediate vicinity of that location. Therefore, a ship was needed.11 

While the first burn of the S-IVB got Apollo into Earth orbit, it 

could not yet begin the trek to the Moon. That was done with the TLI, a 

second burn of the S-IVB, raising the velocity of the spacecraft by some 3,550 

meters per second (11,700 feet-per-second) to attain escape velocity. TLI was 

one of the most critical events of a flight, one that had to be monitored reliably. Once the burn was completed, the spacecraft was committed on a trajectory to the Moon and the three astronauts would not be able to return 

to Earth for at least four days—even on a so-called “free-return trajectory” 

where the spacecraft made a giant “figure 8” around the Moon and coasted 

back to Earth without making any additional engine burns. 

Apollo mission requirements at the time called for tracking to begin 

no later than seven minutes after the end of the TLI burn to provide Mission 

Control with the necessary attitude data to make the important go/no-go 

decision on “transposition and docking”—a tricky maneuver in which the 

CSM travels a short distance away from the LM, turns around, docks with it 
152 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

and then pulls the LM out of the adaptor housing and away from the spent SIVB third stage. In a 1964 memorandum from the OTDA to Donald Crabill 

of the Bureau of the Budget, Gerald Truszynski pointed out that while the 

South Africa and Madagascar stations could provide post injection coverage 

in that area, it would only be partial and would not be as complete compared 

to a ship stationed in the Indian Ocean.12 Truszynski also pointed out two 

other factors favoring a sea-based solution. First, a ship was already being 

planned to alleviate coverage gaps on non-Apollo missions. Second, the State 

Department did a study on the long term political stability of South Africa 

which “did not assure retention of a critical major Apollo support station in 

the time period required.”13 

The return phase of Apollo also required some special coverage 

planning. As the CM reentered the atmosphere at the end of a mission, it 

could, by rolling the craft, control its lift-to-drag ratio making it possible for 

landing to occur in a fairly long corridor 2,200 to 9,250 kilometers (1,200 

to 5,000 nautical miles) downrange from the point where it first entered the 

atmosphere. To pinpoint the expected splashdown location, network engineers had determined that a tracking contact of approximately three minutes 

in duration had to be made starting at the end of the initial telemetry blackout period. With the blackout window spanning 370 to 1,850 kilometers 

(200 to 1,000 nautical miles) downrange of the initial entry point, coverage 

had to be available out to 3,330 kilometers (1,800 nautical miles) from the 

point where the CM first entered the atmosphere in order to meet the three 

minute requirement.14 

That was not the only factor. Depending on the mission, Apollo 

splashdown could occur either in the northern recovery area in the vicinity 

of Hawaii or in a southern area near Samoa. This left a lot of ocean to be 

covered. While there were islands in the western Pacific which could have 

been used as land stations, a total of seven sites would have been needed just 

to meet this three minute requirement, a requirement that could be met by 

using just three ships. 

From an overall cost standpoint, though, it turned out that there was 

actually very little difference between using ships versus using land stations 

to cover post-injection, insertion, and reentry tracking. Here’s why: Of the 

proposed five ships, OTDA had determined that all but one could have been 

replaced by land stations given the proper political environment. These four 

ships could have been substituted with eight new ground stations. In 1964, 

each new station cost about $12 million to build. Thus, the initial investment 

for land stations would have been in the neighborhood of $96 million. From 

NASA’s experience with the Navy, the cost of obtaining and refurbishing four 

ships would have amounted to $98 million. Hence, there was only a two percent difference between the two solutions in terms of initial cost investment. 

As for annual operating cost, the rule of thumb was that a ship cost twice as 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 153 

much to operate as a land station. There was thus little difference in operating 

four ships versus eight land stations.15 

With one of those rare occasions when cost was not a major player, 

OTDA went ahead with the ship-based solution based on the technical 

advantages: 

Position of the ships may be changed to meet requirements of individual missions whereas land locations were fixed. 

It was only necessary to maintain four communication links back to the 

United States instead eight, thereby reducing mission complexity. 

To implement this solution, NASA acquired three “19-class” T-2 

tankers and converted them into highly instrumented vessels equivalent in many 

respects to a primary ground station. Each ship possessed the same C-band radar 

and the same 9-meter USB antenna common to the Apollo prime stations.16 

The three ships, the Mercury, Redstone, and Vanguard, provided the network 

with the required flexibility to support various launch azimuths, Earth orbit 

insertion points and differing TLI points—all mission dependent parameters. In 

this way, all critical flight phases were covered and tracking gaps reduced. 

These ships were large—a necessity, serving as stable platforms 

under severe sea states. The Vanguard, for instance, measured 181 meters (595 

feet) in length with a 23-meter (75-foot) beam. It had a cruising speed of 26 

kilometers per hour (14 knots) and a dash speed of 31.5 kilometers per hour (17 

knots). These were tracking stations in every respect, capable of remaining at 

sea for two months, supporting a full Military Sea Transport Service crew and 

more than 200 field technicians. With enough electricity to supply a town of 

5,000 people, they were equipped with facilities such as a store, barbershop, 

weight room, and a movie lounge. There was a hospital on board as well. 

Serving as reentry ships in the Pacific were the Huntsville and 

Watertown. Being converted World War II “Victory” ships, these were somewhat smaller than the three insertion ships, measuring 139 meters (455 feet) 

long by 19 meters (62 feet) wide. They could accommodate 130 technicians 

and carried the same range of TT&C hardware as their larger counterparts, 

with the exception of a smaller, 3.6-meter (12-foot) diameter USB antenna.17 

Taking these old World War II ships out of mothballs and retrofitting them into the space age was, as one can imagine, no simple job. Such 

an undertaking presented many technical challenges which NASA was not 

at liberty, in this case, to work out by itself. This was because as a part of the 

FY 1964 congressional action on NASA funding, Congress had instructed 

the space agency and the Department of Defense to work together and pool 

resources for the expressed purpose of acquiring range instrumentation ships. 
154 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

a converted Navy tanker, the Vanguard was one of the so-called “insertion ships” that 

tracked and communicated with the apollo spacecraft as it performed the trans-Lunar 

Injection burn, sending astronauts on their way to the Moon. (Folder 8788, NaSa 

historical reference Collection, NaSa history Division, NaSa headquarters, 

Washington DC) 

Congress knew this was not going to be an easy task, as both organizations— 

one civilian, the other military—needed to determine what was the best 

method of meeting joint ship requirements and to establish rules of operations. One thing was clear. Since these were going to be sea faring vessels, the 

DOD would have the lead responsibility for them. 

To execute this agreement, the DOD established an Instrumentation 

Ships Project Office responsible for procuring and modifying the ships. The 

office was run by the Navy with representatives from both the Air Force and 

NASA. It quickly drew up specifications and bidding plans for the ships such 

that by September 1964, a competitive contract had been let. A $77.5 million 

fixed-price contract was awarded to the General Dynamics Corporation to convert and instrument three ships taken out of storage. Part of the work included 

installing, checking out, and integrating some $35 million worth of government 

furnished range instrumentation equipment onboard the vessels.18 

From day one, the delivery timetable for the ships was inextricably tied to the development schedule of the Saturn IB and Saturn V launch 

vehicles. In order to support the flight test schedule, the original delivery dates 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 155 

planned for the three ships were for April, July and October of 1966. In late 

1965, a requirement was added to install satellite communication terminals on 

the ships to ensure that communications between the ships and the Mission 

Control Center in Houston would not be at risk. To accommodate this new 

requirement, General Dynamics slipped the delivery by several months, to 

July and December of 1966 and January 1967. 

As the first ship (Vanguard) approached completion and sea trials 

were being conducted in June of 1966, a number of technical problems began 

to surface. Many of these were of the type that could not have been detected 

until the complete system was tested at sea when the full dynamic effects of 

rough seas and high winds were combined. But however formidable, these 

problems were within the scope of the contract and were therefore, General 

Dynamic’s responsibility to correct. Fixes proved inadequate and the delivery 

schedule suffered, slipping on a month-by-month basis. Listed is a sampling of 

the technical problems that arose, and their solution: 

The 9-meter diameter telemetry antenna did not operate satisfactorily 

over the entire required frequency range (from VHF to S-band).The 

antenna feed had to be redesigned and reinstalled. 

The same telemetry antenna also had a serious vibration problem. 

This was corrected after much engineering analysis by structurally 

stiffening the dish and by installing an electrical filter that eliminated 

spurious signals (RF noise) from the antenna drive mechanism. 

The command uplink antenna was simply too dynamically unstable 

in high wind conditions. It was completely redesigned to improve 

its aerodynamics and to make it smaller and lighter so as to improve 

servo drive response. 

The high frequency radio transmitting antennas—three on each 

ship—could not operate at full power because of electrical insulation 

problems.These had to be redesigned and replaced. 

The servo drive system for the satellite communications antenna, 

along with the antenna feed itself, did not perform according to 

specifications.The sensitivity was too low because of the poor quality 

of the antenna sub-reflector surface. These problems were rectified 

through redesign and remanufacturing of the hardware.19 

As it became evident that these problems were impacting ship 

delivery, NASA sharply increased its day-to-day workings with the Navy 

and with General Dynamics. Managers from Goddard and Headquarters 
156 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

even went directly to top General Dynamics management, requesting them 

to bring the strongest possible management effort to bear on these problems 

so as to ensure adequate and timely solutions. Subcontractor problems were 

also uncovered. General Dynamics in turn, as part of their increased effort, 

brought in special consultants from outside the company and from academia. 

An MIT professor, for instance, was brought in to tackle the difficulties with 

excessive antenna vibrations. 

NASA had to walk a fine line. Since the contract for the AIS was 

actually a Navy contract executed by its Instrumentation Ships Project Office, 

its actions with General Dynamics had to always be taken in full coordination 

with that office. The Navy cooperated and responded to NASA, passing its own 

rather strong terms down to its contractors. The strong management tactics 

worked. General Dynamics responded to the government pressure by instituting 

more frequent and detailed top-level management reviews of the project. They 

also assigned a senior company official at the vice president level to work fulltime overseeing the project, this in addition to the Program Manager already 

assigned. The company also tightened up scheduling control over Bendix, 

their main subcontractor, and instituted bi-weekly senior management reviews 

attended by the President and Vice President of General Dynamics Electronics 

as well as the Executive Group Vice President from their Headquarters.20 

Results were slow at first. For a few months, there seemed to be little progress. The pace eventually picked up, though, and much time was made 

up in the last few months of the delivery schedule. A limited ship capability 

was finally fielded in the fall of 1967 just in time to support the November 

launch of the first uncrewed Saturn V on Apollo 4. By the time the first 

crewed flight of the huge launch vehicle took place in December of the following year (Apollo 8), the AIS fleet was ready and at full strength. 

In 1964, the OTDA had estimated the initial investment for the 

five ship AIS fleet at $98 million. The actual price tag, however, turned out 

to be $186.6 million, almost twice as much as predicted. On top of that, the 

annual cost of operating the ships had, by 1969, reached $5 million for each of 

the three insertion ships and $3.5 million apiece for the smaller Huntsville and 

Watertown.

21 In a cost saving move, NASA returned the USNS Watertown back 

to the Navy after the launch of the ATS-D satellite in August of that year. 

This raised concern within Congress, some thinking that the space agency 

was putting cost ahead of safety. 

In reality, this move was based on changes in mission requirements 

that had been taking place. In the early stages of Apollo planning, reentry in 

either the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere was simultaneously considered to accommodate maximum flexibility in lunar mission planning, particularly for variable times of stay and departure from the Moon. As NASA 

progressed through the early Apollo/Saturn V development flights, it became 

evident to mission planners that a preselection of the return flight trajectory 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 157 

had to be made well in advance of launch. This change in requirement reduced 

the reentry zones that needed to be covered from two to one. As a result, only 

one reentry ship would be needed; hence, the release of the Watertown before 

the first crewed mission was even flown. 

On top of this, as more Apollo/Saturn test flights took place, more 

and more information was gained across the board reducing the amount of 

uncertainty in the performance of the CM in such areas as reentry aerodynamics, heat-shield performance, and the capability of the onboard guidance 

system to achieve a controlled and accurate reentry. All these served to reduce 

the landing footprint, to the point where recovery aircraft could now handle 

nearly all the reentry communication and tracking functions. This development eventually led to the release of the USNS Huntsville back to the Navy at 

the conclusion of Apollo 11. 

Similar significant reduction in coverage requirements for the outward bound (specifically, TLI) portion of a lunar mission was also taking 

place. This could be attributed to three things all having to do with raised 

confidence that mission planners now had in the performance of the Apollo 

spacecraft and its Saturn V launch vehicle. The first was a reduction in the 

launch window. To the Agency’s delight, Apollo/Saturn V test launches to 

date had all occurred on time and at the beginning of a launch window. As 

a result of this demonstrated launch-on-time capability, the probability of 

missing a launch window on a given day was considered an acceptable risk, 

one which in no way compromised crew safety. A shorter window, in turn, 

engendered a reduction in the needed TLI coverage area.22 

The second reason was also related to launch-on-time confidence. 

From orbit mechanics, the location over Earth at which trajectory injection 

for lunar flight must take place was determined by the time and date of launch 

Smaller than the insertion 

ship, the Redstone was one 

of the World War II liberty 

ships that was converted into 

a reentry ship used to track 

and communicate with the 

apollo Command Module 

as it reentered earth’s atmosphere towards a splash down 

in the pacific. (Folder 8788, 

NaSa historical reference 

Collection, NaSa history 

Division, NaSa headquarters, 

Washington DC) 
158 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

and the relative positions of Earth and its Moon. In NASA’s planning for missions through the first lunar landing—to ensure the maximum number of 

chances for a launch—mission planners planned for a wide spread of launch 

azimuths, which meant that the TLI burn could take place anywhere over a 

wide geographical area. With the now reduced spread of launch azimuths, this 

coverage area could also be reduced.23 

Finally, battery lifetime of the tracking beacon aboard the S-IVB 

third stage had been extended by nearly 50 percent since the first Saturn V 

launch on Apollo 4, 9 November 1967. This had ramifications to network 

requirements because after the TLI burn, the Apollo spacecraft, still attached 

to the burnt-out S-IVB, must be precisely tracked in preparation for transposition and docking. With the increased third stage beacon life, considerably 

more time was now available for the ground to perform this track, to the point 

where engineers could afford to wait until a land station came into view. Ship 

requirement for TLI tracking could thus be alleviated.24 

All these factors allowed injection tracking to now be done by 

the Apollo land stations supplemented with a small number of instrumented 

aircraft. The net effect of these developments enabled the network to eventually relinquish two of the three injection tracking ships—the Redstone and 

the Mercury—starting with Apollo 12. It thus left the Vanguard as the only 

remaining Apollo ship operating after Apollo 11. At $6 million a year, it was 

the most expensive to operate, but was well used, supporting not only human 

space missions but also NASA projects such as the Pioneer deep space probes. 

TT&C equipment from the ships was returned to the MSFN equipment pool 

and redistributed for use at ground stations and on aircraft.25 

★ ★ ★

In addition to the instrumentation ships, eight Apollo Range 

Instrumentation Aircraft, or ARIA, served the network as airborne communication points relaying voice transmissions between the spacecraft and 

Houston. These aircraft were deployed—either in the Pacific or in the Atlantic 

depending on the relative positions of the Moon with respect to Earth— 

during each mission launch window. Without the vantage point of these airborne platforms flying some 10,500 meters (35,000 feet) above the ocean, as 

many as 20 to 30 relay ships would have been required just to relay communications between the spacecraft and ground stations.26 

But even from their birds-eye vantage point, eight ARIAs were 

still needed to provide coverage in the Pacific and four in the Atlantic. NASA 

had originally planned on a fleet of 12 aircraft. In 1964, an Office of Manned 

Space Flight study concluded that a reduction in the area coverage per 

Apollo mission could be tolerated within the so-called “delta-V budget” of 

the spacecraft. What this meant was that, based on the propulsion capability 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 159 

(limitation) of the Saturn V launch vehicle then under development, the 

location where injection into lunar trajectory could take place on a given 

mission had to be either over the Pacific or the Atlantic, but not both. The 

TLI area thus had to be designated well in advance of a particular mission, as 

well as the reentry area. Mission coverage requirements, therefore, changed 

from two-ocean support to single-ocean support and the number of ARIAs 

reduced from 12 to 8 (6 for primary mission support, 2 for backup) for Pacific 

operations and down to 4 for Atlantic support. This amounted to a savings 

of $32.4 million.27 

As Apollo preparations matured over the next three years, GSFC 

and MSC began to see that this reduction in the ARIA fleet was going to 

present coverage limitations. On some flights, it was inevitable that lunar 

trajectory injection was going to shift to a different location as the launch 

window progressed. If a launch were delayed and it became necessary to move 

to the other ocean, the entire mission timeline would then have to be adjusted 

since it took approximately 60 hours to reposition the fleet of aircraft from 

one ocean theater to the other. This was yet another seemingly simple but 

important reason why NASA always wanted Apollo Moon missions to take 

place as early as possible in a given launch window.28 

The ARIAs were converted C-135A cargo airframes that NASA 

acquired on long term loan from the Air Force. They were heavily instrumented. Externally, the most obvious difference in the aircraft from regular 

C-135s was a large bulbous nose—a 3-meter (10-foot) radome that housed the 

world’s largest airborne steerable antenna at the time. The antenna itself was a 

2-meter (7-foot) S-band parabolic dish used for telemetry and voice. In addition to the “droop snoot” nose as it soon came to be known, the ARIA—designated the EC-135N—had a probe antenna on each wing tip that was used to 

enhance high frequency radio transmission and reception. A high frequency 

trailing wire antenna was added to the bottom of the fuselage. The aircraft 

was also heavily modified inside the fuselage to accommodate the suite of core 

electronics and facilities were added for eight more crew members.29 

ARIA capabilities normally consisted of the following: 

For telemetry reception and recording: single USB link, an S-band 

Pulse Code Modulation link, 6 VHF links. 

Telemetry was usually recorded live and then “dumped” over the 

first available Apollo site (ship or ground station) for transmission to 

Houston. 

USB and VHF voice reception and recording for real-time spacecraft/MCC voice relay. 

Two-way, 100 words-per-minute teletype.30 
160 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the apollo range Instrumentation aircraft (arIa) served as airborne relay points 

between the apollo spacecraft and the rest of the network. about the size of a 707 

jetliner, NaSa borrowed these converted air Force C-135a cargo airplanes to support launch and reentry communications during the apollo years. (Folder 8788, 

NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa history Division, NaSa headquarters, 

Washington DC) 

ARIAs had a nominal crew of 16. They were based at Patrick Air 

Force Base and flew out several days prior to a launch to their forward station 

in the mission operations area: Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii or Ascension 

Island in the Atlantic.31 Then on the day of the mission, the plane would fly 

to its assigned airspace to support launch or recovery. 

Just as NASA had an agreement with the Air Force for launch support at Cape Canaveral, it had a similar agreement for the ARIA. Under a 10 

November 1965 NASA-DOD cost sharing memorandum of agreement, the 

National Range Division (NRD) of the Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) 

had overall responsibility for the ARIA project. NASA provided the specifications and labor for its equipment and instrumentation needs while the Air 

Force provided structural modifications and the general onboard range equipment. There was a further breakdown of labor since, another division within 

AFSC (the Electronic Systems Division,or ESD),was responsible for the detailed 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 161 

Definition and Acquisition Phases of the project. Management and engineering 

change control was thus maintained by NASA and NRD through representation 

in the ESD project office and an ARIA Project Configuration Control Board. 

In this somewhat convoluted arrangement, the Air Force NRD 

operated, maintained and provided logistical support for the aircraft for 

NASA. Scheduling and aircraft availability was maintained through a seniorlevel joint NASA/DOD panel.32 GSFC was the executing agent in administering and managing the NASA portion of the ARIA program. To this end, it 

was responsible for three things: 1) generate the necessary specifications for the 

communications equipment needed for Apollo; 2) ensure that the ARIA met 

overall Apollo requirements; and 3) integrate these aircraft into the MSFN.33 

To modify the aircraft, the Air Force contracted Douglas Aircraft 

Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma, to serve as prime contractor with BFEC as 

their subcontractor. In this arrangement, Douglas was responsible for modifying the airframe while Bendix was responsible for supplying the generic and 

Apollo-specific suite of range instrumentation equipment to be installed on 

the aircraft. Contractor work during Apollo was driven by a tight schedule 

and ARIA was no exception. To meet delivery milestones, ESD issued the 

Douglas team with a fixed price contract heavy on delivery and performance 

incentives. While the target cost was $27.2 million, the contract could be 

worth well over $30 million if all the incentives were awarded. The first 

ARIA—scheduled for delivery in the first-quarter of 1966—was delayed and 

finally delivered to the Air Force near the end of the year, just in time to pass 

its first live test on Gemini 12 in November 1966.34 

The remaining seven ARIAs trickled in throughout 1967 and into 

the following January. At its peak, Douglas (later McDonnell-Douglas after its 

1967 merger with the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation) had over 300 people 

working on the ARIA program at its Tulsa plant.35 After Apollo concluded in 

1975, the word “Apollo” was changed to “Advanced” and the Air Force fleet 

of aircraft continued serving under the ARIA name, successfully supporting 

a host of NASA satellite launches, Skylab and planetary probes such as Viking 

and Voyager. Over the next 30 years, the DOD has maintained ownership of 

the aircraft which have been used primarily to support military ballistic missile testing activities. 

In all its years of near flawless service, there was only one major 

accident. But it was tragic. On the morning of 6 May 1981, one of the planes— 

ARIA 328—took off from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Fairborn, 

Ohio, on a training mission. All 21 onboard perished just an hour later in a 

horrific crash. Among those killed were three civilians, two of whom were 

wives of crew members who were on the flight as part of a program for them 

to become more familiar with their husbands’ work. Today, a living memorial dedicated to those who perished resides near the place where ARIA 328 

took off that ill-fated morning. A bronze plaque, along with 21 flowering 
 

-

’ ’ ’ 

-

162 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Table 5-2: The Manned Space Flight Network as Implemented for Apollo*38 

Station 

Abbre 

viation 

USB Antenna 

12 

C Band 

Radar 

VHF TM 

Downlink 

UHF CMD 

Uplink Other 

Primary Stations 

Antigua ANT • • •

Ascension ACN • •

Bermuda BDA • • • •

Canberra HSK •

Carnarvon CRO • • • •

Corpus Christi TEX • • •

Goldstone GDS •

Grand Bahama GBM • • •

Grand Canary CYI • • • •

Guam GWM • • •

Guaymas GYM • • •

Hawaii HAW • • • •

Madrid MAD •

Merritt Island MIL • • •

Ships and Aircraft** 

Huntsville HTV • • • •

Mercury MER • • • •

Redstone RED • • • •

Vanguard VAN • • •

Watertown WTN • • • •

Aircraft (8)*** ARIA •

crab apple trees, each symbolizing a lost soul, rests in the memorial garden at 

the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.37 On 24 August 2001, 

the last ARIA flight landed at Edwards Air Force Base to bring the airborne 

tracking program to an end. 

Besides ground stations, the AIS and the ARIA, NASA added 

a fourth tracking element during Apollo. This one was in space. To further cut down on potential communication gaps, the Agency called on 

the services of two communication satellites operated by the International 

Telecommunications Satellite Consortium, or Intelsat. One was the Intelsat 

Atlantic satellite, located in geosynchronous orbit at 6o west longitude off the 

coast of Africa. From this vantage point, it could provide communication 

relay for the Indian Ocean ship (usually the Mercury), the Ascension Island 

Station, the Atlantic Ocean ship (usually the Vanguard), and the Canary Island 

-

’ 30’ 85’

-
 

-

’ ’ ’

-

Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 163 

Station 

Abbre 

viation 

USB Antenna 

12 85 30 

C Band 

Radar 

VHF TM 

Downlink 

UHF CMD 

Uplink Other 

NASA Support Stations 

Canberra (DSN) CNBX •

Goldstone (DSN) GDSX •

Lima (STADAN) LIMA •

Madrid (DSN) MADX •

Pretoria (STADAN) PRE •

Tananarive (STADAN) TAN •

White Sands 

(MSFN/DOD) 

WHS •

Woomera (MFSN) WOM •

DOD Support Stations 

Antigua ANT •

Ascension ASC •

Cape Canaveral CNV •

Grand Bahama GBI •

Merritt Island MLA •

Patrick AFB PAT •

Vandenberg AFB CAL •

*Nominal configuration 1968-1972 

**The Huntsville and Mercury were usually stationed in the Pacifi c to monitor orbit injection, reentry and recovery. 

The Redstone was usually on station in the Indian Ocean with the Vanguard in the Atlantic. The Watertown was 

deployed only for the early developmental flights and was removed from service in October 1968 prior to the first 

human flight (Apollo 7). 

***Eight Apollo Range Instrumentation Aircraft were used as communication relays to support operations in areas 

where there were no grounds stations, especially during reentry and landing. 

Station. The other was the Intelsat Pacific satellite, located at approximately 

5° west of the international dateline over the Kiribatis in the mid-Pacific. It 

served the Australian stations, Guam and Hawaii as well as the Pacific ships 

Huntsville and Redstone. Eventually, reliance on Intelsat for communications 

relay would free up the ARIA to focus on real time USB support.38 

Table 5-2 summarizes the Apollo Network as it was eventually 

established in 1968 (also see map in Appendix 1). This was essentially the configuration used throughout the lunar landing program, with ships, aircraft, 

and satellites being augmented on a mission by mission basis. 

★ ★ ★

- -

’ ’ ’ 
164 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

As the MSFN was being modified for Apollo, centralization, 

network communications and the ability to make decisions at remote ground 

stations were again topics that came to the forefront. In the Mercury days, 

the network had flight controllers and a Capcom at all of the prime stations 

mainly because worldwide, real-time communications were still in its 

infancy. Thus each primary site had the means to make critical decisions and 

to execute command instructions in the case of a communications failure. 

In addition, Bermuda had a computer of its own, to help make the vital go/ 

no-go decision should communication with the main computing center at 

Goddard be severed. 

On Apollo, GSFC, MSC, and Headquarters jointly agreed to use 

computers at outlying network stations. This was a radical move and a fundamental change away from what had been done up until then. The decision 

was not reached without controversy. Network philosophy had always been 

that ground stations would transmit raw, unprocessed (or slightly processed) 

data back to a central computing center—first located at Goddard and later 

moved to Houston. The expansion of NASCOM had made this possible. 

With Apollo, however, data rates increased several-fold over Gemini, and live 

television (a high bandwidth item) was added.39 

To handle these faster processing requirements, 14 land stations 

were each fitted with two Univac 642B data processing computers to support 

both telemetry and command.40 (Two units were needed to allow for simultaneous tasking of telemetry and command.) The old Gemini sites that had been 

equipped with the aging Univac 1218s were upgraded. But the increased realtime flow of information led to a buffering problem: the outlying sites could 

receive far more data from the Apollo spacecraft than could be transmitted in 

real time to Houston over NASCOM, which could still only handle a maximum traffic rate of 2.4 kilobits-per-second (kbps). This had potentially crippling consequences. Network engineers at Goddard devised a solution which 

was to essentially compress each station’s aggregate data link into discrete 2.4 

kbps frames or packets grouped into specific data types. By doing so, flight 

controllers in Houston could remotely select and query telemetry information of their choosing for review. Even though flight control consoles were 

installed on AISs and at some ground stations, they became unnecessary once 

the buffering problem was solved. These remote flight consoles were never 

used on a mission since controllers could review data and issue commands to 

the spacecraft from the MCC in Houston.41 

To fully appreciate the complexity of network operations during 

Apollo, it is important to look at the level of teamwork that went into running the MSFN. Even though the MCC had control of the spacecraft from the 

ground during a mission, smooth network operations required coordination 

(and cooperation) between the two primary NASA centers involved: GSFC 

and the MSC. Before the actual mission, Greenbelt acted as the manager of 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 165 

network activities, preparing equipment and personnel across the network for 

readiness. It had the final say in pronouncing the network ready (green) or 

not (red). Once a mission began, though, Houston assumed control. Goddard 

continued in a support role to ensure overall network viability, monitoring 

the activities of the ground stations, ships, and aircraft for the duration of 

the flight. At his console in the MCC Mission Operations Control Room 

(the famous “Front Room” familiar to the world), the Network Controller 

(NC)—along with his contingent of support staff in the “unseen” Back 

Room—monitored network operations, maintaining contact with two key 

Goddard figures, namely the Network Operations Manager and his boss, the 

Network Director.42 

Perhaps the most elegant achievement in terms of communications 

technology on Apollo was the use of USB. The use of a unified carrier yielded 

immediate benefits for the spacecraft, saving the space, weight, and power 

needed to accommodate other subsystems. Furthermore, communications 

at S-band (1550 to 5200 MHz) were much more powerful, accommodating 

more data than possible at the lower frequencies. But most importantly, it had 

the range to reach the Moon. Two competing USB systems were actually 

available for Project Apollo. One, under development by GSFC, was essentially an extension of the GRARR, used to support STADAN for NASA’s 

science satellites. The other was a JPL product originally intended for deep 

space use. NASA would select the JPL system but modified it for Apollo. Even 

with this new capability, the MSFN still kept most of the pre-USB equipment 

operational, the majority of stations—both old and new—still fielding VHF 

hardware for backup. 

NASA was sending men to the Moon, but like any other television or radio station, it still had to ask for permission in order to transmit at 

certain frequencies. Throughout Apollo, the International Communication 

Union granted the MSFN transmission only on a secondary basis. What this 

meant was that NASA was legally required to shut down if its transmissions 

interfered with other authorized users. But the Agency could not complain of 

interference from these primary users. Sure enough, the frequency range of 

the Apollo USB system did overlap with the band then assigned to commercial television broadcasting. GSFC and Headquarters identified and addressed 

this issue early on in the planning of the Apollo network and all conflicts were 

successfully resolved before flights took place. No significant frequency interference problems ever developed during the 15 times that Apollo flew.43 

★ ★ ★

By the spring of 1967, with the final USB upgrade at Guaymas 

completed, the MSFN was ready to support the first human flight of the new 
166 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Apollo spacecraft. In preparation for sending men to the Moon, the GSFC had 

in three years established seven new ground stations and extensively modified 

seven others. It had now been over a year since Americans last flew in space 

and President Kennedy’s commitment of a Moon landing before the end of 

the decade was fast approaching; “Go Fever” was in full swing. 

Then tragedy struck. 

On the evening of 27 January 1967 during a “plugs out” launch 

pad countdown test at the KSC, a fire erupted in the pure oxygen atmosphere 

inside the Apollo Saturn 204 CM, killing astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward 

H. White, II and Roger B. Chaffee. Super-heated flames consumed the spacecraft within 20 seconds. Grissom, White, and Chaffee didn’t stand a chance. 

Countdown tests involved the network stations, and Apollo 1 was no different. 

Shock and grief quickly spread to the stations. Overseas, where the local populace took pride in hosting “their” ground station as part of the American space 

program felt the sadness. Official statements of condolences poured in from 

around the world. On Guam, its 9th legislature passed Resolution Number 118, 

officially expressing the grief of the Guamanians. The Honorable E. S. Terlaje, 

Acting Legislative Secretary, requested NASA send copies of the Resolution to 

the families of the three astronauts, which James Webb did.44 

The Fire, as it simply came to be known, severely impacted all aspects 

of Apollo. Foremost were program timeline and flight schedule. Instead of the 

first flight taking placing in early 1967, it was delayed for over 18 months, eventually to October of the following year. Despite this deadly setback, uncrewed 

launches testing the CSM, Lunar Module, and the Saturn V launch vehicle 

continued as NASA endeavored to recover and rebuild the program. 

In the revised timetable, NASA defined seven flights (missions A 

through G) designed to incrementally lead to a Moon landing (the G mission) 

by 1970. In the fall of 1967, the giant Saturn V launch vehicle developed by 

the MSFC was ready for its first all-up test. On the morning of 9 November, 

the Apollo network was put to the test for the first time, tracking the Saturn 

V stack on its maiden flight. Apollo 4 was sent into a high apogee (18,079 

kilometer, 11,234 mile) elliptical orbit around Earth. At the conclusion of the 

flight, the Service Module pointed towards Earth and fired its 20,500 pound 

(91,200 newton) thrust engine to accelerate the spacecraft to a velocity of 

40,200 kilometers (25,000 miles) per hour, replicating return and reentry 

from a lunar mission. 

Telemetry received onboard the Huntsville and at the Hawaii 

Station showed no degradation in the cabin environment, verifying the 

design of the CM heat shield to withstand the 2,760°C (5,000°F) temperature of reentry. This was a significant step in the program since the ability 

of the ablative shield to protect a returning spacecraft at such velocities was 

largely unknown at the time. Guided by terminal tracking data from the 

network, the USS Bennington successfully recovered the Command Module 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 167 

astronauts (left to right) Gus Grissom, ed White and roger Chaffee stand for photographers in front of Launch Complex 34 housing their apollo 1 Saturn 1B vehicle. ten days 

after this photograph was taken, the crew perished in a pad fire. (NaSa Image Number 

GrN-2000-000618) 

west of the Hawaiian Islands some nine hours after launch. Technically, programmatically and—perhaps most importantly—psychologically, Apollo 4 

(the “A” mission) was an important and successful event, especially in light 

of the number of firsts it tackled. For the tracking network, it was the first 

shake-down of the MSFN for Apollo. The fact that everything worked so 

well with so little trouble gave NASA much needed confidence and a giant 

psychological boost. As Apollo Program Director Samuel Phillips phrased it, 

“Apollo [was] on the way to the Moon.”45 

Apollo 4 was followed in January 1968 by Apollo 5, which flew 

for the first time the LM made by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering 

Corporation. The spacecraft was put through its paces using command uplinks 

from the ground, successfully demonstrating system performance including 

critical restarts of the LM ascent and descent stage engines. At one point, 

Houston sent a “switch-off” signal to the guidance computer and flew the LM 
168 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

a view of the apollo 16 Lunar Module Orion shows the location of the 0.6 meter (2 foot) 

S-band antenna near the top of the ascent Module. During their post mission press conference, the crew called attention to the steerable antenna which was frozen along a yaw 

axis during much of the flight. also visible to the left of the S-band dish antenna are the 

VhF and eVa antennas. this photograph was taken by lunar module pilot Charles M. 

Duke, Jr. during the mission’s first extravehicular activity on 21 april 1972. (NaSa Image 

SaS16-113-18334) 

in real time from the ground through a series of simulated landing maneuvers 

using only command uplinks.46 

The next flight test was Apollo 6, the final uncrewed flight test 

of the Apollo program, on 4 April. Two minutes into that mission, telemetry received at Bermuda indicated thrust fluctuations of the S-IC first stage 

engines that caused the entire rocket stack to bounce like a giant pogo stick 

for approximately 30 seconds. During the “pogo”, telemetry also showed lowfrequency oscillations reached as high as ±0.6 g inside the CM, exceeding the 

design criteria of ±0.25 g stipulated for human flight.47 (This was a flight rule 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 169 

protruding from the back of the 

apollo Service Module was the 

spacecraft’s autotracking S-band 

antenna. It was a “quad-feed” 

system meaning that the system 

actually consisted of four antennas. 

Signal strengths of the four were 

compared so as to allow tracking 

of the antenna beam to the earth 

ground station that the spacecraft 

was communicating with. In this 

way, the ground station “drove” the 

antenna on the spacecraft to keep 

it always precisely pointed. Shown 

is the apollo 16 CSM Casper as 

seen from LM Orion. (NaSa Image 

Number aS16-113-18282) 

carried over from Project Gemini. This oscillation level should not be confused 

with Apollo launch or reentry loads, which could exceed 8 g and which the 

spacecraft was designed to take.) After the first stage burnt out and was jettisoned, the five Rocktedyne J-2 engines of the S-II second stage came to life. 

As acquisition-of-signal occurred over Antigua, telemetry indicated that two of the engines had shut down prematurely. To compensate, 

the onboard Instrumentation Unit automatically directed the other three 

engines to fire longer as flight controllers monitored the situation. Even 

with the extended burn time, the second stage did not reach the desired altitude and velocity before its fuel ran out. Now in order to reach the planned 

speed, the single S-IVB third stage engine had to burn quite a bit longer than 

planned. After its shutdown, an orbit determination was made from state vectors received at the Caribbean stations which showed Apollo 6 in a severely 

lopsided 177 by 367-kilometer (110 by 228-mile) elliptical orbit rather than 

the desired 257-kilometer (160-mile) circular orbit.48 

MCC evaluated the situation and decided to continue into the next 

phase of the flight, a restart of the S-IVB engine to simulate the TLI burn. 

Command uplinks to the vehicle went unheeded, however. This was verified 

by telemetry received onboard the Vanguard that the simulated TLI burn did 

not in fact take place. As an alternative, Houston jettisoned the S-IVB and 

instead commanded the Service Module engine to fire for over seven minutes (which exceeded lunar mission requirements) to simulate the injection 

burn. The Vanguard tracked the CSM out to 22,200 kilometers (13,800 miles) 
170 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

where it was turned around and plunged back into the atmosphere for another 

reentry test. Because of the extended burn by the Service Propulsion System, 

Houston expected that the Service Module would not have enough fuel to 

accelerate the CM to the desired velocity. Network tracking verified this, 

showing the CM reentering at 35,900 kilometers (22,300 miles) per hour, 

some 4,500 kilometers per hour (2,800 mph) less than planned.49 

The period from fall 1968 to the end of 1972 marked the apex of 

the program, a time in which nine missions were flown to the Moon, landing 12 men on its surface. On 11 October 1968, Apollo 7 was launched with 

America’s first three-person crew: Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Commander; Donn 

F. Eisele, CSM Pilot; and R. Walter Cunningham, LM Pilot (even though 

there was no LM). For nearly 11 days, the MSFN tracked the spacecraft as it 

made 163 orbits around Earth in an engineering flight test to demonstrate 

the space-worthiness of the new Block II CM, a totally redesigned spacecraft 

following The Fire. One improvement was a new hatch that could now be 

opened in just three seconds. 

Among the spacecraft’s equipment and communication technologies tested was the transmission of live television from the spacecraft, a first for 

the manned network.50 The idea of live television had been a topic of debate 

ever since September 1963, when NASA first directed North American 

Aviation to install a portable camera in the Block I CM. With weight a constant concern, many engineers viewed the television camera only as a nicety. 

On occasions when pounds, even ounces, were being shaved from the CM, 

the camera was usually among the first items to go. 

Despite the insistence of most engineers that it was not needed— 

and the ambivalence of the test-pilot oriented crews—there were those who 

persistently argued for its inclusion. NASA personnel in Public Affairs, for 

instance Julian W. Scheer at Headquarters and Paul P. Haney at the MSC, 

naturally favored the use of television. There were also managers closer to the 

program who agreed with them. For example, in the spring of 1964, William 

A. Lee, a MSC engineering manager, wrote to George Low of the Apollo 

Spacecraft Program Office: 

I take typewriter in hand to plead once more for including in-flight 

TV. . . . Since [it] has little or no engineering value, the weight 

penalty must be assessed against a different set of standards. . . . One 

[objective] of the Apollo Program is to impress the world with our 

space supremacy. It may be assumed that the first attempt to land 

on the Moon will have generated a high degree of interest around 

the world. . . . A large portion of the civilized world will be at their 

TV sets wondering whether the attempt will succeed or fail.The 

question before the house is whether the public will receive their 

report of this climactic moment visually or by voice alone.51 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 171 

apollo 7 became the world’s highest television broadcasting studio 

in October 1968. the inclusion of 

television on NaSa spaceflights 

was not reached at in a cavalier 

way and was due in no small part 

to the Space race atmosphere 

of the Cold War. this picture was 

from the crew’s television transmission on the third day of the 

mission. On the left is CSM pilot 

Donn eisele; Commander Wally 

Schirra is on the right. (NaSa 

Image Number S68-50713) 

With emphasis on its civilian nature and Kennedy’s decision to play 

out the Moon race on world center-stage, NASA could not avoid the debate. 

Over the next several years, it continued with persuasive arguments for the case 

of live television being weighed against technical and operational considerations. Finally, in April of 1968 with the first Block II CSM (CSM-101) ready 

to be accepted, television became part of Apollo (and, as it turns out, all future 

NASA human spaceflights) when Samuel Phillips directed George Low to proceed with a camera on Apollo 7.52 It turned out that television broadcasts on the 

mission were a huge success, both for NASA public relations and as a technical 

milestone for the MSFN. The astronauts used television to show (in black and 

white) views of Earth outside their windows, the uniqueness of working and 

living in the weightlessness of space, and tours of the new Apollo spacecraft. 

Lasting seven to eleven minutes each, the broadcasts came to be called “The 

Wally, Walt and Donn Show,” even garnering a special Emmy Award from the 

Academy of Television Arts and Sciences the following year.53 

The success of Apollo 7 was followed two months later by what 

would be the first complete test of the entire Apollo Network. Launched on 

21 December 1968, Apollo 8 made the first lunar voyage, carrying astronauts 

Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, Jr., and William A. Anders to the Moon on 

a six-day circumlunar flight that culminated with 10 orbits around the Moon. 

At 10:47 a.m. EST, Capcom Michael Collins relayed through the Hawaii 

Station, “All right, you are go for TLI,” sending men on escape velocity away 

from Earth for the first time. The mission provided the first true use of the 

network’s large 26-meter (85-feet) USB antennas on an actual human flight; 

previous activities had involved only system checkouts using Pioneer space 

probes as TTS. 
172 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

It also marked a change in the way NASA tracked spacecraft. 

During Mercury, Gemini and on Apollo 7, communication with the spacecraft was not continuous as the stations could not possibly cover all ground 

track locations around the globe. However, as Apollo 8 left the confines of 

Earth towards the Moon, tracking and data acquisition, ironically, became 

continuous. This somewhat counter-intuitive phenomenon can be explained 

by simple geometry. As the distance between a spacecraft and Earth increased, 

the field-of-view required to see it decreased. Also, as a spacecraft sped away 

from Earth, its motion would appear to an observer on the ground to become 

more and more stationary. Now instead of the spacecraft racing across the sky 

in a fast-moving arc, as it would when orbiting Earth, it now traveled on a line 

(or more precisely, a very shallow arc) slowly away from the observer. As the 

spacecraft traveled farther and farther away, eventually only a single ground 

station facing the Moon was needed to communicate with it. 

Due to curvature of Earth, the Moon can only be seen comfortably (that is, above the horizon at a fairly high elevation pointing angle) at any 

one time from locations within a 120° longitude range. Therefore, the three 

stations 120° apart at Goldstone, Honeysuckle Creek, and Madrid provided 

continuous coverage to the spacecraft as Earth rotated over a 24-hour period. 

The only time loss-of-signal occurred on an Apollo mission was when the 

spacecraft’s orbit took it behind the Moon and for those five minutes at the 

end of the mission during atmospheric reentry when super-heated plasma 

induced RF transmission black-out. 

As successful as live television was on Apollo 7, it paled in comparison to what took place from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968. As a spellbound 

world glued their eyes to their television sets, the first live images of our planet 

and lunar landscape as seen by men from the Moon were transmitted from a 

quarter of a million miles away to the Madrid Station at Fresnedillas, Spain.54 In 

a telecast that would forever be etched in the memory of those who were there, 

black and white images of the Moon and Earth—primitive by today’s standards 

of brilliant high definition television (HDTV)—were shown as each astronaut 

took turns reading the Creation account from the first 10 verses of the Book 

of Genesis. As the crew completed their next to last orbit around the Moon, 

flight controllers—choking back tears by now—looked on as Commander 

Frank Borman closed the live broadcast with a farewell that reached over a billion people around the world, “We close with good night, good luck, a Merry 

Christmas and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth.”55 

Borman later admitted that he and his crew had not wanted to 

carry a television camera. Technical reasons aside, they knew that whatever 

they showed and said from lunar orbit was going to be seen and heard by a 

whole lot of people. Not a poetic man, Borman, as mission commander, had 

worried about this the most. 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 173 

I said ‘no’ a lot, and the nice thing about it was that NASA gave 

the commander enough prerogative that they backed him up. I was 

overruled on one thing and that was because management was a lot 

smarter than I was. I didn’t want to take the damn television camera with me.And they said,‘Let’s take it,’ and they were right. . . . It 

turned out to be so important because we could share what we saw 

with the world. It weighed 12 pounds [5.4 kilograms].We were cutting out everything, even down to the extra meals, which weighed 

16 ounces [0.5 kilograms] or something like that. But I was very 

short sighted there, and NASA was right.56 

By including the camera, it made the experience very real to those 

watching on Earth. “It didn’t add a dangerous amount of weight and the 

camera achieved the purpose for which it was intended: to give all Americans 

a real feeling for the mission and what it was accomplishing.”57 As it turned 

out, their broadcast was indeed seen by a worldwide audience, from the 

Americas to Europe (including East Berlin), parts of Asia and Africa, and even 

Moscow. Despite some protesting the religious nature of the message, Apollo 

8’s Christmas Eve broadcast would endure to become one of the most iconic 

moments in space exploration history. 

Having successfully demonstrated the network’s 26-meter (85­

foot) USB systems, the next mission Apollo 9, went back to again exercise 

and check out the near-Earth portion of the network. The flight was the first 

for the LM, the first piloted spacecraft designed exclusively for flying in the 

airlessness of space. The flight tested, for the first time, MSFN capability to 

simultaneously track and communicate with both the CSM and the LM. LM 

USB equipment such as dual-redundant transceivers, the audio center, pulsecode telemetry, central timing, biomedical channels and television were thoroughly tested during this 10-day Earth orbit mission. Communication links 

between the LM, CSM, and the MSFN ground stations as well as the extravehicular mobility unit (the moonwalk spacesuits) were demonstrated. 

After 151 revolutions, Gumdrop splashed down on 13 March 

1969 near the reentry ship Huntsville and was recovered by the carrier USS 

Guadalcanal.

58 Black and white television had worked so well on Apollo 7 

through 9 that on the next flight, NASA decided to install a color system in the 

Apollo 10 CM. Space television had actually come quite far in a short amount 

of time. During the early Apollo missions, the TV used a slow-scan, black and 

white camera that was originally intended for development by RCA but, due 

to procurement delays, was eventually supplied by the MSC as government 

furnished equipment. That camera yielded a poorly defined, erratically moving 

image which MSFN stations converted into a standard commercial broadcast 

format (which after conversion, still exhibited uneven motions). These previous missions had shown to network engineers that there was actually sufficient 
174 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

margin in transmission bandwidth that good quality, color television could be 

attempted in real time. 

Weighing “only” 5.4 kilograms (12 pounds), the new Westinghouse 

color camera could be handheld or bracket-mounted. Its scan rate was at the 

commercial 30 frames per second, 525 scan lines per frame with a resolution 

of 200 TV lines at the standard screen aspect ratio of 4:3.59 What viewers 

experienced on the ground was a fairly good picture obtained by superimposing the color signals with the imaging (pixel) data. A 7.6-centimeter (3-inch) 

black-and-white video monitor could even be Velcro-mounted on the camera 

(or at various locations inside the CM) to aide the crew in focus and exposure 

adjustment. By Apollo 14, color television capability had been extended from 

the CM to the LM and onto the lunar surface. 

As soon as Apollo 10 splashed down on 26 May bringing to an end 

the dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing attempt (the G mission), all eyes 

were on Apollo 11. The historic launch took place before an estimated crowd 

of one million people on the morning of 16 July 1969. Onboard were Neil 

A. Armstrong, Commander; Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot; and 

Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Lunar Module Pilot. A decade of preparation had 

been directed toward this mission, and the MSFN now had the responsibility 

of tracking the three on the greatest voyage ever taken. NASA has flown over 

100 more human space missions since Apollo 11 (many much more complex). 

But historians and grade-schoolers alike still (understandably) look back on 

this epochal mission as the Agency’s high point. 

During a visit to the United States in October 1968, John Bolton, 

Director of Parkes Observatory in western New South Wales, Australia, was 

approached by Covington’s team to consider the possibility of making their 

64-meter (210-foot) radio astronomy telescope available to support the historic 

mission. Although several factors played into this, the driving requirement 

came down to the fact that Kraft and his team at Houston lacked confidence in 

the S-band directional antenna of the LM. Specifically, trajectory of the LM 

on its descent down to the surface was such that after it emerged from behind 

the Moon, there was a critical but very short period of time to make a “bailout” decision. If the directional antenna was not performing properly, the signal from the lower-gain (much less powerful) VHF omni-directional antenna 

would be marginal at best using the network’s 26-meter (85-foot) antennas.60 

The way the MSFN stations were spaced also played into this. 

First, the flight plan had the landing of the Lunar Module Eagle taking place 

towards the end of the viewing window at Goldstone and the beginning of 

the window at Canberra, Australia. If landing somehow got pushed beyond 

the Canberra window, however, then Parkes—located some three hours drive 

west of Canberra—would provide that extra margin to capture the signals. 

The mission timeline also first drafted by Houston had Armstrong and Aldrin 

performing the EVA shortly upon landing, with Goldstone being the prime 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 175 

tracking site, and with it, television responsibilities. Honeysuckle Creek, near 

Canberra, was to track Collins and the Command Module Columbia in lunar 

orbit. In this scenario, the Moon was not due to rise at Parkes until 1:02 pm 

local Australian time, by which time most, if not all, of the moonwalk would 

have been completed. Thus, Parkes Observatory was relegated to serve as 

backup for both the landing and the EVA. To facilitate this setup, the radio 

telescope would be linked via microwave to Canberra.61 

This scenario changed about two months before the mission when 

Flight Operations in Houston decided that, to give the astronauts a better 

chance to acclimate to the Moon’s 1/6th gravity, a sleep period would be 

allowed before commencing the EVA. Thus, the new plan had the moonwalk 

starting about 10 hours after landing, which was some 20 minutes after the 

Moon had set at Goldstone. In the South Pacific, however, the Moon would 

be high overhead over Parkes. Because of this, Parkes was redesignated the 

prime site for receiving the EVA telemetry.62 

But things changed again. By happenstance, on 17 July—one 

day after the launch—a fire broke out in the power supply at Tidbinbilla 

(Canberra) which severely damaged the transmitter on its 26-meter antenna. 

Despite some quick repair work, GSFC would not take the risk and switched 

the station’s role with Honeysuckle Creek. Thus, the latter would now be 

the prime station to support lunar EVA, including reception of the crucial 

bio-medical telemetry from Armstrong’s and Aldrin’s Portable Life Support 

System (PLSS) backpacks. This was the top telemetry priority. The 26-meter 

antenna at nearby Tidbinbilla would be trained on Columbia instead.63 

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. THE EAGLE HAS LANDED.” 

The words were said at 4:18 pm EDT on Sunday afternoon 20 July 1969 by 

Armstrong as Apollo 11 landed on the pristine surface of the Sea of Tranquility. 

With all LM systems checking out fine and the crew’s adrenalin pumping, it 

would have been incredibly anticlimactic (and probably a little unrealistic) to 

expect Armstrong and Aldrin to simply just go to sleep for six hours. They 

had, after all, just landed on the Moon! After discussions with Mission Control, 

Armstrong exercised his command prerogative and decided to forego the rest 

period and begin EVA preparations immediately. This began a chain of events 

from a network perspective that would ultimately decide how telemetry was 

received and how the world would see humankind’s first steps on the Moon. 

By skipping the rest period, the EVA would begin five hours before 

the Moon was to rise at Parkes. However, Goldstone was in a good position. 

For a while, it seemed as if the Apollo Station in California would have the 

responsibility of televising the historic first moonwalk as originally planned. 

But delays kept dragging on as Armstrong and Aldrin prepared for their EVA 

inside the cramped quarters of the LM. By the time they were ready to egress 

the ship, moonrise had occurred at both Parkes and Honeysuckle. 
176 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

While this was going on, a violent wind squall happened to hit the 

telescope at Parkes while the dish was in its most vulnerable position, pointed 

at the horizon awaiting moonrise. In this “zero-elevation” position, the face 

of the dish caught the full force of the two, 112 kilometers-per-hour (70 mph) 

gusts, subjecting the large antenna to 10 times the force that it was considered 

safe to withstand. Other structures were also batted around in the swirling 

winds and the weather remained bad. But in a stroke of good fortune, the 

winds abated just as the Moon broke horizon at Parkes.64 

So, because the sleep period was skipped and EVA preparations 

took longer than expected, no less than three tracking stations—Goldstone, 

Honeysuckle Creek, Parkes—received telemetry of the incredible first steps 

on the Moon. Although this was a good thing (plenty of redundancy), it also 

engendered a dilemma: Which of these TV signals would the world see? 

In Australia, signals from both Honeysuckle and Parkes were sent 

to Sydney by microwave links, where a NASA officer selected between the 

two to forward on to Houston via the NASCOM. Since moonrise occurred 

at Parkes just as the EVA was getting underway, the telescope was at a very 

low elevation angle. As a result, it had to use its less sensitive “off-axis” detector and the received signal strengths were very poor. Antenna elevation angle 

at Honeysuckle was higher and the resulting signal was better. This meant 

that its signals were passed on to Mission Control. There, a controller then 

selected between the Goldstone and the Honeysuckle TV signal. This selected 

signal (ostensibly the best of the three) was then sent to a media pool television 

monitor. But this was still not the TV picture that the world saw; there was 

one more step. The image displayed on this NASA monitor was then filmed 

lived by a media pool camera for transmission to individual domestic and 

international TV networks. As a result, what people saw in their homes that 

evening was of slightly lower quality than what flight controllers and VIPs 

saw inside Mission Control.65 

During the first nine minutes of the broadcast, NASA alternated 

between TV from Goldstone and Honeysuckle, searching for the best one. 

Neither was very good as they both came from 26-meter antennas (as opposed 

to the 64-meter dish at Parkes). Because of this, they could only accommodate blurry images using what was called ‘slow-scan television’—a picture 

transmission method used mainly by amateur radio operators to transmit and 

receive black and white pictures. There was one more thing. Not only was the 

TV picture grainy and blurry, it was upside-down! 

This was because as Armstrong began his 2.4-meter (8-foot) 

descent down the ladder, he pulled a D-ring which dropped open the Modular 

Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) containing the television camera. Due 

to the way the camera had to be mounted, however, when the MESA dropped 

opened, it was upside-down. Avoiding what could have been a major embarrassment forever recorded, technicians at the stations quickly flipped an incon­
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 177 

at top is the slow-scan television image from honeysuckle Creek of armstrong placing his left foot onto the surface of the Moon. twenty minutes later when aldrin came 

down the ladder, coverage had switched to the 210-foot (64-meter) radio telescope at 

the parkes Observatory. the image improved noticeably. the lower picture shows aldrin 

checking his jump back up the ladder before stepping onto the surface. Note armstrong 

is overexposed in the background from where he stood and took pictures of his crewmate’s climb down to the surface. (Scans courtesy of John Saxon. also available at 

http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_11_mission/index.html )
178 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

spicuous toggle switch called the ‘Scanner Converter Reversing Switch’, just 

in time to see Armstrong’s final descent down the ladder. Although NASA 

initially began the telecast with Goldstone, by the time Armstrong reached 

the foot of the ladder, Mission Control had switched to the transmission from 

Honeysuckle Creek. In this circuitous way, the Australian station was bestowed 

the privilege of transmitting to the world Armstrong’s “one small step.”66 

In a little known vignette of history, the way the camera was 

mounted in the MESA and the way the compartment dropped opened caused 

the camera to be slightly tilted with respect to the true horizontal-axis of the 

LM. What this meant was that an even more harrowing appearance was added 

to Armstrong’s already dramatic climb down the ladder. In reality, although 

the incline of the ladder was indeed quite precipitous at 65o, it was not as steep 

as seen on TV, which gave the illusion like it was almost vertical.67 

Eight minutes and fifty-one seconds into the broadcast, the Moon 

had risen sufficiently high over Parkes that the telescope could now capture 

lunar transmissions with its main detector. Normal television scans rates could 

now be accommodated and the picture quality improved. Houston quickly 

switched to Parkes. Thus, the world saw Buzz Aldrin’s descent down the ladder much clearer than his commander’s 20 minutes earlier. NASA stayed with 

the Parkes television for the remainder of the two and a half hour telecast.68 

Twelve hours later, the Madrid Station tracked Eagle as it lifted off the 

surface of the Moon to successfully rendezvous and dock with Columbia. After 

rejoining Collins, Apollo 11 made its critical TEI burn for home. On the morning of 24 July 1968, humankind’s first journey to the surface of the Moon came 

to an end as Hawaii and the Huntsville tracked Columbia to a perfect splashdown 

less than five kilometers (three miles) from the recovery ship USS Hornet. 

Ozzie Covington, who had been so instrumental in smoothing the 

lines of communications between Houston and Goddard, would recall years 

later the almost surreal feeling after it was all over. 

When we finally landed on the Moon on July 20 1969, I was 

grateful that our cooperative efforts had paid off. However, during 

the event, I was in the Mission Control Center in Houston. Some 

of the data from the lunar excursion module became sporadic and I 

really became uptight. NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine happened to stand nearby and noticed my nervousness. He urged me 

to take it easy. We had come this far and would make it fine, he 

assured me.Well, we did!69 

This sense of tension followed by great relief was echoed by Bill Wood, 

who by then was the head of the Manned Network. On Apollo 11, he spent the 

entire eight days at the GSFC Network Control Center, working, eating, and 

sleeping there.“When I eventually got home,”Wood said,“there was a big sign 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 179 

armstrong’s photographic 

counterpart to the television 

image of aldrin descending the ladder as seen in the 

previous figure. (NaSa Image 

Number MSFC-6900937) 

‘Welcome’ greeting me. However, [by then] I was emotionally exhausted and 

it took me quite a while to really comprehend as to what had happened, even 

though for years, I had been deeply involved in preparing for this event.”70 

As someone in the “trenches” at the field station, Mike Dinn, who 

was Deputy Director in charge of Operations at Honeysuckle, framed the 

accomplishment of the historic mission in a somewhat different perspective. 

To him, Apollo 11 was a simulation that went well. “The station had reached 

a point of capability whereby it was comfortable not only with a nominal 

mission, but comfortable that the station could cope with just about anything 

nonstandard,” said Dinn. 

We had thought through and tried to simulate as many different things as could happen, and so I was comfortable with it. 

You knew you had the next pass to cope with. Every pass was 

crucial and critical, even though it might have ended up routine 

and nothing happened.You had to be, almost, literally on your toes, 

organized and prepared and staffed to cope with any anomaly. I was 

also comfortable with the management aspects of it. It was a very 

good operational philosophy that Chris Kraft had brought whereby 

everybody in the organization knew the success of the mission 

depended on them doing their bit properly and correctly, and that 

the person in the next station was going to do his bit correctly.We 

were all so busy that it took all your effort and energy to do your 

part well.And so it was very satisfying and rewarding that we didn’t 
180 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

have Goddard and Houston micromanaging—in great contrast to 

later years.71 

As somewhat of a reality check, Dinn told his shift that morning 

(Australian time) that the most important data coming from the Moon that 

day was not going to be television but the bio-medical telemetry of Armstrong 

and Aldrin. Said Dinn: 

If you’re there doing a job, you should be concentrating on the 

job at hand and the data at hand. . . .The luxury of ‘whooping it up’ 

doesn’t fit in there.That is the least time you’d be whooping it up 

is when something critical just occurred. After Apollo 11 landed, 

you heard Gene Kranz say something like ‘Right, we’ve got to stay 

or no-stay’.There wasn’t time there to be whooping it up. I fully 

recognize this doesn’t fit in with what the colloquial media, books, 

and the like want to say. But I’m afraid that’s what it was.Yes, we 

were pleased and satisfied with what we achieved,but we were only 

a small cog in the machine. And yes, we’d done our bit well, but 

we weren’t as tested as we were in simulations. I used to say that 

a nominal Apollo mission used about 5 percent of our capability 

because we had lots of redundancies. . . .When it came down to 

it, there was an enormous amount of onboard redundancies.They 

didn’t need the network all the time . . . and to me, that wasn’t a 

negative; that was a positive. It showed a lot of clever, intelligent, 

management and design of the mission and the hardware.You had 

so much redundancy and so many backups and so many options. 

They were all designed into the mission planning.Yes, there was 

satisfaction. It was the culmination of what we had trained for, and 

everybody performed.The satisfaction for me was to help bring the 

station from this state of not being very competent to one of the 

best in the network, as Bill Wood told me years later.72 

The greatest challenge for the network during the Apollo years 

occurred in April 1970 when the flight of Apollo 13 had to be aborted as 

the spacecraft approached the Moon. Fifty-six hours into the mission with the 

spacecraft some 322,000 kilometers (200,000 miles) from Earth, damaged wires 

and insulation inside the Number 2 oxygen tank caused it to explode during 

a routine tank “stir”. The explosion ruptured a line and damaged a valve in 

the Number 1 oxygen tank, causing it to also lose oxygen. The entire Service 

Module oxygen supply boiled away in less than three hours, which led to the 

loss of water, electrical power and use of the Service Propulsion System. 

With the lunar landing now scrubbed, the mission turned into a 

race against time, one of saving the crew before all the life-support consum­
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 181 

ables expired. Astronauts James Lovell, John L. “Jack” Swigert, Jr., and Fred 

W. Haise, Jr. quickly powered up the Lunar Module, still attached to the 

CSM, as a lifeboat. All spacecraft systems except for life support were turned 

off to save power. Only a low power transmission link tethered the crippled 

spacecraft to Mission Control. Robert L. Owen, the MSFN Associate Chief 

for Network Engineering at Goddard during the mission, recalled the network improvising and adapting in real time to the situation. 

There was a transponder on board the S-IVB (third-stage of 

the Saturn launch vehicle) which operated on exactly the same 

frequency as the transponder on the LM. In our planning, we had 

never considered powering up the Lunar Module until after the 

S-IVB had expired. However, when the power failure forced our 

astronauts to get out of the CM into the LM, we faced the problem 

of having the S-IVB floating nearby, utilizing the same communication frequencies. This was no good, and we quickly had to work 

out a scheme which would enable us to capture the signal from the 

Lunar Module. Eventually, the S-IVB crashed into the Moon, but 

in the meantime, we had to have reliable communications.We succeeded by working out a configuration we had never anticipated. 

Apollo 13 presented us with a frightening situation, which luckily, 

we were able to meet.73 

To save power, telemetry had to be transmitted back to Earth using 

low power transmitters on the LM. Here, the 64-meter radio telescope at 

Parkes Observatory once again entered the picture. Originally, the Moon 

was too far north to be seen very well from the observatory and the telescope 

was not scheduled to support Apollo 13. But as soon as the accident occurred, 

NASA quickly recognized that Parkes could and would in fact be needed to 

track the failing spacecraft on its altered free-return trajectory. 

The Australians, led by observatory director John Bolton, immediately began to prepare the station. While astronomy equipment was carried 

down a ladder from the antenna pedestal, the NASA antenna feed was taken 

up in a lift, installed and checked out at the center of the dish. In a job that 

usually took one week, the facility was reconfigured in 10 hours after receiving the go-ahead from Goddard.74 Since Parkes was not slated to support this 

mission, microwave links which had been established for Apollo 11 and 12 

were not operational when the emergency occurred. With urgency, a team of 

engineers from Honeysuckle and Tidbinbilla arrived at Parkes within hours to 

reestablish the links to Sydney before the next pass of the spacecraft. 

Parkes’s inclusion was critical owing to the interference of the S-IVB 

as the 26-meter (85-foot) antenna did not have a narrow enough beamwidth 

to discriminate between the Saturn third stage and the LM Odyssey. When 
182 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Parkes moved out of view, the 64-meter (210-foot) dish at Goldstone was able 

to do the same, and together, the two were able to track and communicate 

with Apollo 13, saving the flight from turning into a disaster. From a Mission 

Control perspective, it was NASA’s finest moment.75 

Eighty-seven hours after the explosion, Apollo 13 splashed down 

southeast of American Samoa with Lovell, Swigert and Haise safely strapped 

into their couches to bring to an end the only aborted lunar mission of the 

entire program. In retrospect, Apollo 13 represented a constructive failure 

that highlighted not only the coordination and preparation of network engineers at GSFC and stations around the world, but also the teamwork and 

cooperation between the various NASA centers and, more broadly, with the 

space agency’s international partners.76 

Lyn Dunseith, Director of the Data Systems and Analysis Directorate 

at the JSC recalled years later that: 

Throughout the entire program, Goddard provided us with 

the data we so critically needed.The quality of this support is best 

evident by the lack of a crisis in a crisis situation, such as the illfated Apollo 13 mission. Even during the flight, we had command 

and voice capability to handle a very serious condition. Our astronauts returned safely thanks in large measure to superb communications and tracking capabilities provided by the Goddard team. Its 

members are as much a part of manned space flight as anyone in 

Houston or at the Cape.77 

Moon landings continued to unfold after Apollo 13, becoming more 

ambitious and complex with each mission. Scientific exploration of our nearest neighbor began in earnest on Apollo 12 and moved forward until Apollo 

17 concluded the program. Compared to the life and death drama of Apollo 

13, these missions went relatively smooth, though not totally trouble free. On 

Apollo 14, for instance, a malfunctioning abort switch gave flight controllers 

real trouble. The MSFN enabled Houston to send commands to reprogram the 

computers aboard the LM directing it to ignore that particular signal. Without 

this capability, the mission would have had to be aborted since the crew would 

not have been able to separate from the CM and a lunar landing would not 

have been possible. Former Flight Director Chris Kraft would say that, “On 

virtually every flight, the network and its people, while in the background, 

were ‘under the gun’. We relied on them in every critical situation.”78 

These landings left Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages 

(ALSEP) in five geographical locations across the lunar surface. ALSEPs were 

a combination of experiments which the astronauts deployed at a site sufficiently far from the LM to collect lunar surface experimental data. There was 

a central processing station to which all of the peripheral experiment and the 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 183 

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) were attached. The ASLEPs 

provided power and data with network stations through its own transmitter 

and antenna. With several packages in place, these ALSEPs, connected as a 

network, returned more data than any could on its own. 

Take the seismometer network emplaced by Apollo 12, 14, 15, and 

16. It enabled the location of impacts and moonquakes to be determined very 

precisely. The network of three Lunar Surface Magnetometers enabled the 

apollo 15 Lunar Module pilot James B. Irwin loads-up the “rover”, Lunar roving Vehicle, 

with tools and equipment in preparation for the first lunar extravehicular activity at the 

hadley-apennine landing site on 31 July 1971. a portion of the Lunar Module Falcon is visible on the left. St. George crater is about five kilometers (three miles) in the background. 

Clearly seen is the one-meter (three-foot) steerable Unified S-Band (USB) antenna of the 

rover through which houston could remotely control the vehicle if needed. this photograph 

was taken by Mission Commander David r. Scott. (NaSa Image Number aS15-86-11602)
184 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

study of solar wind plasma movement by tracing its magnetic field. Closing out 

the program, Apollo 17 carried an enhanced package of surface experiments. 

With nuclear power from the RTGs, ALSEP transmissions were received by 

NASA’s Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network for years after the last astronauts had left the Moon.79 

Having surpassed President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the 

Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of 1969, the final three 

Apollo flights that took place between July 1971 and December 1972 were 

conducted with scientific exploration in mind. The last of the Apollo lunar 

flights (the so-called “J-missions” with their emphasis on science), featured the 

Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), a 210-kilogram (460-pound) battery-powered 

car manufactured by Boeing-Delco. It was essentially an all-terrain vehicle 

designed to operate in the low-gravity, vacuum, dusty environment of the 

Moon. The Rover could carry 490 kilograms (1,080 pounds)—allowing for 

180 kilograms (400 pounds) for each astronaut, his suit and the portable lifesupport system—a total distance of 92 kilometers (57 miles) to survey and 

sample considerable stretches of the terrain.80 

Communicating with the rover posed a number of new challenges 

to the MSFN. For example, incorporating it into the television transmission 

scheme created a special set of problems. One issue in particular was how to 

control the motion of the LRV color television camera. Houston’s method of 

operating the camera was to issue start/stop commands relayed through the 

network computers at the respective ground station. There was, however, a 

time lag of 2.5 seconds in the time it took to start and stop the rover camera 

from the time a command was issued at the MCC. This meant that if the 

Flight Controller operating the camera wanted to turn it by 5°, the “Stop” 

command would have to be dispatched before the “Start” command reached 

the Moon! To compensate, network engineers designed a fix to the ground 

station computers that staggered start/stop commands thereby allowing the 

camera to function without having to modify its control format. 

Another potential obstacle to successful LRV television transmissions stemmed from voice and telemetry sub-carrier interference into the 

video portion of the rover’s USB signal. Because the telemetry transmission 

spectrum overlapped the voice and video data frequencies, the interference 

left annoying herringbone patterns on TV. To solve this problem, engineers 

from GSFC, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, and 

the Goldstone Communication Complex produced a band-pass filter that 

removed the interference while preserving the video transmission to produce 

crystal clear images from the rover camera the quality of which would not be 

surpassed until HDTV became available 25 years later on the Space Shuttle 

and International Space Station.81 

Introduction of the rover also increased the number of transmission 

sources that the network had to keep track of.The MSFN now had to synchronize 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 185 

all the activities of the Command Module orbiting the Moon, the Lunar Module 

parked on the surface, the LRV moving around on the surface, and finally, the 

two astronauts who may each be walking around in different directions. Keeping 

track of just where the rover was with respect to the LM was obviously important. 

Needless to say, a more reliable technique was needed than to simply allow the 

astronauts to visually follow their tracks back to the LM. 

The solution—a rather novel one devised by Goddard engineers— 

was to pinpoint the rover’s position with respect to the LM by extracting differential Doppler data from the two separate S-band transmissions coming, 

respectively, from the LM and the rover. By observing the Doppler shift, the 

network could precisely track the rover to provide the necessary navigation data. Mission Control then passed the data to the astronauts who then 

charted their course, enabling them to venture great distances, even after 

losing sight of the LM. 

Proper coordination of lunar surface activities also required communication between the two astronauts on the surface and the CM Pilot in 

orbit. Support from MSFN stations was needed since direct line-of-site communications between the two lunar parties was limited to a brief overhead 

pass on each orbit. Since the ground network could see the CM for just about 

50 percent of each orbit and because it was in continuous contact with the 

astronauts on the surface, MSFN stations served as relay points between the 

two parties. In this way, real-time voice communications between the surface and the orbiting CM were made possible for about half the time that the 

astronauts spent on the Moon. 

When the Apollo 17 CM America splashed down on 17 December 

1972, it marked the end of the first epic journeys to the Moon, a lasting tribute to the 400,000 men and women whose skill and determination placed 12 

Americans on the surface of our nearest celestial neighbor. The tremendous 

sense of pride and accomplishment that came with Apollo deeply affected 

those who worked on the program, some, on a very personal level. 

Robert Barnes, who first worked with Ozzie Covington at White 

Sands and later joined him in Greenbelt, saw the potential of the MSFN to 

accomplish something rather unique, something historical. Reflecting years 

later, Barnes said: 

My own involvement with this activity lasted 20 years, more 

or less, and it was not unlike having a front seat on a roller coaster: 

you wonder why in hell you got on, but somehow, would not have 

wanted to miss a chance for such a spectacular ride! With NASA, 

each of us saw a chance to fulfill a dream. However, in retrospect it 

must be concluded that all dreams were not the same. Certainly the 

work that led ultimately to the communications support of Apollo 

satisfied a host of dreams and was the work of a very dedicated 
186 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

group of people. It stands as an accomplishment for which each 

member can be justly proud.82 

Lyn Dunseith, whose team was instrumental in integrating the 

Goddard network with the MCC, reflected: 

It is fortunate that the computer and communications technology kept pace with the needs of the space program. Indeed 

this program greatly accelerated the state of the art. Surely, without these tools and the men operating them, we would not have 

been able to get to the Moon.When we finally landed there and 

returned our astronauts safely to Earth, I could not fully compreSkylab consisted of four major modules: the Orbital Workshop, airlock Module, 

Multiple Docking adaptor and apollo telescope Mount (atM). the Orbital Workshop 

was a converted S-IVB third stage of a Saturn V. the atM could not be accessed from 

the rest of the space station and a spacewalk was required to reach it. Launched in 

1973, three crews visited the station between May 1973 and February 1974. Skylab 

remained in orbit until 1979. (NaSa Image Number MSFC-72-SL-7200-110) 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 187 

hend what actually had occurred. It really seemed incredulous. For 

months after Apollo 11, I was somewhat in a daze and found it difficult to believe that we had made that lunar landing, even though 

I had been personally involved in this dramatic event. . . .Yes, I have 

the book with all the equations and procedures, but I still find it 

difficult to believe, as I now look at the Moon, that men actually 

walked and worked there! It was incomprehensible.83 

Even before these dramatic flights took place to the Moon, NASA 

was already thinking about what would be next. Beginning in 1964, exploratory studies were initiated under various names such as Extended Apollo 

(Apollo-X) and Apollo Extension System (AES) to investigate options for 

space projects that would come after the lunar missions. The next year, these 

initiatives were consolidated under the Apollo Applications Program (AAP), 

which by 1966, had narrowed the scope of the potential projects down to one 

of Earth orbit application; namely, a space station. 

NASA had originally planned 20 Apollo missions. But on 2 

September 1970, Administrator Thomas Paine announced that due to a $42.1 

million congressional cut in FY 1971 NASA appropriations, Apollo 15 and 

19 were to be canceled; the remaining missions were redesignated Apollo 

14 through 17. This disappointing cut left space-qualified hardware, which 

had already been made, immediately available for an AAP, specifically, an 

Orbital Workshop for a space station. On 17 February 1970, the NASA Project 

Designation Committee officially designated the project Skylab.84 

Network response was required from the start, as Skylab encountered a number of difficulties. On 14 May 1973, the first two stages of a Saturn 

V launch vehicle placed America’s first space station into low-Earth orbit. At 

over 86 metric tons, Skylab was at the time the most massive object ever successfully delivered into space. But this almost did not happen. 

Sixty-three seconds after liftoff while the first stage was still burning, a crucial micrometeoroid shield on the exterior of the Orbital Workshop 

designed to protect Skylab from harsh solar heating and micro-impacts, was 

torn away by aerodynamic forces, carrying with it one of the station’s two 

solar panels. Even the second solar array, as it turned out, did not fully open 

upon reaching orbit. The overheated and underpowered space station seemed 

doomed as NASA scrambled to decide whether or not to even attempt launching a crew to inhabit Skylab. 

Over the next week, engineers at Goddard, Houston, and Marshall 

poured over telemetry that revealed the health and status and the extent of 

damage to the station. Houston remotely maneuvered the massive spacecraft 

via a series of command uplinks into a position which minimized excessive 

solar heating. Having bought some time, engineers poured over the telemetry 

data to come up with the appropriate fixes. A solar shield was taken up with 
188 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the first launch of Skylab astronauts on 25 May. Upon reaching the station, 

Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Jr. and his crew (Paul J. Weitz, Pilot and 

Joseph P. Kerwin, Science Pilot) found that although metal surfaces were hot 

to the touch, internal conditions were much better than expected. The team 

lost no time deploying the parasol heat shield which produced a rapid drop in 

temperature and a spacewalk was done to fully release the stuck solar panel. By 

the fourth day, conditions had improved dramatically to the point where the 

three were able to settle into their flight plan. (Kerwin later served as the NASA 

Headquarter’s OTDA Representative in Australia from 1982 to 1984).85 

The project pushed network requirements to new heights. Skylab 

and its numerous scientific activities created a flood of telemetry that threatened to overwhelm the NASCOM circuits connecting the ground stations 

to Mission Control. It was the familiar problem of the difference in the datacapturing capability of the sites (now able to receive telemetry at a rate of 

250,000 bits-per-second) and the NASCOM line transmission rates (still at a 

much slower 19,200 bits-per-second). Although 19.2 Kpbs reflected improvement over the recently concluded Apollo lunar flights, ways had to be found 

to accommodate the discrepancy linking the network stations to Houston. To 

this end, GSFC network engineers designed a data compression software that 

enabled each station computer to interrogate and filter-out redundancies and 

static data that, for instance, had not changed from previous downlinks. The 

station could then pass on only new or changed (dynamic) data. The modification worked well and was efficient in providing the MCC with all its data 

need without introducing a time lag. 

Even with constant improvements like this, the network was not 

immune to occasional “glitches.” The fixes were usually simple though. On 

Skylab 2, the ship Vanguard picked up and transmitted to the crew interference 

sound bursts coming from cars and fishing boats near the port at Mar del Plata, 

Argentina. The solution on that particular day was simple: take the Vanguard 

further out to sea.86 

As a true testament to the value of humans in space, Skylab overcame its somewhat inauspicious start to serve as home for three crews, each on 

progressively longer durations: 28 days for the first mission, 59 for the second 

and a then record-breaking 84 days for the third. The last group returned 

to Earth on 8 February 1974. Even though the last crew left the station in 

1974, network activities continued on Skylab until, quite literally, its last day 

in orbit. For several years after the last crew had left the station, commands 

were uplinked so as to maintain the spacecraft’s orbit in hopes of preserving it 

long enough so that one of the early Space Shuttle flights could boost it into a 

higher and more stable orbit. But when the first Shuttle mission was delayed 

into 1981, it was apparent to NASA that Skylab was not going to survive its 

slowly decaying orbit. Like it or not, Skylab was coming down. 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 189 

With its fate sealed, NASA had to make sure that it would reenter 

the atmosphere without scattering debris in populated areas.Thus prior to reentry, the station’s drag characteristics were altered by uplinking commands that 

changed its attitude in an attempt to place the impact in the south Atlantic or 

Indian Oceans. Skylab finally reentered on 12 July 1979, but it ended up scattering debris over Western Australia.A post-mission review of the telemetry showed 

that incorrect breakup altitude prediction,uncertainties in the ballistic coefficient 

and atmospheric density caused the impact area to shift downrange to Australia. 

The reentry demonstrated just how difficult it really is to perform a controlled 

reentry, even with good telemetry and an active command capability.87 

Ed Lawless, who was the NASCOM Voice Network Manager, was 

in the Goddard Control Center when Skylab reentered. In an interview in 

1989, he recalled: 

We did a lot of special tracking to make sure we had very 

good numbers on where it would most likely reenter at the time 

it was going to happen. . . .We knew that it had come down in the 

Australia area, and we had just started taking all the circuits down. I 

had broken the circuits to NASA Headquarters and all of a sudden 

the network got a telephone call in from our switching center in 

Australia.They had a pilot on the line with a very vivid description 

of the reentry.88 

Henry Iuliano, who headed Goddard’s Network Operations on 

Skylab, gave a vivid description of the pilot’s encounter: 

The pilot was 100 miles [160 kilometers] east of Perth, flying 

at 28,000 feet [8,500 meters]. He said he saw this aircraft coming 

at him [and] thought it was a new type of aircraft that looked like 

blue metallic steel. It was about 5° above the horizon slightly off to 

his left, and as it approached him, it turned from steel blue to gray. 

Then the pilot realized it was turning red, that this was the Skylab. 

It began to break up in large pieces, with a tail at least 100 miles 

[160 kilometers] long of smaller pieces behind it, and it disappeared 

behind to his right 7° below the horizon. From the looks of the 

path, he estimated that it landed about 300 miles [480 kilometers] 

in back of him somewhere near Alice Springs, and that’s exactly 

where most of the parts were found! Just before we heard the pilot’s 

report, when Skylab went by the Ascension Island tracking station, 

they were still receiving telemetry data.They gave us a reading and 

said it was in a stable condition—actually flying! Instead of tumbling like we thought it would, it was actually flying at 66,000 

feet [20,000 meters] and still giving good telemetry. Somewhere 
190 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

between Ascension and Carnarvon,Australia, when the pilot saw it, 

was when it began to break up.89 

East-West rivalry had led to the United States planting six flags on 

the Moon, but it also prevented and forestalled any effort for human space 

cooperation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Without being overly 

dramatic, imagine a spacecraft stranded in orbit unable to return to Earth. Its 

crew may be injured or in peril as oxygen slowly runs out. What were the 

chances of another country sending up a rescue team to bring them home? 

Unlike today, only two countries possessed that capability in the 1970s. 

At a meeting with veteran Soviet space scientist Anatoly Blagonravov 

in New York in April of 1970, NASA administrator Thomas Paine raised the 

idea of linking the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft on a joint mission. The idea 

interested the Soviets enough that the two countries reached an agreement on 

28 October 1970 to conduct a joint study of a US/USSR rendezvous mission. 

The official intent of such a mission was to create a space rescue capability 

that would be available to aid astronauts who might become stranded in Earth 

orbit. These discussions culminated nearly two years later on 24 May 1972 

when—with great satisfaction to the international community at large—U.S. 

President Richard M. Nixon and USSR Prime Minister Alexey N. Kosygin 

signed a space pact officially endorsing the project. This first-ever international space mission was officially named the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, or 

ASTP, on 30 June.90 

ASTP was based on a 17-point technical agreement negotiated in 

Moscow on 4 through 6 April 1972. This agreement highlighted the level of 

international cooperation—with clear requirements on network activities— 

needed to make the project work. Joint requirements included: 

1	 Control of the flight of the Apollo-type spacecraft will be accomplished by the American Control Center and that of the Soyuz 

by the Soviet Control Center, with sufficient communication 

channels between centers for proper coordination. 

2	 In the course of control, decisions concerning questions affecting joint elements of the flight program, including countdown 

coordination, will be made after consultation with the control 

center of the other country. 

Joint elements of the flight will be conducted according to coordinated and approved mission documentation, including contingency plans. 3
191 

4 

Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 

In the conduct of the flight, preplanned exchanges of technical 

information and status will be performed on a scheduled basis. 

5	 The host country control center or host country spacecraft 

commander will have primary responsibility for deciding the 

appropriate preplanned contingency course of action for a given 

situation in the host vehicle. Each country will prepare detailed 

rules for various equipment failures requiring any of the preplanned contingency courses of action. 

6	 In situations requiring immediate response, or when out of 

contact with ground personnel, decisions will be taken by the 

commander of the host ship according to the preplanned, contingency courses of action. 

7	 Any television downlink will be immediately transmitted to 

the other country’s control center. The capability to listen to 

the Soviet ground network on the apollo-Soyuz test project consisted of seven 

stations spanning 125° in longitude across asia and europe. (adapted from Map of the 

Commonwealth of Independent States from the United States air Force, link www.af.mil/ 

art/index.asp?galleryID=193 [accessed 9/22/2007])
192 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the voice communications between the vehicles and the ground 

will be available to the other country’s control center on a preplanned basis, and upon joint consent, as further required or 

deemed desirable. 

8 Both sides will continue to consider techniques for providing additional information and background to the other country’s control 

center personnel to assist in mutual understanding (including the 

placement of representatives in each others control centers). 

9	 As a minimum, flight crews should be trained in the other country’s language well enough to understand it and act in response as 

appropriate to establish voice communications regarding normal 

and contingency courses of action. 

10	 A public information plan will be developed which takes into 

account the obligation and practices of both sides.91 

Apollo-Soyuz presented a new challenge to the GSFC tracking and 

communications team. The challenge was one of providing links between 

two orbiting spacecraft with two control centers with two entirely different protocols. The mission was unique in that the NASA network had to, 

for the first time, function in coordination with a Soviet network. Each had 

its own communications protocol which now had to “talk to each other.” 

Arrangements reached between the two sides stipulated that each control center could receive all voice and television communications transmitted to either 

spacecraft. Either crew could be contacted by voice from any station, whether 

American or Soviet. 

Some 2,300 men and women at field stations and 500 at Goddard 

were assigned to the mission (more than that assigned to the later Apollo 

flights). The NASA stations that supported ASTP were a subset of the 9-meter 

USB sites that supported the lunar missions, plus a handful of STADAN sites: 

Ascension (ACN)


Bermuda (BDA)


Guam (GWM)


Hawaii (HAW)


Madrid (MAD)


Newfoundland (NFL)


Orroral (ORR)


Quito (QUI)


Rosman (ROS)


Santiago (AGO)

Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 193 

Coverage from Orroral, Quito, Rosman and Santiago indicated the 

considerable progress that was made in the early 1970s in drawing on STADAN 

stations to assist in human spaceflight operations. In addition to the land stations, 

the venerable Vanguard was stationed off the Argentine coast near Mar del Plata. 

Three ARIA aircraft also supported launch and reentry operations in the Indian 

Ocean and South Pacific, taking off from airbases in South Africa and Australia. 

The Soviet network consisted of seven stations stretched across the 

vast expanse of the USSR. In addition, the Soviets deployed two ships, the 

Korolev (ASK), positioned off Canada, and the Gagarin (KYG), near Chile. The 

Soviet stations were: 

Dzhusaly, Kazakhstan (DJS) 

Eupatoria, Ukraine (EUT) 

Kolpashevo, Russia (KLP) 

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskaya, Russia (PPK) 

Tbilisi, Georgia (TBL) 

Ulan-Ude, Russia (ULD) 

Ussuriysk, Russia (SDK)92 

It was during ASTP that a new dimension in space tracking and 

data acquisition was added. In a harbinger of things soon to come, NASA 

added for the first time, a specific space element to the network. The newly 

developed Applications Technology Satellite-6 (ATS-6), made by Fairchild, 

was used to relay communications from the orbiting spacecraft to ground stations. This increased coverage dramatically, from approximately 17 percent to 

60 percent (an increase from 15 to 52 minutes) of each 87 minute orbit. 

ATS-6 was the second generation of the GSFC Applications 

Technology Satellite program. Its predecessors, ATS-1 through 5 launched 

between 1966 and 1969, were the first generation in the series. Originally 

designated ATS-F, the program had included a second, very similar satellite 

called ATS-G, but it was canceled for budgetary reasons. Eight of the experiments on ATS-6 were explicitly designed for communications relay studies to 

prepare for the next generation TDRSS. 

But use of ATS-6 on Apollo-Soyuz was not orginally planned. 

Bill Wood explained. 

We at Goddard were very reluctant to commit the use of the 

ATS except on the basis of a test and not to meet ASTP requirements. This was another example of the camel’s nose in the tent. 

The very nature of the ATS was as a test program.The closer we 

got to launch, the more important it seemed to get.We wound up 

putting a lot of effort into putting equipment in Spain to interface 

with ATS.Thank goodness it worked, but I for one was nervous.93 
194 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

At nearly 1,360 kilograms (3,000 pounds) with a span of over 15 

meters (50 feet), ATS-6 was quite the imposing bird. It included a 9-meter 

(30-foot) diameter parabolic antenna, an Earth-viewing module located at the 

focus of the parabola and two solar arrays for power. Not only big, it was also 

quite complicated for its time. All the communication experiment was located 

in a section of the Earth-viewing module with feeds for the large antenna 

mounted on top of the module and Earth-pointing ancillary antennas populating the bottom side of the satellite.94 

Launched out of the Kennedy Space Center atop a Titan III-C on 

30 May 1974, GSFC had a list of performance objectives that they wanted to 

see from the satellite: 

Demonstrate the feasibility of using a nine meter diameter, deployable, steerable, high-gain antenna with good RF performance in the 

6.5 GHz range. 

Provide spacecraft fine pointing to within ±0.1° accuracy. 

Demonstrate precision interferometer attitude measuring technology. 

Provide an Earth-facing, stable spacecraft at geosynchronous altitude 

for experiments to be selected by NASA Headquarters. 

Originally placed in geosynchronous orbit at 94oW over the Galapagos 

Islands, the big satellite was immediately used to test operational compatibility 

with the network ground stations. In June 1975, Goddard controllers, transmitting through Rosman, commanded the satellite to 35oE over Lake Victoria, 

Africa, to support the Indian government’s Satellite Instructional Television 

Experiment (SITE). From this vantage point, ATS-6 could also participate in 

“millimeter-wave” communication experiments with several European ground 

terminals as well as relay ASTP data to ground receiving stations. 

To do this, it pointed its antenna towards the horizon and generated 

a signal for the Apollo spacecraft to lock onto as it moved into view. Upon 

establishing contact, Apollo transmitted telemetry, voice and television to the 

satellite. ATS-6 then relayed the signals to a 30-meter (100-foot) antenna at 

the Buitrago ground station outside Madrid. Madrid then acted as the ground 

terminal, relaying the spacecraft’s data via commercial Intelsat to the United 

States.95 After supporting ASTP and the one-year Indian experiment, it was 

slowly moved by a series of ground commands to the Western hemisphere 

where it was stationed at 140oW over the Pacific until it was deactivated in 

July 1979. During its final trek as it was being repositioned in July 1976, ATS6 demonstrated the social benefits possible of data relay by providing tempo­
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 195 

rary (and goodwill) communication services while passing over 27 countries 

on the way to its final destination. 

Engineers and scientists at Goddard conducted a series of space 

communication experiments using ATS-6 in its five year life. One of them, 

the “ATS-F Tracking and Data Relay Experiment,” designed by F. O. “Fritz” 

von Bun and exercised in conjunction with a Nimbus weather satellite, was 

designed specifically as proof-of-concept testing for the upcoming TDRSS 

(see Chapter 7). ATS-6 also relayed television signals to remote areas of 

Alaska, the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. This operation, beginning in August 1974, brought live, public education television programming 

to those areas of the United States for the first time.96 

★ ★ ★

Although preparations leading up to ASTP broke new ground in 

terms of cooperation between the two countries, the Soviets still found it difficult to break with their veil of secrecy. On 2 December 1974, seven months 

before the scheduled launch of ASTP, Soyuz 16 was launched from the 

Baikonur Cosmodrome—completely unannounced. NASA had known that a 

dress rehearsal was coming, but only when the Soyuz spacecraft reached orbit 

did Moscow bother to inform the Americans that it was in fact already underway! The Agency was able to put the mission to some use through a quickly 

organized, 15-hour joint tracking exercise at the behest of the Soviet Union. 

This even included a simulated launch so that the Soyuz crew had something 

to “aim” at in a mock rendezvous. Data recorded by NASA ground stations 

were relayed to Goddard and, after the mission, compared to data received by 

Soviet stations during the same time period. This comparison merely verified 

what NASA already knew: the network was ready for the mission.97 

All this took place in the Cold War. The United States had just 

pulled out of an unpopular war in Southeast Asia, one which pitted the country face-to-face against communism half a world away. It had cost 50,000 

American lives. While U.S. preparations for the mission were done in the 

open, Soviet preparations, although more open, were still for the most part 

veiled in secrecy (as Soyuz 16 so clearly illustrated). It was not surprising, then, 

that NASA went about preparations for the mission with a certain sense of 

trepidation. While international cooperation was what ASTP was all about, 

NASA kept finding itself in situations asking “How does one cooperate without giving away too much from a technology standpoint.” 

A case in point was the technology needed to physically dock the 

Apollo with the Soyuz. The two not only had different docking mechanisms 

but also different atmospheres inside the spacecraft (Apollo operated at a cabin 

pressure of about 0.3 atmospheres while Soyuz operated at 1 atmosphere, or 

standard sea-level). The technology imbalance led to the U.S. developing with 
196 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

help of the Soviet Union, the Docking Module, the central, critical piece of 

equipment without which the mission could not have succeeded. The Docking 

Module turned out to be purely U.S. technology in the end. Technology, 

however, was not the only thing that changed hands during preparations for 

ASTP. There was also a language barrier. While it is well known that both 

flight crews had to learn each other’s language during training, what is lesser 

known was that there were actually classes conducted in Russian at the GSFC 

to train the network engineers who would be communicating with their 

counterpart in the Soviet Union. The direction from NASA management 

was, “If we’re going to deal, we have to learn to speak the language.”98 

At 1220 hour GMT, 15 July 1975, Commander Aleksei A. Leonov 

and Flight Engineer Valeri N. Kubasov blasted off aboard Soyuz 19. It was 

the first time that a Soviet space launch was seen live on television by its own 

people and others around the globe. The communication link traveled in 

a circuitous route: Moscow to Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Prague, 

Hamburg, Frankfurt, and then to a Comsat ground station at Raisting, near 

Munich, West Germany. From there it was sent via the Comsat satellite to 

the United States. The routing was requested by the Soviets since an AT&T 

ground station planned for this flight was not finished in time. According to 

Charles J. Goodman, Goddard’s technical manager for television on ASTP, 

the routing involved some seven relay points on both the East and the West. 

It also required conversion of signals from the Russian color system protocol 

(SECAM III) to the European PAL color system and finally to American standards National Television System Committee (NTSC).99 

Despite the complexity, communications never showed any noticeable degradation. “Just about everybody broke his back to help make it happen,” Goodman remembered. “We had some 50 hours of virtually flawless 

television transmission. Our arrangements began on November 25, 1974 and 

everything was in place for the launch some eight months later.”100 Goodman 

specifically pointed out a first-rate relationship with the European Broadcast 

Union headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and its technical personnel. ApolloSoyuz was seen by more people in more countries than even Apollo 11. 

Seven and a half hours later, Commander Thomas P. Stafford, CM 

Pilot Vance D. Brand and Docking Module Pilot Donald K. “Deke” Slayton 

were launched atop a Saturn IB rocket from pad 39B at the Kennedy Space 

Center. After a series of orbital maneuvers—the most complex of its kind during the Apollo era in which the American CSM chased the Soyuz—the two 

spacecraft began station keeping at 1551 hour GMT on 17 July. They docked 

24 minutes later. After Slayton and Stafford equalized the atmosphere inside 

the Docking Module with that of the Soyuz, the hatches were opened and 

the now celebrated “space handshake” between the two mission Commanders 

was televised live to the world. 
Chapter 5 \ the Apollo Years 197 

Over the next two days, the crews exchanged mementos and conducted (token) zero-g science experiments; a second docking was also performed. They also exchanged cuisines, with the Soviets offering a choice of 

hot soups from the different peoples of the USSR—Ukrainian beetroot and 

cabbage soup, a piquant Georgian mutton broth and Russian sorrel and spinach 

soup. In return, their western colleagues offered up such delicacies as applesauce, spaghetti, apricot pudding, and bacon squares.101 After two days, the two 

vehicles undocked for the final time. After a fly around photography experiment in which the Soyuz was used to block out the Sun simulating an artificial 

solar eclipse, the two spacecraft went their separate way. Two days later, Leonov 

and Kubasov de-orbited their spacecraft, bringing it back to Kazakhstan on 21 

July. As with the launch six days earlier, their landing and recovery was seen by 

a live television audience for the first time. Apollo stayed in orbit for another 

three and a half days, splashing down four and a half miles from the recovery 

ship New Orleans near Hawaii on the afternoon of 24 July to bring to an end the 

first international space venture and the final Apollo splashdown.102 

Chris Kraft would reflect years later on the uniqueness of the ASTP 

experience and what each side was able to learn from the other: 

Getting to know the Russian management approaches, their 

thoughts and objectives, both in a national and personal sense, was 

an extremely interesting experience. The Russians are very different and their motivation is certainly not the same as ours. Their 

pride is very important and their engineering skills are very good. 

They are just as smart as we are. They did a superb job of building 

parts of the machinery and in the planning. They needed a great 

deal of help from us particularly in getting the job done within the 

management confines that existed in the Soviet Union. Here they 

needed help, and they told us so. Certainly the Russians do not do 

things in a manner even closely resembling our approaches. They 

are more secretive and I am not sure that we really learned how 

they do things internally. For instance, I do not remember ever 

having seen an organizational diagram. It was a long and protracted 

process. In the beginning, I thought a joint project might just not 

be possible. There was a great lack of credibility and trust between 

us and our ability to communicate. But slowly, primarily due to 

the tremendous efforts Glynn S. Lunney, the American Technical 

Director for the mission and his Russian counterpart, Professor 

Konstantin Davydovich Bushuyev, their associates and the respective space crews, we found a way to get things on the right track. 

They deserve all the credit for this. It was a fantastic achievement 

for both sides when we finally flew this mission.103 
198 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project stood as a symbol of the NixonFord era of détente. This atmosphere of cooperation was short lived however. Soviet-American relations soon deteriorated, reaching a new low in 1979 

after the invasion of Afghanistan. Cooperation in space exploration turned 

tepid and would stay dormant for the next two decades. For the balance of 

the 1970s, human spaceflight practically disappeared from the American public’s eyes. While atmospheric Approach and Landing Tests of the developing 

Space Shuttle were conducted as the new decade approached, NASA would 

not return a person into space until 1981. In a way, Apollo Soyuz marked the 

swansong for the first era of human space presence, one driven by the intense 

rivalry between the two Cold War superpowers. How fitting then that this 

era, which began in 1961 with Alan Shepard’s 15 minute response to Gagarin’s 

flight, concluded with a handshake in space between those same superpowers. 

NASA’s Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network stood out during this 

time to make possible this success story and America’s victory in the space race. 

The role it played led to a much deserved recognition by Congress when in 

September 1974, the House declared that 

After completing an investigation which took nearly a year, it 

[has] concluded that the Tracking and Data Acquisition Program is 

being managed and operated in an effective and efficient manner. 

The people working in the program—both government and contractor, both U.S. and foreign—are doing an excellent job, and are 

to be commended for their contributions to the success of the U.S. 

space program. 

As one committee member put it,“They are the unsung heroes of the 

space program.”104 

Noel W. Hinners, who retired as Director of the Goddard Space 

Flight Center in 1989, echoed this sentiment when he recalled the uniqueness 

of the time and place that was the Space Race, and how NASA’s tracking and 

communication networks met the challenge. “There was a unique contest: the 

dream of man’s quest to explore space and the harsh technical realities which 

had to be faced if these dreams were to come true. The area of space tracking, 

communications and data acquisition from orbiting satellites and eventually 

from the Moon and beyond, was an important part of this odyssey. A dedicated team of men and women, both in and out of government, helped to 

make these dreams a reality. They were the first generation of ‘space trackers’ 

whose electronic links tethered the spacecraft to its controllers and scientists. 

The Goddard Space Flight Center, as a member of the NASA-industry team, 

[was] proud to have contributed to these expeditions in space.”105 
Chapter 6 

ERA OF CHANGE 

NASA’s annual budget was $330 million in 1959. Just six years 

later, it had ballooned to $5.25 billion. 

1 Over the next seven years, however, 

even as the space agency was putting 12 men on the Moon and busy push

ing the envelope in launching a plethora of new generation of space probes, 

science satellites and application spacecraft, it saw its funding gradually being 

cut. By 1974, it had bottomed out at $3 billion.2 In the FY 1973 NASA bud

get hearings, Gerald M. Truszynski, Associate Administrator for the OTDA, 

announced plans by the space agency to merge the STADAN and the MSFN 

into a single, more streamlined network. 

-

-

Networks were developed under a certain sense of urgency in the 

early years of the space program. The need to respond to the Soviet Union and 

to put the American space effort on the fast track sometimes took priority over 

such matters as coordination of effort and minimizing of cost. It was, after all, 

a time of pioneering work with many unknowns. By the early 1970s, while 

the major emphasis on meeting program requirements had not diminished, 

coordination of these requirements, economic efficiency, and tighter manage

ment controls were being given a much higher priority. This fundamental 

shift to the pragmatic was felt—and felt hard—by those running its spaceflight 

tracking networks. As one NASA manager recalled, “There wasn’t as much 

-
200 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

money there, wasn’t as much activity, [and we began] closing Apollo tracking 

stations, cleaning up after Apollo.”3 

It was in this atmosphere of renewed fiscal awareness that NASA 

merged the two networks to form what would be called the Spaceflight 

Tracking and Data Network, or STDN. There were also other reasons besides 

budget for a network consolidation. With the decline in scheduled human 

space activities after Apollo, the argument for a separate, manned-flight network became less compelling. For the engineers, technicians, managers and 

even the astronauts—the very men and women who had just put Americans 

on the Moon—there was a definite sense of let-down when it dawned on 

them that what seemed like an adventure which had just begun was now suddenly over. Bill Watson, the Program Executive at Headquarters who today 

oversees NASA’s Ground Network, was fresh out of school and just starting 

his career at the time. Reflecting back, Watson said: 

There was a sense of what’s next, what we should do next after 

Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz. It was hard for guys to get excited about 

scientific, robotic satellites to the extent that they were excited 

about the manned flights.There was a large hiatus there until the 

Shuttle program came along, and . . . a lot of folks left the program 

during that gap.4 

The numbers reflect this. In 1970, the Agency’s fulltime, civilian 

workforce stood at 31,223. By 1979, this had dropped to 22,633, a reduction 

of almost 30 percent. NASA cut its workforce by 7 percent in 1972 alone.5 

Besides fiscal constraint and the rescoping of the Agency’s mission, 

there were also good technical reasons for merging the networks. Both the 

STADAN and the MSFN were growing increasingly sophisticated. The clear 

separation of crewed versus uncrewed requirements that had so differentiated the two were becoming more nebulous due to the increasing number of 

high eccentricity (highly elliptical), high apogee observation satellites being 

launched. This new class of satellites had much in common from a tracking standpoint with an Apollo spacecraft traveling to and from the Moon. 

Meanwhile, network managers at Goddard thought that implementing the 

USB concept throughout the STADAN could serve as the common bond 

needed for a single, overarching, near-Earth network. All these factors served 

to provide Truszynski and his office with good reasons to merge the capabilities of the two networks. NASA’s thinking was that, with a leaner network, 

fewer stations could actually provide a more flexible capability to support its 

upcoming workload for all near-Earth missions, both robotic and piloted.6 

Network engineers understood that the existing geographical distribution of the stations could effectively be modified into a configuration that 

would be able to handle the total mix of missions which NASA at the time 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 201 

foresaw for the latter half of the 1970s. Before this transition, there were 25 

stations (19 STADAN and 6 NASA-owned, primary MSFN sites) spread over 

five continents (see maps in Appendix 1). The continual operation and maintenance of so many stations were, not surprisingly, expensive and required a 

great deal of manpower. 

As of the mid-1960s, satellites were carrying much more powerful beacons so that telemetry—and not tracking—was now the pacing item. 

Technology was also advancing such that having fewer but better instrumented 

stations was now possible. Bill Wood, at the time Chief of the Manned Flight 

Operations Division and later Associate Director for Network Operations at 

Goddard, said of the change: 

As the Apollo program began to wind-down, we realized that 

both manned and unmanned tracking functions had to be consolidated. It simply became too impractical and too costly to maintain 

separate networks. . . .This was the time to change from the old to 

prepare for the future—Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, Space Shuttle and 

the many unmanned missions also being planned.7 

At the Directorate level of Goddard, the organization was reworked 

starting in January of 1971. Ozzie Covington now consolidated all network 

activities under him including the field stations, the Network Operations 

Control Center (NOCC), and communications. Under Jack Mengel were all 

the Project Operation Control Centers, data processing, and the large computers at the Center. 

To implement the change, Goddard made sure that several requirements, both new and old, were going to be met. First, the high data rate, 

real-time TT&C capability of the manned network were retained since they 

matched well with the increasingly more complex satellite requirements that 

were then coming online. Many of the satellites were, in fact, approaching the 

complexity of and taking on the characteristics of human missions in terms of 

requirements for command and control, downlink data rates, and the higher 

operating frequencies at the S-band. Foremost among this new generation 

were “mega” satellites such as the Earth Resource Technology remote sensing satellite (ERTS), the High Energy Astronomy Observers (HEAO), and 

the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE). On the IUE, for example, the 

onboard telescope had to be moved at regular intervals by means of ground 

commands emanating from the GSFC. In general, telemetry rates were pushing state-of-the-art capabilities at 150,000 bits per second.8 

When ERTS-A was launched on 23 July 1972, it was actually supported by the MSFN. Thus, there was an increased need in the unmanned 

spacecraft community for the type of technical capabilities which already 

existed in the MSFN. By 1974, work was well underway to modify the telem-
202 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

technicians check out earth resource technology Satellite ertS-a at the General 

electric Company astro-Space Division in princeton, New Jersey in 1972. Launched atop 

a Delta 900 launch vehicle from Vandenberg air Force Base in July of that year, ertS-a 

was the first in the series of Landsat remote sensing satellites, one of the most successful 

earth resource application programs ever. Downlinking its data to the Goddard Space 

Flight Center at a rate of 15 megabits-per-second, ertS-a was designed to last one year 

but was not deactivated until 2 January 1978. (photo courtesy of the United States 

Geological Survey) 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 203 

etry and command processing systems at the existing MSFN sites for compatibility to support science spacecraft. At the same time, however, NASA still 

had many of the less complex spacecraft such as the old Explorer series, which 

was still returning a healthy amount of data. These were generally the smaller, 

spin-stabilized satellites which could not accommodate the newer and larger, 

high-gain, directional antennas, and therefore, still had to operate at the lower 

VHF frequencies. 

With this wide spectrum of needs, NASA required the full range 

of capabilities offered by both networks. Apollo just came to an end; the time 

was right for such a merger. By the end of 1974, the number of ground stations 

(STADAN and MSFN) had dropped to 17. Two years later, it went to 15. Of 

the eight ARIA, only four were now available for NASA support, the others 

having reverted back to the Air Force full time. Four of the five AIS were 

retired in 1969, leaving the Vanguard as the only network vessel to remain in 

service (it too retired in 1978).9 Indeed, once the transition to the newly organized STDN was complete in 1976, network operations quickly became more 

standardized. NASA began to see greater returns from the slimmer network, 

all the while reducing the manpower needed for operations, logistics, and 

most importantly, cost. 

While NASA did not present the consolidation of the STADAN 

and the MSFN to Congress until 1973, phase-down activities had already 

been taking place for some time. The first round of phase outs involved the 

STADAN stations at Blossom Point, Maryland; East Grand Forks, Minnesota; 

and Woomera, Australia in 1966. This was followed by shutdown of the temporary sites at Darwin and Cooby Creek in Australia; Lima, Peru (transferred 

to that country’s university); and at Mojave, California in 1969 (the remnant 

of the old San Diego Minitrack station which had moved to Goldstone). A 

year later, St. John’s, Newfoundland, on the eastern-most point of Canada, 

was shut down for good as was Fort Myers, Florida in 1972. By the time the 

STDN consolidation occurred, STADAN had, in fact, already streamlined 

down to nine stations (plus the NTTF in Greenbelt). 

On the MSFN side, downsizing began soon after Apollo 11 when 

requirements for Apollo were carefully reevaluated by Headquarter’s Office 

of Manned Space Flight. With little fanfare, NASA soon began reducing the 

number of MSFN stations as well, beginning with the shutdown of Antigua 

in the South Caribbean Sea on 15 August 1970. The Agency had determined 

that limitations on launch azimuth angles for flights following Apollo 13 

would not require data from Antigua and that no increase in risk to mission success would be incurred as a result of the shutdown. In the words of a 

NASA spokesman, Antigua was simply the victim of “reduced requirements 

for NASA’s worldwide tracking system.”10 

The station had a 9-meter (30-foot) USB system as its centerpiece. After Apollo 11, it was almost immediately relegated to a caretaker 
204 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

status with the 17 Bendix employees and 11 Antiguans put on standby status.11 Most of the equipment was transferred to other facilities in the MSFN. 

Although human spaceflight requirements for Antigua were soon deleted all 

together, the requirement to support other NASA launches out of the KSC 

still remained and the station stayed open at a reduced level. But the writing 

was on the wall. Soon thereafter, NASA pulled out of Antigua. The Air Force 

Eastern Test Range station on Antigua agreed to provide services to NASA as 

needed—on a cost reimbursable basis.12 

The review board also showed that either the Corpus Christi 

Station in Texas or the Guaymas Station in Mexico could be closed. Had 

all factors basically been equal (including politics), the decision would have 

come down to fiscal considerations; that is, which one would yield the most 

cost savings. But Texas had one thing going for it that Guaymas did not. Due 

to its desirable location to support Earth resource satellites, it was the logical 

choice to remain open. By utilizing USB equipment from Guaymas, the station would be able to support both crewed and uncrewed programs. Because 

of this, the decision was made to keep Texas operational and close Guaymas. 

A meeting was held in Mexico City on 16 June 1970 with Mexican space officials, the U.S. Ambassador, and Gerald Truszynski discussing plans on how 

best to phase out the station. This was followed by a second meeting two 

months later in which it was agreed upon that NASA would remove two of 

the three major station systems for relocation to other parts of the network. 

The third system would be left in Guaymas to support Mexican space activities and programs of mutual interest to the Mexican science community and 

the United States.13 

This was a good way to close a station. In addition to promoting 

goodwill between the two neighboring governments, the Mexican National 

Commission for Outer Space (CNEE) and NASA were, at the time, cooperating on two scientific projects. One was to develop a system using weather data 

acquired from U.S. satellites by using automatic picture transmission equipment. The other was to develop capabilities and applications for Earth observations using advanced airborne remote sensing instruments. The two countries were also completing plans for a cooperative project involving meteorological sounding rockets. After details of the agreement were ironed out, 

joint press announcements officially closing Guaymas were released by both 

governments on 12 November 1970. 

By the following February, NASA’s withdrawal from the station 

was complete. This brought to an end a decade of association during which 

America blazed a pioneering trail into space. From John Glenn’s first flight 

into orbit to Apollo 11, Guaymas was there. Commenting on the legacy of 

the station, Dr. George M. Low, then Acting NASA Administrator, noted 

most fondly that the “cooperative establishment and operation of the station 

over the 10 most exciting years in space exploration stood as a tribute to the 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 205 

friendship and understanding between the two countries.”14 In particular, he 

singled out members of the Mexico-U.S. Commission for Space Observations 

who first laid the groundwork in 1959 to make Guaymas possible, specifically recognizing: Hugh Dryden, Chris Kraft (Director of Flight Operations 

at the Manned Spacecraft Center), Ralph Cushman (Special Assistant, 

Office of the Administrator), and Dr. Eugenio Mendez Docurro (Secretary 

of Communications and Transport, Av. Universidad Xola). This was quite 

the fitting tribute to a decade which saw the sleepy little railroad town of 

Empalme, Sonora (12 miles outside the actual city of Guaymas) thrusted into 

the international space forefront to become, even today over 30 years later, a 

source of pride for the Mexican people. 

As the transition took place, plans regarding which stations to keep 

and which to close could change quickly, and often did. Take Canary Island, 

for instance. In the summer of 1973, NASA Headquarters proposed a five-year 

extension to the Spanish government that the station be kept open until 1978, 

when NASA’s TDRSS was then scheduled to become operational.15 The station seemed safe for another five years. Several requirements still needed support including telemetry reception from the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment 

Packages that had been left on the Moon by the astronauts and the upcoming 

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project that would take place in 1975. Ironically though, 

it was this same requirement to support ASTP that ended up providing the 

impetus needed to shut down Canary Island. 

This twist of fate came about due to the requirement for live television, a critical requirement on the highly publicized ASTP. It had been 

anticipated (correctly) by NASA that this particular mission, as the first international human spaceflight between the two Cold War rivals, would draw 

worldwide interest not seen since that of Apollo 11 five years earlier. As early 

planning requirements for extensive real-time coverage were being developed (jointly by the ASTP Program Office in Washington DC and Moscow), 

it became apparent to both that this requirement was not going to be met 

effectively using existing MSFN capabilities. Something better was needed. 

The Agency would use the ATS-6 to directly receive television signals from 

the Apollo spacecraft and then retransmit them to a ground station in Spain, 

rather than depending on the ground stations alone. 

Fallout from this decision on Canary Island came quickly. On 22 

January 1975, Truszynski sent a letter to the Director General of the Madrid 

Station (of which the Canary Island station was a part of) that NASA has 

“regretfully come to the conclusion that both near and long term data acquisition requirements do not support the continuation of the Canary Island station and would desire to close the station as soon as possible.”16 Canary Island’s 

fate was officially sealed two days later by a notification from Truszynski 

to NASA’s Assistant Administrator for International Affairs that services on 

Canary Island were no longer needed and that the State Department was 
206 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

requested to take appropriate actions as soon as possible to shut down the station. Thus, Canary Island went from being a crucial land station in the eastern 

Atlantic to “not necessary” in the span of not even a single mission. In a way, 

it was a harbinger of things to come as ATS-6 tested out the new concept of 

space communications, one that would rely almost exclusively on space-based 

satellites to do the job that ground stations once did. 

★ ★ ★

Soon after Apollo 11, the Guam and Hawaii stations took center 

stage in a budget fight between the Bureau of the Budget and NASA. During 

the FY 1971 budget process, the Budget Bureau notified NASA that Guam 

and Hawaii were going to be phased out and their operations transferred to 

the DOD satellite control station on their respective island. Each year, with a 

few exceptions, every department and agency of the federal government has 

to negotiate the “necessary evil” of the budget process; NASA was no exception. While budget negotiations were an annual ritual, what the Bureau was 

telling NASA in this instance was considered by the space agency as being 

somewhat “out-of-line.” The Budget Bureau’s position was that NASA should 

shut down these stations, but that in order to “alleviate to the extent possible 

impact on mission support,” the DOD would “give the NASA manned missions highest priority in workload allocation.”17 

In November 1969, Administrator Thomas Paine rejected this proposal outright, making it clear that this was indeed an assumption of fait 

accompli, one not based on any DOD-NASA discussion after it was proposed 

at the start of the budget process. A paper was drafted explaining why NASA 

believed that any such consolidation would be neither operationally feasible 

nor cost effective. NASA’s viewpoint was based in part on a preliminary joint 

NASA-DOD sponsored study to evaluate the merit of consolidating the NASA 

and DOD network facilities on Guam and Hawaii. No long-term operational 

costs were identified which would have offset the substantial immediate cost 

of modifying and relocating the equipment and expansion of facilities required 

to handle the high-priority functions of both agencies. Before sending this 

paper to the Budget Bureau, Paine confirmed that “responsible officials in the 

Air Force agree with us that the conclusions of this study are still valid.”18 

This did not end the matter however. Three months later, the 

Bureau of the Budget once again informed NASA that the Guam and Hawaii 

stations were to be phased out. This time, in a strongly worded letter to Robert 

P. Mayo, Director of the Bureau of the Budget, Paine voiced the Agency’s 

concern that they now appeared to be under direction, without prior consultation, to take an action which was operationally and economically unsound 

in the view of both NASA and the U.S. Air Force. Since he was at the time 

accompanying the Apollo 11 crew in the “Giant Leap” victory tour in the Far 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 207 

Gerald M. truszynski (far left) rose through the ranks to become NaSa’s associate 

administrator for tracking and Data acquisition from 1968–1978. this picture shows 

truszynski when he was head of the Instrumentation Division participating in the 27 January 

1953 ground breaking ceremony of the NaCa high-Speed Flight research Station (which 

became the Dryden Flight research Center) on the northwest edge of rogers Dry Lake in 

the Mojave Desert. pictured with truszynski were Joseph Vensel, head of the Operations 

Branch; Walt Williams, head of the Station, scooping the first shovelful of dirt; Marion Kent, 

head of personnel; and California state official arthur Samet. (NaSa Image Number e-980) 

East, Paine volunteered to change his travel plans so that he could personally look into the situation at the NASA and Air Force stations in Hawaii on 

his return. In the meantime, he directed Truszynski and his office to review 

again the requirements on both islands with DOD officials. Drawing a line in 

the sand, Paine concluded his letter to Mayo in no uncertain terms, saying, 

“Unless new information is developed in my visit or in the review, I will then 

formally reopen this matter with you, and if necessary, the President.”19 
208 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Guam and Hawaii went on to survive that year’s budget process. In 

fact, both stations went on to become among the longest-serving STDN sites, 

remaining operational for another 19 years, finally closing in 1989. 

As NASA stations began to close around the globe, none was more 

of a political target than the Johannesburg Station in the Republic of South 

Africa. This was one of the few communication complexes where the DSN 

and the STADAN shared a location. Roots of the DSN go back to the late 

1950s. As the United States moved from the realm of Earth-orbiting satellites to begin sending probes to the Moon and beyond, a “World Net” was 

established by the DOD’s Advanced Research Projects Office. This World 

Net formed the nucleus of what would go on to become the DSN. In order 

to maintain continuous coverage of space probes departing the planet as Earth 

rotates, three sites are needed, each situated about 120o apart. The DOD— 

and later NASA—had placed the first two sites at Goldstone, California and 

Woomera, Australia. Completing the World Net was the construction of a 

third station in the country of South Africa, where a government-owned, 

4,000 acre grassland valley near the Hartebeestpoort Dam 65 kilometers (40 

miles) north of Johannesburg was provided.20 The station became operational 

in June of 1961. 

To meet tracking requirements in the Southern Hemisphere, a $5 

million expansion at the Johannesburg complex was done three years later that 

brought the number of stations to three. One was run by the U.S. Air Force to 

control its satellites. Due to its obvious military nature, the station was staffed 

entirely with Americans. The other was a NASA satellite tracking station. The 

remaining site, for all intents and purposes, was part of the NASA station but 

was operated for the Smithsonian Institute, its roots dating back to the IGY and 

Minitrack.21 Unlike the Air Force, NASA staffed these two stations with South 

African workers and normally only had a U.S. liaison officer present onsite. 

Under a 1960 agreement with the space agency, the National Institute for 

Telecommunications Research, a part of South Africa’s Council for Scientific 

and Industrial Research (CSIR), had full responsibility for management of 

the station which they operated so as to meet NASA’s technical requirements. 

The station was fairly extensive. At its peak, the NASA side of Johannesburg 

employed some 280 South Africans of whom about one in five were black.22 

Even as NASA began working with the South African government 

to establish stations there, the potential fallout from that country’s racial segregationist policies was not lost on many in the United States. NASA was fully 

aware that an agreement with a government espousing such policies could 

become a political flashpoint. But at the same time, it could not just discard the 

technical merit of such a location. Here’s why: for optimal coverage of interplanetary probes launched on trajectories from Florida, an antenna was best 

placed as far south as possible, preferably deep in the Southern Hemisphere. 

The Republic of South Africa, being on the very southern tip of the conti-
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 209 

nent, was ideal. As unfavorable as the South African political climate was, it 

was actually the most democratic and most stable government accessible to the 

United States on the continent at the time. To keep its options open, even as 

negotiations were being held with South Africa, NASA still looked at other 

locations, particularly those in southern Europe. These, in order of preference, were Sicily, Sardinia, south Spain, and south Portugal. Headquarters 

also looked into a possible cooperative arrangement with France, which at 

the time was considering the purchase of a 26-meter (85-foot) antenna from 

the Collins Radio Company to build a ground station of its own on the 

Normandy peninsula.23 

These were more than just cursory looks. Site survey teams consisting of members from Headquarters and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were 

sent to all these locations as NASA wrestled with whether or not to proceed 

with South Africa. In the end, it was decided that the geographical location, 

along with the country’s already robust scientific community and the expressed 

enthusiasm of the South Africans, best advocated putting stations there. 

It did not take long for tensions to arise. Accusations centering 

on the station started to surface even back in 1962, that South Africa might 

be putting pressure on the U.S. government for NASA to adopt a segregationist policy there. This was a serious concern, so much so that Associate 

Administrator Edmond Buckley wanted an early evaluation of the matter by 

asking the State Department to look into the situation.24 Time did not assuage 

the tension between the two governments, though. In fact, things only got 

worse. The situation came to an early head when in May 1965, the United 

States asked South Africa for permission to have a squadron of advance-planes 

from the aircraft carrier USS Independence land at airports when the ship was 

scheduled to dock at Capetown. The government granted the Americans permission, provided the planes’ crews were white. Up until then, American 

planes had often landed at South Africa airports and on occasion, there had 

been mixed-race crews including blacks. However, never before had the 

South Africans explicitly asked for all-white crews.25 This caught the State 

Department totally off guard. In an attempt to clarify the meaning of the 

South African response, the United States asked if this was a condition or 

a suggestion. If it was a condition, South Africa was told it would not be 

accepted. If it was a suggestion, no guarantees could be given. With no clear 

response from the South African government and not wanting to escalate 

the already well publicized series of events, the USS Independence, in the end, 

skirted the issue by bypassing Capetown altogether. 

American resolve was further tested just a month later when, for 

the first time, pressure to actually shut down the station officially came from 

the South African government. This time, Premier Hendrik F. Verwoerd 

announced in a press release that he had told the United States it cannot 

employ “negro scientists in the South African stations,” and that his govern-
210 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

ment “would not admit American negroes if they were assigned to work at the 

tracking stations.”26 Verwoerd’s comments on the tracking station staff seemed 

to most observers at the time to have been a condition, deliberately made, so 

as to provoke an American response. An opinion editorial came out that same 

week in the South African Sunday Times declaring that the United States would 

have to decide whether it can “afford morally” to overlook Dr. Verwoerd’s 

remarks. The irony was that just three years earlier when South Africa’s role in 

NASA’s tracking network was being heralded, the same newspaper headlined 

“South Africa has Important Part in U.S. Moon-Shot.”27 

On the other side of the Atlantic, the station became a major target 

of blacks and liberal politicians who protested that the United States should 

not be putting money into a country with whose racial policies we do not 

agree. Into the 1970s, numerous congressional inquiries and hearings before the 

House Subcommittee on Aeronautics and Space Technology were conducted. 

Led mainly by prominent liberal members of the Democratic Party, these hearings aimed to determine just what exactly NASA was doing in South Africa. To 

that end, they looked at what the United States was doing to improve the working and living conditions and opportunities for black South Africans employed 

at Johannesburg. NASA administrators from Headquarters also answered questions before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs regarding the specific 

racial breakdown of employees, salary breakdown by race, wage practices, and 

NASA’s hiring practices of Black Africans. (The irony was that NASA did not 

do any hiring in South Africa. CSIR hired African employees from an agricultural group resident in the area of the station while whites were hired through 

normal CSIR employment channels for technical assignment.)28 

As hearings progressed through the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, 

the issue intensified to the point where heightened scrutiny was placed on 

even the smallest of details, such as educational assistance, Christmas bonuses 

paid to whites versus negros, eating facilities and provisions for medical services. On one side of the aisle, members of the House Congressional Black 

Caucus, led by Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, viewed the 

station as an egregious symbol of American acquiescence to apartheid. Others 

in Congress, led by Representative Olin E. Teague of Texas, Chairman of the 

House Space Committee, argued that the station was really South African, 

not American, since NASA did not employ any Americans in South Africa. 

Information gathered by NASA at the behest of Representative Charles C. 

Diggs of Michigan showed that, whereas blacks held about 25 percent of the 

jobs at the station, they received only about 5 percent of the wages paid by 

NASA through CSIR. In 1972, after returning from a visit to the site, Diggs 

reported that black employees were barred not only from the station cafeteria but from most of the technical and all of the supervisory jobs and from 

the technical training programs. Representative Rangel charged that gross 

disparities existed between fringe benefits given to white and black employ-
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 211 

ees, benefits such as sick leave, vacation time, and medical benefits. To support his case, Rangel presented numbers showing that the highest paid black 

employee—a “skilled laboratory assistant”—earned $2,005 per year, just 

barely more than the lowest paid white employee—a “raw trainee”—who 

earned $1,930 a year.29 

Even when there was good news for NASA regarding South Africa, 

it was tainted by what could only be called handwriting on the wall. In May 

of 1973, a House bill that would have cut $3 million of NASA funding for stations in South Africa was defeated. However, in defeat, more votes than ever 

before (104 to 294) were rallied. That same month, Massachusetts Senator 

Edward M. Kennedy introduced an amendment to cut off funds for the station, 

an amendment he later withdrew but only after the Senate Space Committee’s 

new chairman, Utah’s Frank E. Moss, promised to look fully into the matter in the fall session. According to Moss, the unconditional shutdown of the 

station would have meant that another station would have to immediately be 

established elsewhere. If this had to be done, the replacement cost would have 

amounted to around $35 million, something that would have been difficult to 

justify on the bill that late in the budget process.30 

Throughout this debate, NASA consistently countered that local 

improvement programs which accompanied the stations were in fact making a 

difference. For example, the United States was, at the time, providing approximately $109,000 a year (1973 dollars) on improvement programs for the black 

station community. Among them was the building of houses for the African 

staff, at the rate of one completed every two months, and the construction of 

an elementary school. By 1974, 18 new houses had been constructed plus the 

school. Under the agreement between NASA and CSIR, the South Africans 

provided the initial construction funds which were then reimbursed by the 

United States upon completion. NASA also operated a small medical facility 

onsite, the services of which were made available to the Black African staff and 

their families. Although it was only staffed part time—a nurse was on duty 

three days a week and a doctor visited once a week—it was, nevertheless, one 

of the very few modern medical facilities in the Hartebeestpoort area that provided services to the black community, and as such, was well used. However, 

station critics in Congress regarded these improvements as merely cosmetic, 

noting that South Africa seemed not to think the station important enough to 

its own interests to justify making exceptions to the rules of apartheid. “The 

system is so unyielding,” said an aide to Charles Rangel, “that if the U.S. had 

forced the point, South Africa would have just kicked the station out.”31

As things turned out, Senator Kennedy did not have to wait until the 

fall session. After more than a decade of defending the station, on 10 July 1973, 

Administrator James C. Fletcher announced that it would begin pulling out of 

South Africa the following summer and would withdraw U.S. support entirely 

by late 1975. The phase-out would be done in two stages, starting first with the 
212 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

DSN side in June of 1974 followed by the STADAN side after completion of 

the near-Earth phase of the Viking Mars missions.32 The decision to phase out 

Johannesburg did not, however, signal the immediate cessation of all NASA 

activities in South Africa, just its tracking stations. Meteorological data collection as part of NASA’s worldwide program to conduct high altitude air sampling in all hemispheres continued. Data analysis for the LANDSAT-2 satellite 

(in which the U.S. was one of roughly 50 countries involved) and lunar sample 

analysis continued for years thereafter, some even to this day. 

As NASA pulled out of Johannesburg—and other stations for that 

matter—what to do with the equipment and hardware usually came down to 

two options: 1); Remove all or part of it at the Agency’s own expense, with the 

implied, parallel responsibility to restore the site to its original condition; or 2); 

Dispose of the property, all or part of it, within the host country in accordance 

with arrangements agreed to beforehand by the two governments. In South 

Africa, the cost to dismantle the Deep Space portion (DSS-51) would have 

amounted to $643,500 with an additional storage cost of $11,060 (1975 dollars).33 Based on this estimate, NASA determined that its real property interests 

at the tracking station constituted foreign excess property which had essentially 

no commercial value. Eventually, it was concluded to be in the best interest of 

the U.S. government to either donate or abandon in place the property to the 

South Africans. In doing so, it was mutually understood that the assets would 

be relinquished with the provision that no further U.S. obligation or liability 

remained. NASA, in essence, washed its hands of South Africa.34 

Nevertheless, finger-pointing continued. Noting that the Agency 

had previously closed down two similar tracking stations in just the past 

year—Fort Myers, Florida, and Woomera, Australia—the Agency said that 

the South Africa decision was based entirely on technical requirements and 

was in no way a response to political pressure. Critics in Congress disagreed. 

“Frankly,” said a spokesman for Senator Moss, “I think they just saw the 

handwriting on the wall, the message being that the station was becoming an 

embarrassment.” Moss himself later released a statement praising NASA for its 

decision to pull out, adding “Apartheid has always been repugnant to me.”35 

In reality, NASA began planning phase out activities for the station as early as 1971. Its official position was that there would be an absence 

of requirements for long-period, near-Earth, Southern Hemisphere coverage 

after Viking left for Mars in 1975. Following that, deep space requirements 

could be handled by the DSN stations at Canberra, Goldstone, and Madrid. 

With this plan in mind, discussions were held with CSIR in August of that 

year to give them as much time as possible to work out staffing plans. A concern at the time for both countries’ space programs was to not just abandon 

the station but rather, retain enough competent staff through the transition 

period as it moved from being a jointly sponsored site to one that was fully 

South African. 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 213 

In the phase out discussions with CSIR, the fate and future of the 

Black African staff were, in fact, discussed at length, down to the number of 

Black Africans which might remain employed after NASA relinquished funding. There was particular concern on NASA’s part that Black African staff 

would be declared “redundant” and whether they would be treated equitably 

relative to the white staff. At Headquarters, Gerald Truszynski, in his discussions with Dr. Frank Hewitt of CSIR, felt that the South Africans appreciated 

the American position, with Hewitt saying he “reflected a genuine concern 

for the future of this group.”36 

A legacy of these discussions was that it led the South Africans to 

implement several policy changes with regards to Black station staff members. 

One had to do with the pension they were receiving. At the time, the Black 

African staff members were covered by a different benefits plan that was generally (and obviously) inferior to that of the white staff. This “Provident Fund 

Plan” was soon changed so that the same formula was used in calculating the 

pension for all staff members. In addition, after these changes were made, 

CSIR allowed the Black African staff who were declared “redundant” to, 

where appropriate, continue occupying their houses, thereby enabling them 

to look for other employment before moving their families off the station site. 

Arrangements were also made for CSIR to provide a vigorous outplacement 

service and reemployment counseling. On the other hand, the one service 

which the South Africans did not continue after NASA ceased its funding was 

the secondary school bursary program which the Agency had started. CSIR 

deemed this to be outside of their normal responsibility and charter as they 

had many Blacks employed in their agency’s other activities who were not 

receiving any educational assistance. 

In the end, two-thirds of the Black staff (39 out of 59) were released 

after NASA pulled out of Johannesburg.37 

★ ★ ★

As a principal site in the Southern Hemisphere, Tananarive (TAN) 

had been busy, supporting a host of science satellites as well as all the Gemini, 

Apollo and Skylab missions. The routine began to change in 1972 when the 

Malagasy government underwent a series of political upheavals. In May of 

that year, the president of the ruling Social Democratic Party, which had been 

in power since Madagascar first gained independence from France in 1960, 

resigned under political pressure. The unrest continued over the next three 

years, culminating with the brutal assassination of the military dictator which 

put the country under martial law in February of 1975. Before long, a new 

Marxist regime was formed under the leadership of a 38-year-old revolutionary named Didier Ratsiraka. Under President Ratsiraka, known in the region 

as the “Red Admiral,” the government became highly centralized and com-
214 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

mitted to revolutionary socialistic ideals. (These policies did not change until 

the 1990s only after the formation of new political parties.) 

One of the first foreign policy changes that Ratsiraka made was to 

impose a rent on the United States for operating a NASA ground station in 

his country. In the original memorandum 20 years earlier which both countries signed establishing a site near Majunga, it was agreed upon that there 

would be no exchange of funds and no rent exacted for use of land. But now, 

Ratsiraka was demanding $1 million per year, retroactive to 1963 on back taxes. 

This was a demand that the United States obviously could not agree to. 

Negotiations were conducted but to no avail. A few weeks later, the 

Supreme Council of Revolution of the Malagasy Republic forced the station 

closed. This action came upon NASA unexpectedly. During that time, GSFC 

was still improving on the station and in the process of adding a Unified S-band 

antenna.Under the guise of avoiding “possible maneuvers of sabotage,”President 

Ratsiraka immediately placed it under military control. The Station Director 

and Bendix workers with their families were allowed to evacuate, but all equipment had to be left behind.At the time of closure, there were the two Goddard 

appointed NASA employees and 50 Bendix workers, along with their dependents—148 rather apprehensive Americans total—at the station.38 

With the abrupt shut down, Goddard had to make some quick 

changes in order that support for Apollo-Soyuz, which was to launch the 

very next day, would not be disrupted. They improvised by tasking the geosynchronous ATS-6 to serve as a data link. Workload from other satellites 

was shifted to other stations. ARIA instrumentation aircraft and the Vanguard 

were repositioned to help support other launch activities out of the Eastern 

and Western Test Ranges. These changes resulted in some temporary scheduling problems but otherwise proved adequate and Apollo-Soyuz went on to 

be an unparalleled success. 

Over the course of the next five years, the Malagasy government 

periodically allowed NASA back into the country to remove equipment. On 

3 April 1980, the last of the remaining hardware that NASA still wanted was 

removed from Tananarive. By diplomatic note, the remaining U.S. property 

was turned over to Madagascar the next day. This note, which was actually 

received by the U.S. Embassy the previous October, expressed essentially an 

agreement on the list of equipment NASA would remove and the monetary 

settlement. The removal process, in effect, was the final act that brought to 

an end five years of negotiations by the State Department to repatriate NASA 

equipment following the forced closure of the station.39 Besides the stress and 

disruption experienced by the staff and their families, the closure also had an 

effect on NASA in terms of operating cost. After Tananarive was shut down, 

the Vanguard was called on to fulfill some of its requirements. In the mid1970s, the annual cost to operate a tracking ship was quite high, about $6 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 215 

million per year. By contrast, a land station like Tananarive cost around $2.8 

million, or less than half that of a ship.40 

★ ★ ★

One of the first actions in the reorganization for STDN took place 

at the Goddard Space Flight Center where management of both networks was 

consolidated as early as May of 1971. Two new directorates, the Mission and 

Data Operations (M&DO) Directorate and the Networks Directorate (ND), 

replaced the Tracking and Data Systems (T&DS) and Manned Flight Support 

(MFS) Directorates. In this new arrangement, divisions within the M&DO 

managed the data processing activities and the computing requirements of 

the network. The ND became responsible for operation of all the STDN 

elements, from NASCOM to the ground stations and the satellites. In a harbinger of things to come in the 1990s, it was at this time that the Networks 

Directorate formed the Network Office for International Operations, which 

allowed GSFC to start handling some of the foreign policy work that up 

until then had rested exclusively in the domain of NASA Headquarters in 

Washington, DC. This move seemingly made sense at the time, coinciding 

with preparations for Apollo-Soyuz which demanded a lot of technical interaction with Soviet Union network engineers at the working level. 

Although STDN was considered a new network (or at least a 

greatly retooled old network), much of the way in which it was run continued 

as before, including usage of acronyms—a well known hallmark of NASA. 

The MCC in Houston continued to serve as the focal point during human 

space missions with the responsibility of directing all ground stations when a 

flight was in progress. Meanwhile, the NOCC (Network Operations Control 

Center) in Greenbelt continued in its role of controlling the network including overseeing all network preparations leading up to the launch of a human 

space mission. 

In this capacity, NOCC engineers monitored console displays and 

established direct voice links amongst all the mission elements such as the 

launch site at the Cape, the network ground stations and the appropriate Project Operations Control Center (POCC). These POCCs that began emerging during the previous decade were essentially individual operation control centers at the GSFC that were built to specifically control certain types 

of satellites such as the Applications Technology Satellite (ATSOCC) or the 

Orbital Astronomical Observatory (OAOOCC). Not to be left out were the 

multimission “umbrella” centers such as the Multisatellite Operations Control 

Center (MSOCC) and the Mission Operations Control Center (MISSOC) 

that scheduled network support for all classes of satellites and assigned each 

station a weekly list of satellites that were to be monitored. 
216 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

To accommodate the data downlink from the new generation 

of satellites that were now nothing short of orbiting laboratories, Goddard 

enhanced the STDN with increasing centralized capabilities. A typical change 

was the greater reliance on electronic data transfer methods in the late 1970s 

with the implementation of systems such as the Telemetry Online Processing 

System (TELOPS), that eliminated the need to ship magnetic tapes from the 

field stations. Raw data was, instead, transmitted over communication lines to 

a dedicated storage system at GSFC. 

The POCC themselves also continued to acquire improved technology, permitting scientists stationed at Goddard to manipulate the orbits 

and attitudes of satellites with greater ease. Take for example, as a progenitor 

of touch-screen technology, a scientist seated at the IUE Operations Center. 

This person could, by simply pointing a light-pen at a specified portion of a 

video display, swing the IUE telescope around to look at another part of the 

the Goddard Space Flight Center has been home to many project Operations Control 

Centers over the years. Shown here is the Space telescope Operations Center where 

commands to the hubble Space telescope (hSt) originate and where its systems are 

monitored. the picture was taken in December 1999 as engineers monitored activities 

during the telescope’s third repair mission. today, command and control of the hSt is 

done mostly from the Space telescope Science Institute in nearby Baltimore. (Image 

courtesy of NaSa, available at http://hubblesite.org/gallery/spacecraft/01/)
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 217 

sky. In a move exemplifying NASA’s continual effort to obtain ever better 

quality videos, scientists supporting Earth resource and remote sensing satellites also received a special Image Processing Facility (IPF) at Goddard that 

provided video and pictures that were continuously corrected for distortions 

introduced by spacecraft equipment or during transmission—a progenitor to 

today’s high definition television transmissions.41 

Stations reported back each week to the MISSOC on the performance of their satellite coverage. To measure performance, matrices were 

set up and grades given on how well stations were doing their jobs, whether 

excellent, good or poor. The success rate for each station was measured by 

how many passes were supported and how much low bit-error data was captured. This was then compared to how much could have been or should have been 

captured. The focus was primarily on the amount of data captured on satellite 

passes and not on cost of operations. This may not have been the best way to 

gauge how well a station did. Former Quito Station Director Charles Force 

said, “I thought at the time that was a mistake. You need to have some kind of 

a balance between how much you are spending and how well you are doing 

the job. But it was totally focused on how well the job was being done.”42 

The system was also not without its flaws. Force remembered an 

example that always puzzled him: 

It was my first exposure to performance evaluation using a 

matrix and what I learned from that personally, was that you have 

to be very certain the matrix measures what you want. One example I remember. If a satellite came over the horizon and the station 

was tracking it and the receiver failed, and they start losing data, 

they would then be scored down so [that] if they got the receiver 

up before the end of the pass and covered the balance of the pass, 

they got a lower score than if they didn’t get the receiver back up. 

In other words, the station would actually get penalized if it successfully recovered from the receiver failure than if it hadn’t. “That was the 

system,” said Force. “That was idiotic why it was set up that way. I have no 

idea because I was not in on the early days of the STADAN.”43 

While the original STADAN side of the house relied on these metrics to grade the performance of its stations, no such matrix was used on the 

MSFN side of the house. This apparent dichotomy in the way the two networks operated prior to their merger can, in large part, be traced back to the 

way the two networks came about—and the competition that followed. For 

years, while both the STADAN and the MSFN were run by Goddard, they 

were separate, up through the directorate level. Specifically, “Code 800” ran 

the MSFN while “Code 500” ran the STADAN. 
218 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

From the onset, there were cultural differences, and with it, friction. Some would go so far as to call it jealousy. While Code 500 dated back 

to Jack Mengel and the team that created Minitrack, Code 800’s heritage was 

basically an offshoot of Langley—a lot of the people actually came over to 

Goddard from Langley. Because of this, the two networks had different heritages and different cultures in everything from the way they operated to how 

people were used in the field. STADAN stations, for example, were generally 

more “remote” in the way they operated in the sense that data was gathered 

and sent back to Goddard where it was then assimilated and processed. Thus, 

there was a lot of effort by technicians and engineers physically at GSFC running the computers. Unlike today where desktop and notebook computers can 

be found in every office, this way of centralization made sense at a time when 

mainframe computers were required to do the massive calculations. These 

mainframes were expensive, to put it mildly, and required a fair amount of 

maintenance. Therefore, the STADAN had a lot higher percentage of its technical expertise stationed at Goddard in proportion to the field. This was exactly 

the opposite of the MSFN, that had more computational capability in the field 

and, therefore, had more of its share of expertise assigned to the field. 

There has been the conception throughout the years that by nature 

of its mission, the MSFN was somehow more glamorous and had a higher 

profile (public exposure) than the STADAN, and therefore, got more attention and resources. This was, in all likelihood, exactly what happened. It was 

an undeniable fact that the MSFN received more attention than the STADAN 

in the one area where it most mattered: funding. In 1968, for example, twothirds of the budget for Goddard’s tracking operations went to the MFSN 

whereas one-third went to the STADAN.44 

It’s been said that where the money lies, so lies the priority. This 

apparent inequity was well recognized and unfortunately, resented within the 

STADAN system. An “us-and-them” attitude developed in many circles. As 

Force put it, “They didn’t talk to each other that much.”45 The presence of this 

“sibling rivalry” is probably not too surprising considering the diversity of the 

people and their talent that was (and is) the Goddard family. 

The years have shown that while such differences and strong feelings existed, they were worked out and the STDN moved on. The network 

that came out of it was a far better and more efficient network than before. 

Force would later say compellingly of the big picture, “The people did work 

together [and] the job was done successfully. There were an awful lot of good 

people that did work together and there was an awful lot done right and successful.”46 Indeed, the ensuing three decades have proven that. 

By 1975, the merging of STADAN and MSFN was complete. Table 

6-1 is a glance of the reorganized network in the mid-1970s. 

Over time, these sites adjusted to the changing demands of the 

integrated network to support tracking of both human spaceflight missions 
Table 6-1: Ground Stations of the Spacefl ight Tracking and Data Network in 197547 

Station (Location) 

CallSign 

LatitudeLongitude 

YearEstablished Year Phased Out 

OriginalNetwork 

North AmericaAlaska (near Fairbanks) ALASKA 64 ̊59’N 

147 ̊31’W 

1962 1984 (Transferred to NOAA) STADAN 

Goldstone (Mojave Desert, California) GDS 35 ̊20’N

116 ̊54’W 

1967 1985 (Turned over to DSN 

and re-designated as DSS 16 & 17) 

MSFN and STADAN 

Merritt Island (Kennedy Space Center, Florida) 

MILA 28 ̊25’N

80 ̊40’W 

1966 Still operating MSFN 

Network Test and Training Facility(Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland) 

NTTF 38 ̊59’N

76 ̊51’W 

1966 1986 (Transferred to 

Wallops) 

MSFN andSTADAN 

Rosman (North Carolina) ROSMAN 35 ̊12’N

82 ̊52’W 

1963 1981 (Transferred to DOD) STADAN 

White Sands (New Mexico) WHS 32 ̊21’N

106 ̊22’W 

1961 Transformed into TDRSS 

ground terminals 

MSFN 

Pacifi cGuam GWM 13 ̊18’N

144 ̊44’E 

1966 1989 MSFN 

Hawaii (Kokee Park, Kauai) HAW 22 ̊07’N

157 ̊40’W 

1961 1989 MSFN 

* While the MOTS cameras remained at the stations, they were no longer required for calibration after phaseout of Minitrack. They continued to be tracking devices for geodetic research, photographing the Pageos spacecraft in the mid-1960’s. By the 1970’s, MOTS was no longer an operational network. 
Station (Location) 

CallSign 

LatitudeLongitude 

YearEstablished Year Phased Out 

OriginalNetwork 

South AmericaQuito (Ecuador) QUITO 37 ̊00’S

78 ̊35’W 

1957 1982 MINI-TRAC

Santiago (Chile) AGO 33 ̊09’S

70 ̊40’W 

1957 1989 MINI-TRAC

AtlanticAscension Island ACN 7 ̊57’S

14 ̊35’W 

1967 1989 MSFN 

Bermuda BDA 32 ̊15’N

64 ̊50’W 

1961 1998 MSFN 

EuropeMadrid (Spain) MAD

(RID after 1984) 

40 ̊27’N4 ̊10’W 

1967 1985 (Transferred to DSN 

and re-designated as DSS 66) 

MSFN 

Winkfi eld (England) WNKFLD 51 ̊27’N

00 ̊42’W 

1961 1981 (Turned over to the 

British) 

STADAN 

AustraliaCanberra (Honeysuckle Creek) CAN 35 ̊24’S 

148 ̊59’E 

1966 1984 (Moved to Tidbinbilla, 

transferred to DSN and redesignated as DSS 46) 

MSFN 

Orroral Valley ORR 35 ̊38’S

148 ̊57’E 

1965 1984 (Turned over to the 

University of Tasmania) 

STADAN 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 221 

a “Spanish Watchman” on the hills overlooking NaSa’s Madrid Spaceflight tracking and 

Data Network Station and its prominent 26 meter (85 foot) Unified S-band antenna. the 

station at Fresnedillas, some 50 kilometers(30 miles) west of the city of Madrid, was the 

NaSa ground station that tracked Eagle to the lunar surface on the historic flight of 

apollo 11. the station was phased out and transferred to the nearby Deep Space 

Network site at robledo in 1985. (photo courtesy of Larry haug and Colin Mackellar.) 

and applications satellites. From a purely technical standpoint, the augmentation of former STADAN stations with Unified S-band hardware was the 

biggest single improvement that NASA took to provide a common capability across the STDN stations. By the mid-1970s, this had been done at the 

Goldstone Apollo site (1972), Fairbanks (1974), Orroral Valley (1974), and 

Santiago (1974). 

★ ★ ★

How busy a station was depended on how many spacecraft it was 

assigned to track. It was not necessarily true that the largest and best-equipped 

stations were the busiest. It all depended on where a particular ground station 

was located. For example, it may not be surprising that Fairbanks, Rosman, 
222 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Canberra, and Goldstone—all home to one or more 26-meter (85-foot) 

antenna—were normally on four-shift, 24/7 operations. Contrast that with 

the Madrid Station at Fresnedillas. It was also among the best-equipped stations in the network boasting its own 26-meter system, but it only operated on a two-shift basis. Moreover, older stations like Quito, Santiago, and 

Winkfield—which could all trace their roots back to the old Minitrack days— 

still operated on four shifts, even well into the 1970s. 

This variation in scheduling of workload had everything to do with 

the numbers and types of Earth science satellites that a station was called on 

to monitor. When one talked about the largest number of different satellites 

that a given station supported, Johannesburg and Orroral immediately came 

to mind. Each monitored 30 or more satellites in the mid-1970s. Fairbanks 

and Winkfield were not far behind at 24 and 22, respectively. Overall, NASA’s 

STDN provided coverage to some 50 different satellites in the 1970s.48 In 

December 1975, the GSFC made a familiar move by awarding Bendix a two 

year, $104 million contract—with provisions for three additional one-year 

extensions—to continue its role as the prime operator of the network into the 

decade of the 1980s and the age of the Space Shuttle.49 

Even though American human space presence clearly saw a period 

of quiescence in the mid to late 1970s, science and application satellite activities continued to flourish. One area of research in which Goddard satellites 

and the STDN played a leading role was in tectonics—the study of the structural deformation of Earth’s crust. On 4 May 1976, LAGEOS 1−the LAser 

GEOdynamics Satellite−was launched on a 50-year, high inclination Earthorbit mission to study the geophysical behavior of our planet. The idea behind 

the mission was that long term data received from the satellite could be used 

to monitor the motion of Earth’s tectonic plates, for example, and to measure 

the gravitational field and nutation (wobble) in the axis of rotation.50 

In this activity, the exact position of the STDN on the surface of 

Earth was itself a piece of scientific data. Most tracking is done under the presumption that the location of the ground station is known and that tracking 

determines where the satellite is with respect to the ground station. In laser 

tectonics, the logic is reversed: the location of the satellite is known. What 

is desired is the exact location of the ground station. The LAGEOS satellites, covered with tiny “retroflectors,” reflect laser beams transmitted from 

various ground stations. Covering the two-foot spherical satellite were 426 

cube-corner reflectors made of fused silica glass and the heat tolerant element 

of germanium. By measuring the time between transmission of the beam 

and reception of the reflected signal from the satellite, stations on Earth can 

thus precisely measure the distance between themselves and the satellite. The 

accuracy obtained is extremely high, with distance measurements correct to 

within one to three centimeters, or about an inch.51 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 223 

To return the laser data to Earth, Goddard Space Flight Center 

came up with the Goddard Laser Tracking Network, or GLTN, in 1975. The 

GLTN functioned as somewhat of a “mini network,” same as the STDN but 

using laser instead of radio frequency signals—essentially an optical system. A 

laser at a GLTN station would emit a beam to the satellite which would then 

be reflected and returned to the station. The interval between the start of the 

transmission and the receipt of the return signal was recorded at the GTLN 

station and multiplied by the speed of light to obtain the precise distance 

between the station and the satellite. In this way, ever subtle changes over time 

in the satellite-to-station distance painted a picture of motion in Earth’s tectonic plates. As a result, significant information concerning fault line movements and the dynamics of earthquakes, for example, could be deduced. 

Because of tectonic science requirements, the design of GLTN stations also had to emphasize mobility. During the 1970s, most of these sites 

were configured into Mobile Laser Ranging Systems (MOBLAS), with each 

MOBLAS housing the required hardware in three instrumentation vans. By 

the end of the decade, the pace of laser ranging activities had picked up to 

where MOBLAS units had been deployed to diverse locations such as Bear 

Lake, Utah; Quincy and San Diego, California; and places in Australia and 

around the Pacific and Indian Oceans. A fixed site, meanwhile, operated on 

the grounds of Goddard in Greenbelt, Maryland. Like its STDN counterpart 

the Network Training and Test Facility, this fixed station essentially acted 

as a test site for development of additional MOBLAS units. To achieve even 

more mobility, Goddard engineers soon developed a second generation system called the Transportable Laser Ranging System, or TLRS. Instead of 

large instrumentation vans, the TLRS consisted of relatively small, box-like 

transportable units that were readily borne by trucks and aircraft. Their performance was even better than that of the MOBLAS. By 1990, these laser 

tracking systems had achieved astonishing ranging accuracies, down to the 

sub-centimeter level, a must for measuring the slow and virtually indiscernible movement of Earth’s crust over time. The work continues today with the 

MOBLAS and the TLRS terminals still operating at Goddard. 52 

★ ★ ★

In 1977, the NASA began a series of low altitude, atmospheric glide 

tests of the Space Shuttle. These Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) took 

place at the Dryden Flight Research Center near Edwards Air Force Base, 

California from February through November. The ALT was the first step in 

the flight qualification of the Shuttle Orbiter, verifying its flight worthiness 

as it glided to a landing after returning from orbit. Testing began with three 

ground taxi runs of the Shuttle Enterprise mounted atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle 

Carrier Aircraft—a highly modified Boeing 747-100—to determine loads, 
224 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

control characteristics, steering and braking of the mated vehicles. This was 

followed by eight so-called “captive-flights” of the Enterprise (five uncrewed, 

the last three crewed) attached to the 747 to evaluate the structural integrity 

and aerodynamic performance of the mated pair in the air. Five free-flights of 

the Orbiter concluded the test program. 

To support the ALT, Goddard set up a special mobile telemetry station in 1975 at Buckhorn Lake (a dry lake) on a hill overlooking the landing 

strip. Buckhorn (BUC) was a fairly simple ground station, with transportable 

equipment consisting of two 4.3-meter (14-foot) antennas and C-band radar, 

equipment in part used previously at Grand Bahama during Apollo. Trailers 

housed UHF air-to-ground voice and S-band telemetry equipment. After 

supporting the ALT and seven Shuttle orbital missions, Buckhorn was closedout in 1983 following the STS-8 night landing. One of its 4.3-meter antennas 

was permanently transferred to the nearby Dryden Flight Research Facility 

while the other hardware was put back into the STDN equipment pool. 

Three and a half years after ALT ended, the STDN tracked the 

first Space Shuttle into orbit. After a six year hiatus, America finally returned 

to space, this time ushering in a new era in space transportation with the 

launch of the Shuttle Columbia on STS-1 the morning of 12 April 1981. As 

Commander John W. Young and Pilot Robert L. Crippen lifted off from 

pad 39A at the KSC, long-time Flight Director Christopher Kraft called it 

the most tense moment in all his years at Mission Control. Never before had 

NASA flown a crew on the very first launch attempt of a new rocket. Boosted 

by the largest solid rocket motors ever made, the entire Shuttle stack cleared 

the launch tower within seconds, a surprise to those at Mission Control who 

remembered the painstakingly slow liftoff of the mammoth Saturn V just a 

decade earlier. 

The 2,500 men and women of Goddard’s STDN had prepared six 

years for the launch.53 Even though in the eyes of the public, little activity 

had come from the space agency since the mid-1970s, it was quite a different 

story behind the scenes. Much had improved. Station equipment had been 

upgraded to accommodate the new multi-channel S- and Ku-band communication system of the Shuttle. Telemetry rates from tracking stations had 

increased to 128,000 bits per second (128 kbps) in real time versus the 14 to 21 

kbps of the 1960s. Telemetry streams were transmitted to the JSC in real time 

on three 56 kbps circuits.54 A key communication change was the implementation of S-band air-to-ground voice circuits in addition to UHF radio capability. The Shuttle continued to use the UHF air-to-ground voice system but 

the USB system of tracking, telemetry, and command developed for Apollo 

was now expanded to include two-way voice. This required the development 

and installation of equipment to digitize and multiplex voice on the command 

channel and de-multiplex voice from the telemetry channel. Voice was now 

multiplexed with commands for uplink and downlinked with telemetry. The 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 225 

links were then de-multiplexed, converted to analog voice and redirected to 

the MCC in Houston. The more than two million circuit miles of NASCOM 

lines continued to be upgraded, relying on domestic and international land 

lines, submarine cables, commercial satellites, and microwave radio systems 

(not unlike relaying of cell phone signals today) to interconnect the overseas 

stations with the launch facility at Kennedy and the MCC in Houston.55 

In contrast to earlier human space missions when the need for voice 

contacts steadily declined, the Space Shuttle program imposed a goal of 30 

percent voice contact on each orbit to monitor things like critical ascent and 

reentry events, payload delivery tasks and on-orbit crew science activities. 

Studies done in the late 1970s, however, showed the STDN could provide 

voice support for only about 23 percent of the time. Gaps in voice coverage 

had to be addressed. As with earlier renditions of the network, international 

cooperation once again held the key. 

the Dakar Station in Senegal on the western most point of the african continent looking 

towards the atlantic was an ideal location to track the Shuttle’s ascent into orbit on eastern launch azimuths. the arid setting was typical of west africa as were the facilities. 

Clearly visible are the 4.2-meter (14-foot) USB antenna on the right and the quad-helix 

command antenna on the left. During Shuttle missions, DKr was staffed by about a 

dozen NaSa contractors and Senegal workers. (photo courtesy of Gary Schulz) 
226 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Discussions and diplomatic negotiations resulted in new stations 

at several important locations, each equipped with UHF air-to-ground 

voice systems to fill coverage gaps. As B. Harry McKeehan, former Chief of 

International Operations at Goddard who spearheaded many of these talks 

put it, “These countries gave us their full support,” even in places such as 

Pakistan, where NASA operated a Landsat station near the industry center of 

Rawalpindi.56 In June 1982, a station was added in Dakar (DKR), Senegal—the 

western most point of Africa—to support the Shuttle’s Orbital Maneuvering 

System first burn (OMS-1), a critical event in the ascent to orbit timeline 

where a decision as whether or not to continue onto orbit or to initiate the 

Abort-Once-Around (AOA) sequence had to be made. DKR also provided an 

additional contact point for each orbit once the Shuttle was safely in orbit. In 

addition, Dakar served as the early Transatlantic Abort (TAL) landing site. 

Also established in Africa was the Botswana Station (BOT) at 

Gaborone. Also called Kgale, it was added in 1981 primarily to cover the 

OMS-2 circularization burn. Since the Johannesburg Station was closed-out 

in 1975, Botswana assumed many of the functions formerly handled by the 

South Africa station. In the archipelagos of Seychelles, NASA called on the Air 

Force, tasking their 18-meter (60-foot) antenna to serve as the Indian Ocean 

Station (IOS) some 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) northeast of the Madagascar 

coastline.57 Yarragadee (YAR) in Western Australia, was added in 1980—just 

prior to the launch of STS-1—to provide coverage for the Shuttle’s deorbit 

burn and reentry.58 

Rounding out the changes to the STDN required for Shuttle support was a 4.3-meter (14-foot) antenna atop the 1,980-meter (6,500-foot) Tula 

Peak (TULA) in 1979. Situated on the grounds of Holloman Air Force Base 

just outside the gates of White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, TULA 

alleviated the approximate, 10-minute communications gap during each 

Shuttle orbit over the southern United States.59 

By July of 1982, the STDN reached its zenith in terms of the 

number of ground stations (20 stations). For Shuttle support, it had acquired 

new outposts in the United States, Africa, the Indian Ocean and Australia. 

Network engineers had greatly enhanced its capabilities by incorporating the 

latest data processing and transmission innovations of the 1970s. The result 

was an unprecedented network with 10-fold increase in telemetry and data 

handling capacity over that of Apollo just a decade ago. 

Despite the tide of innovation and streamlining that went into the 

leaner and more efficient STDN of the 1980s, NASA could not totally offset the rising cost of station operations. The network remained manpower 

intensive. This made operations highly susceptible to inflation, not only in 

the U.S., but even more so overseas, where the impact of wage escalation 

was even more stifling. Remote, often isolated locations were especially burdensome on cost, staffing and maintenance. Spiraling cost at certain loca-
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 227 

tions—particularly Spain, Australia, Goldstone and Alaska—could no longer 

be ignored. The prime culprit—wage increases—had led to a 15 to 20 percent 

jump in operating cost at Madrid and the Australian stations, and increases of 

13 and 25 percent, respectively, at Goldstone and Fairbanks. This equated to 

a 6 percent across the board cost increase over the entire network. While this 

was not huge, in the cost-conscious days following Apollo, and with double 

digit inflation of the late 1970s, it was enough for the space agency to begin 

closing down more ground stations.60 

One of them was Rosman in North Carolina. Among the bestequipped of the original STADAN sites, Rosman had been supporting ATS-6 

which was no longer operating by December of 1979, and the OAO which had 

completed its mission in November 1980. Although NASA pulled out of 

Rosman in January 1981, five years earlier it had been the target of a well-publicized (at least among the locals working there), rumored-closing. The 1976 

events did not stem from technical reasons though. That year, a labor dispute 

arose between employees of Bendix and their company with respect to a collective bargaining agreement. 

What happened was this: the station employees, who were represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), on 

25 February of that year commenced negotiations with Bendix on their labor 

agreement which was soon to expire. But despite numerous meetings, an 

agreement could not be reached and so the union went on strike. While labor 

disputes were not uncommon, this strike caught the attention of the local 

North Carolina residents who began to feel that NASA may be thinking of 

closing down “their” station because of the dispute. Although the Agency 

really had no such intentions and (by law) had to leave IBEW and Bendix to 

work out their differences, state and U.S. representatives from North Carolina 

soon, perhaps in somewhat of a panic, got into the fray and began questioning 

NASA on its “true intentions.” 

Only after an official letter from NASA Headquarters was sent to 

Congressman Roy A. Taylor clarifying the Agency’s position that the strike 

would not affect the status of the station did the rumors begin to fade. In the 

end, the dispute was resolved when IBEW accepted a new labor offer from 

BFEC which included a 15 percent wage increase—not bad considering that 

the average wage settlement for all major collective bargaining agreements 

negotiated in the U.S. during the first quarter of 1976 was just 8.8 percent.61 

Six years later, though, dwindling pass requirements did cause 

NASA to really leave Rosman. But instead of just shutting it down, the DOD 

received authorization from Congress to assume operations of the tracking 

facility. As for the workers, all 119 Bendix employees assigned to the station were offered jobs elsewhere within the company. Some remained, others 

did not. Of the 119, 30 transferred to other Bendix locations while 34 were 
228 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

retained by the DOD at Rosman. Fifty-five others declined to accept employment elsewhere and were terminated.62 

Like Rosman, other stations were also reassigned, either within 

NASA or to another agency. In 1974, the NTTF became part of the operational network—Greenbelt or BLT—and expanded to take on responsibilities 

for NASA’s IUE. This ended in 1986 when the Center decided, after the 

deactivation of IUE, to align all support activities at Wallops Island off the 

coast of Virginia. With the decision made, the 12-meter (40-foot) antenna 

used on IUE was given to the nearby United States Naval Academy and the 9- 

meter (30-foot) USB system moved to Wallops. Following this decision, this 

rather unique facility reverted back to its original role of serving the network 

as a test bed and training center.63 

Another case in point was in Alaska after LANDSAT-3 went inoperative in 1983. On 30 September 1984, NASA operations at Fairbanks, Alaska 

ceased when it granted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

(NOAA) a temporary-use permit to operate the station to track weather satellites. The polar orbiting Landsat was by now using TDRS-1 for support and 

Goddard no longer had any pressing requirements for Alaska. Being in Alaska, 

the station was one of the most expensive stations to operate. NASA nevertheless continued to provide operations and maintenance support to NOAA 

for the next four years (at a cost of $1,920,000) until a permanent transfer was 

finally granted by the Bureau of Land Management.64 

In 1985, Alaska’s remaining 26-meter (85-foot) antenna was transferred to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for continued support on Nimbus and 

the Dynamic Explorer satellites. At the time of the station’s closing, NASA 

had invested $12 million of capital equipment in Alaska which, after transferring to NOAA, brought to an end 26 years of NASA operations there.65 The 

Agency’s absence from the state, however, would be rather short-lived as it 

would soon return to the area, this time to conduct scientific research activities which continue to this day. 

Other sites were closed out in a more permanent way. In November 

1981, one of the most venerable stations in the network came to an end. 

During STS-2, the second flight of the Shuttle Columbia, the Quito Station 

in Ecuador was shut down as planned. Fiscal belt-tightening and steep foreign inflation rates often overpowered the international cooperation value 

of keeping an overseas station open. (Another consideration was the balance 

between international cooperation and the desire for more “U.S. territorybased solutions.”) One of the original Minitrack sites, the station was located 

near Mount Cotopaxi, the highest active volcano in the world, 56 kilometers 

(35 miles) south of the Ecuadorian capital and had served faithfully as a key 

Southern Hemisphere station dating all the way back to 1957 and Sputnik. 

Bendix had operated Quito, along with the Ecuadorian Services Company 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 229 

(ESCO) who provided subcontractor services, since 1961. Closing it saved 

NASA an estimated $4 million annually.66 

Quito exemplified the “international value” of a NASA overseas 

station. It showed how the seed of a NASA station in a foreign country germinated to become a technological national resource for that country, a resource 

that endures to this day. Ecuador’s main product is agriculture. In the late 

1950s, there was an economic need for companies willing to enter into other 

fields such as technology and oil. In 1960, a group of Ecuadorian executives—visionaries in hindsight—led by Carlos H. “Polo” Cadena founded 

ESCO. BFEC soon awarded ESCO a subcontract to help operate the Quito 

STADAN station. 

The station grew as NASA grew. It upgraded from Minitrack to a 

three-link station in the mid-1960s. The compliment of Ecuadorian nationals 

bloomed from 50 to 220. With the consolidation of STDN, it expanded from 

supporting only application satellites to human spaceflight support on ASTP 

continuing on to the Space Shuttle. This was a giant step forward for an overseas 

station, one that required a dynamic and joint managerial effort by Bendix and 

ESCO. A transition from American station staff to Ecuadorians took place and 

Goddard implemented its training and certification program with outstanding 

results. Cadena himself was a strong proponent of “station nationalization” and 

firmly believed that it was in the best interest of his employees.67 

The Ecuadorian government had designated the Esceula Politecnica 

Nacional as NASA’s cooperating agency, responsible for facilitating and 

monitoring the Agency’s activities in that country. In the early 1970s, its 

Director, José Rubén Orellana, expressed dissatisfaction with NASA’s 

integration of Ecuadorian nationals into the station staff, as provided for 

in the international agreement. In response, NASA brought in new station 

management: Charles Force was transferred from Guam while Bendix named 

Cliff Benson as their new Senior Manager. They quickly determined that 

Orellana’s charges were valid and moved aggressively to remedy the situation. 

Over the next two years, over 50 Bendix personnel were replaced with 

Ecuadorian nationals. The willingness with which people like BFEC Logistics 

Supervisor Harry Bailey trained Fabian Mosquera as his replacement, for 

example—not knowing where he himself would go next—was impressive! A 

year or so later even Benson himself was replaced with a national: Julio Torres. 

Open animosity, while it did exist, was infrequent as Bendix management 

understood their role and made every effort to place their workers in other 

positions with other parts of the company. While operational performance 

of the station had previously been quite good, it improved even more under 

the new personnel, and operations costs were simultaneously reduced.68 In 

22 years, Quito provided over half a million hours (578,160 hours to be 

exact) of direct mission support, one of the highest in the STDN. Numerous 

performance awards were bestowed by both NASA and Bendix.69 
230 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

a panoramic view of the Quito Station in 1973. the station was located at 3,650 meters (12,000 feet) elevation 69 kilometers (43 miles) south of the equator, at the base of 

Mount Cotopaxi. a herd of llamas that frequented the station is slightly visible grazing 

just left of the 12-meter (40-foot) USB antenna. the deactivated Minitrack antenna is 

visible in the background between the two larger buildings. the photograph is unusual 

because Cotopaxi is cloud-free, and because of the rare vantage point—from the top of 

a communications tower along the nearby pan american highway that was accessible 

only by climbing 30 meters (100 feet) up an open ladder. (photograph by Charles Force) 

At 7:04 a.m. local time on 14 November 1981, as astronauts Joe 

H. Engle and Richard H. Truly passed over Mount Cotopaxi for the final 

time, they expressed their appreciation to the 75 station employees. Words of 

bittersweet thankfulness also went to the Quito crew from a host of Agency 

officials, including: Robert E. “Ed” Smylie, NASA’s Associate Administrator 

for Tracking and Data Systems; John H. McElroy, Deputy Director of the 

Goddard Center; Richard S. Sade, NASA’s Director of Networks; Mike 

Stevens, the Shuttle Network Manager; Walt LaFleur, Deputy Director of 

Networks; and Daniel A. Spintman, Chief of the Goddard Network Operations Division.70 

The last formal agreement with Ecuador came on 4 December. 

On that day, the State Department authorized the U.S. Embassy to exchange 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 231 

as large as the 26-meter (85-foot) antennas of the StDN were, they were dwarfed by the 

70-meter (230-foot) dishes that the DSN uses to communicate with spacecraft at the outer 

reaches of the Solar System. this photographic rendering drives home the size of these 

dishes at Canberra, Goldstone and Madrid. (photograph courtesy of NaSa) 

notes with Quito extending the agreement for another six months to allow 

NASA to perform “cleanup work” completely closing-out the station. Station 

equipment was transferred to Dakar, Senegal, which at the time was just being 

established as the Transatlantic Abort emergency landing site for the Space 

Shuttle. On 1 July 1982, the facility was transferred to the government of 

Ecuador who, in turn, assigned the CLIRSEN agency the responsibility for 

its operations. It has been used since to support Earth science data acquisition 

and regional land management and development. A number of nationals who 

started at the Quito Station have gone on to play an important role in the 

industrial development of Ecuador.71 

Also closed during this time, with no fanfare, was the small station 

atop Tula Peak near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Its relatively light work-
232 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

load allowed it to be phased out and its responsibilities reassigned to other 

STDN sites. From a scheduling perspective, its impact was small, less than 

5 percent coverage for most scientific application satellites. The loss to Space 

Shuttle support was even less at 3 percent and none involved mandatory or 

mission critical events. TULA had only been operational for less than three 

years but closing it would save the Agency half a million dollars a year. Just 

four and a half months after its closing, however, Tula Peak had to be quickly 

reactivated—literally overnight—to support a contingency landing of the 

Shuttle Columbia at White Sands. Due to wet ground conditions at Edwards 

in California, STS-3 was diverted to New Mexico (the KSC was still unavailable for Shuttle landings in 1982). Getting TULA up and running in just over 

24 hours was a rather impressive feat of logistics and field engineering, a feat 

that once again demonstrated the “badgeless” teamwork of those who made 

the STDN possible.72 

This steady phase out of the ground network continued through the 

1980s. In 1981, NASA transferred ownership of its only station in England—the 

Winkfield Station at Berkshire—to the British, who having operated it since 

its establishment in 1961, continued to use it for radio research. Also realized in 

the big picture was the long-planned consolidation in 1985 of STDN stations 

at California, Australia, and Spain with their DSN counterparts. Under the 

reorganization, STDN capabilities were retained but now as part of the DSN. 

They would still be used to support the Agency’s near-Earth and highly elliptical orbiting spacecraft but would be run out of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

The thinking was that by combining the capabilities in each geographical location, more efficient use of the facilities could be realized. 

First to be realigned was Goldstone. Of all the ground stations at 

Goldstone, only one, the Apollo Station (GDS) built in 1967, was originally 

part of the STDN; all others were original DSN equipment.To meet tracking 

requirements on the Apollo program, DSN assets were used as a wing-station, 

modified for USB operations and tasked to support the primary Apollo antenna. 

At Goldstone,the wing-station was the Pioneer Station (DSS-11),the first of the 

DSN sites constructed back in 1958 (it is now a National Historical Landmark). 

In general,a wing-station was not as well equipped as its STDN counterpart,but 

it provided the redundant systems (transmitters and receivers) that were needed 

under Apollo mission rules.This was a technically sound requirement. At lunar 

distances,the very narrow beamwidth of the 26-meter (85-foot) antennas (0.43o) 

meant that one was needed to track the Command/Service Module circling the 

Moon while the other was needed to focus on the Lunar Module as it made its 

way down and back up from the lunar surface. Under the Goldstone consolidation,Apollo GDS was reassigned to the JPL and redesignated DSS-16.A smaller 

9-meter (30-foot) USB antenna was also transferred, redesignated DSS-17.73 

An essentially parallel move was made in Spain at the Madrid Station 

(originally abbreviation MAD, which was changed to RID in 1984) built in 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 233 

1965 at Fresnedillas 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the capital city. The station had operated under bilateral agreements signed by the U.S. and Spain on 

29 January 1964 and 11 October 1965 to establish mutual cooperation in the 

scientific investigation of outer space. There, the 26-meter (85-foot) STDN 

antenna used on Apollo was moved to Robledo by GSFC workers, placed 

under the auspices of JPL and redesignated DSS-66 as part of the Madrid 

Deep Space Communication Complex (MDSCC). Like Goldstone, MAD 

also had a wing-station assigned to it during Apollo. DSS-61 was just eight 

kilometers (five miles) away at Robledo de Chavela. It was modified for USB 

operations. In 1971, MDSCC became one of the first NASA tracking facilities 

to be turned over completely to a foreign government. Under the agreement, 

INTA, the Spanish National Institute of Aerospace Technology, today operates Madrid on behalf of NASA.74 

Finally, the STDN stations half a world away in Australia were 

phased out. Today, mobs of wild kangaroos freely roam the abandoned grounds 

of Orroral Valley where one of the busiest stations once stood. ORR as it was 

abandoned in 1985, site of the Orroral Valley Station is today home to hundreds of kangaroos and their joeys in the serene valley. Shown here are remnants of where the main 

Operations Building used to be. (photograph by the author) 
234 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

In this picture from early april 1970, former honeysuckle Operations Coordinator John 

Saxon (left) and Deputy Station Director Mike Dinn man the Ops console during pre-mission simulations for apollo 13. Saxon holds the distinction of being the only person to 

have talked with an astronaut on the Moon from the Southern hemisphere. During the 

apollo 16 eVa, an earthquake knocked out the Los angeles NaSCOM node which caused 

Mission Control in houston to temporarily go off the air. Since hSK was in communication with the crew at the time, Saxon chatted with Mission Commander John Young 

as houston slowly got back on the air. the two agreed to share a toast if they should 

ever meet. they finally did—22 years later when the former mission commander visited 

australia in 1994 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first Moon landing. (“Long 

time Between Drinks,” Canberra Chronicle, 16 July 1994. photograph courtesy of Colin 

Mackellar, www.honeysucklecreek.net/people/at_work.html ) 

known, located 58 kilometers (36 miles) southwest of Canberra, was established as a STADAN facility in 1965. It was used mainly to support science 

and application satellites until its closure in 1985. In addition to its 26-meter 

(85-foot) antenna, ORR also had the Minitrack and the old Smithsonian 

Baker-Nunn optical cameras transferred from Island Lagoon, Woomera. In 

1984, NASA shutdown the station and the USB antenna was donated to the 

University of Tasmania. The next year, it was moved to Mount Pleasant, east 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 235 

of Hobart, Tasmania, where it stands today. The Baker-Nunn camera was also 

donated, but to the University of New South Wales. The remaining Minitrack 

control equipment was handed over to the Commonwealth Department of 

Territories and was used for a while by the Australian Department of Transport 

and Communications for monitoring small satellites.75 

Goddard had also put in a laser ranging facility at the station in 1972 

for geodetic research which was operated on behalf of NASA by the Australian 

Land Information Survey Group (now called Geoscience Australia) from 1975. 

This laser tracking facility operated at Orroral until 1998 when it was shut 

down and the equipment moved back to the United States. Continuing the 

work started at Orroral, a new laser ranging facility was established at Mount 

Stromlo, near the Australian Capital in 1998, wholly operated by Australia. 

But five years later, a devastating wildfire erupted in the hills surrounding 

Canberra which reached the outskirts of the city and destroyed the facility (as 

well as over 500 homes). A replacement facility was built in mid-2004 which 

continues to operate today.76 

Just a few miles north of Orroral on Apollo Road was Honeysuckle 

Creek (HSK), perhaps the most historical of all the Australian sites because of 

its unique role on Apollo 11. In November 1981 after the second flight of the 

Space Shuttle, HSK closed its doors and simply faded away. Hamish Lindsay, 

who worked the consoles at the station, said in his book that “There were no 

farewells, no speeches, no parties, no wakes. All the equipment was removed, 

we pulled the last of the cables out, and walked out the door. During its 

short but glorious life, Honeysuckle Creek distinguished itself as a top station around the world in two completely different spheres as a Manned Space 

Flight Station and then as a Deep Space Station DSS.”77 

NASA transferred the HSK antenna to the Canberra DSN station 

at nearby Tidbinbilla where it has served as DSS-46 since 1983. Planned for 

phase-out in the coming years, the fate of the “old Honeysuckle antenna” as it 

is affectionately called, is nebulous. Those who worked at Honeysuckle would 

hate to see this piece of history simply scrapped. To this end, space enthusiasts, 

former station workers, and local residents in the area have banded together 

to form an ad hoc, private, “Save the Antenna” campaign. Their hope is that 

perhaps one day the historic antenna which received telemetry and video of 

mankind’s first steps on the Moon will be restored, maybe even to stand once 

again at its original location in the hills of Namadgi National Park. Whether 

or not there will be a concerted effort by NASA or the Australian space agency 

CSIRO to preserve the legendary antenna in some way remains to be seen. 

From a goodwill perspective, the closing of Guam was perhaps 

the most difficult. If ever there was a station outside of the 50 united states 

that could be called family, it was Guam. From the time of its ground breaking in 1966 to the later operation of the TDRSS ground node on the island, 

the Guamanians consistently strived for that close association with NASA, 
236 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

and vice versa. An important objective in originally establishing a station on 

Guam was for the United States to contribute to the economic growth of the 

island and to serve as an educational catalyst on the territory. 

In late 1988 when it became apparent that the station was going 

to be closed, the Guam government pleaded with NASA to keep it open. 

At the time, it employed 91 people, of whom almost two-thirds were hired 

in Guam, at an annual payroll of $3 million. In an effort to save the station, 

Guam Governor Joseph F. Ada formally requested that NASA Administrator 

James Fletcher reconsider the decision, saying “the station has lent luster to the 

territory of Guam and has been a great source of pride for our people.”78 

The station at Dandan, establishment of which had been such the 

personal campaign of Governor Guerrero, was put into caretaker status in 

1989 and closed out the following year. Some equipment was left in place at 

the request of the State Department, who was interested in using the facilities, 

while the remaining equipment was transferred to the government of Guam. 

While many stations may have simply ceased operating without any fanfare 

when they were shut down, this was definitely not the case at Dandan. At the 

conclusion of the final pass of the Solar Maximum Mission (Solar Max) at 

10:30 a.m. on 30 June 1989 Guam time, simultaneous farewells took place on 

the island and on the other side of the globe at NASA Headquarters. Present 

at the ceremony were one time Guam Station Director Charles Force; Robert 

Spearing, former Director of Goddard’s Mission Operations and Data Systems 

Directorate; and a host of other NASA and contractor employees who had 

worked the station over the years.79 

Going back to even before the establishment of NASA and the 

Minitrack days when the network was set up by the Army Corps of Engineers, 

the United States always tried to bring local people into the operation. The 

station at Santiago, Chile, was an example of where this policy worked to near 

perfection, even if it were at times the target of anti-American political demonstrations. The station was a remarkable example of the long-standing goodwill 

engendered by the networks’ activities. It was eventually operated entirely by 

Chileans. (Even the Station Director was Chilean, working for the University 

of Chile under NASA contract.) Wes Bodin, the former Associate Chief for 

Ground Network at Goddard, explained. “This policy created a cooperative 

spirit with the countries NASA dealt with, created a mutual relationship. And 

as we phased out a station, we transferred the equipment in total to the local 

government. At Santiago, we transferred the entire operating entity over to 

the University of Chile. The University kept the Station Director and part of 

his crew to operate as a space tracking station.”80 

After NASA left the station, it still bought services from Chile. In 

the late 1980s, the university reconfigured the station to support the COSPASSARSAT project, a multilateral, cooperative project sponsored primarily by the 

United States, Canada, France, and the former Soviet Union. (COSPAS was an 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 237 

acronym for the Russian phrase “Cosmicheskaya Sistyema Poiska Avariynich 

Sudov” meaning “Space System for the Search of Vessels in Distress” while 

SARSAT stood for “Search And Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking.”) The program used satellites to help search and rescue efforts by detecting signals emitted by airplanes, boats, and others in distress. Even today, the European Space 

Agency (ESA) and the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) 

continue to use such services provided by the Santiago Station.81 

The year 1989 also saw the end of NASA operations on Ascension 

Island. The most isolated location in the network, Ascension ended up as one 

of the longest serving stations, operating without interruption for close to 

25 years.82 This streak was nearly broken, however, in 1982. From March to 

June of that year, the United Kingdom and Argentina engaged in a military 

conflict over the Falkland Islands to the south. During this brief but intense 

conflict, Ascension Island was used by the British for logistical support and 

as a result, commercial communications on and off the island were heavily 

disrupted. Fortunately for NASA, technical support was able to continue for 

the most part as the Agency maintained its own communication lines on and 

off the island for direct mission support. But the situation was not without its 

share of tense moments. Even though military action took place almost 10,000 

kilometers (6,200 miles) to the south and Bendix workers on Ascension were 

at no time in any real danger, concerned family members back in the U.S. 

nevertheless had plenty of difficulty placing commercial telephone calls to 

their loved ones. Much of the problem was resolved when the company made 

available special circuits, routing telephone traffic through its headquarters in 

Columbia, Maryland to reach their families.83 

Seven years later, operations at Ascension would be interrupted, this 

time for good.While the technical reasons to shut down Ascension Island were 

clear, how to close the site and what to do with it afterwards were not as obvious. 

Here, international cooperation with the international space community once 

again came to the forefront.What happened was that a series of events occurred as 

NASA was deciding to phase out the station,events that ended up involving three 

parties: the island government on Ascension, NASA, and the Europeans. Before 

the Challenger Space Shuttle accident in 1986 broke NASA’s stride in constructing its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, or TDRSS, the space agency 

had planned to transfer ACN to the Air Force’s Eastern Space and Missile Center 

(ESMC) when NASA operations ceased there in October of 1985. 

To this effect, in a memorandum of understanding between GSFC 

Director Noel Hinners and the ESMC commander, authority and terms of the 

transfer were laid out in which Goddard had the responsibility to provide logistical support to ESMC for supplies and materials. Conversely, ESMC was to reimburse Goddard for contractor support provided to them during this transition 

period. But by 1986 when it was evident that TDRSS was going to be delayed, 

NASA quickly extended its agreement with British Cable and Wireless, who 
238 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

provided the only way to transmit wideband data off the island. (The Air Force 

station,ASC, did not rely on cables but rather used high frequency radio transmissions to the Eastern Test Range as their primary communications link.) 

Although the commercialization of space would not reach a full 

swing until the following decade, even in the 1980s it was not difficult to see that 

a fundamental shift in the space landscape was already taking place.This change 

was the movement of space from the realm of government sponsorship to commercial commodity.With the Reagan administration being a strong proponent 

of privatization, as the nation’s space agency, this paradigm shift was not lost on 

NASA. In fact, the Agency had already been operating from Ascension for a few 

years under an agreement with the Europeans. 

During this time, U.S. dealings on the island, in the words of 

French program officials, “has been excellent.”84 For it to work, international 

cooperation had to have flexibility, and on occasion, some good fortune. A 

case in point was the handling of coverage for Ariane’s 9 November 1985 

launch, which happened to coincide with Shuttle mission STS-51A. The ESA 

Ariane carried the GTE Spacenet 2 and the European Marecs B2 satellites 

while the Shuttle mission included deploying two satellites and the recovery 

of Westar 6 and Palapa-B2. The Shuttle launch was originally planned for 7 

November and would have required Ascension Island tracking support two 

days later for satellite retrieval operations. It ended up, however, being delayed 

24 hours causing Ascension support for the Westar and Palapa recovery to 

now occur on the 10th. So, because of the Shuttle delay—not an unusual 

occurrence—the station was now free to cover Ariane without conflict. 

But according to NASA mission rules, Ascension Island was not 

available for Ariane support for a 48-hour period before and after a Shuttle 

launch, and for a similar period before and after a scheduled landing. In practice, though, flexibility in scheduling was not uncommon so as to accommodate international partners’ needs. Commenting on the series of events during 

STS-51A in 1984, Clet Yven, a Station Chief for the French Centre National 

d’Etudes Spatiales CNES said: 

What we have seen in practice is that Ascension Island availability is handled on a case-by-case basis, and the periods blocked 

against our use depend upon the mission.They [NASA] have demonstrated excellent flexibility and have said they could free their 

facilities for short periods in certain cases, even when there may be 

general scheduling conflicts with Shuttle missions.85 

Hence, private commercial space launch industry officials were at the 

time especially concerned that the station closings (not just Ascension but the 

others as well) would leave them without the ability to receive data from their 

boosters. It was logical for the United States to consider commercializing some 
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 239 

sites. In discussing the fate of the Ascension Station with NASA Headquarters, 

it was the perspective of the Office of General Counsel that “commercialization 

is feasible and would be consistent with other efforts to commercialize the space 

industry.”86 Such an arrangement could generally benefit everyone involved. 

In addition to the potential financial gain to the commercial operator, such an 

arrangement would also address these concerns, keeping the station operational 

while providing a continued source of revenue to benefit the local economy. 

Recognizing the Europeans’ need for downrange launch support 

out of Kourou, French Guiana, officials from NASA and CNES met at the 

KSC in January of 1986. On the day of the Challenger launch, David W. Harris, 

at the time Manager of Space Network Operations at GSFC, happened to 

be leading a contingent from Goddard to discuss with CNES these issues. 

Breaking the meeting to view the launch—in one of those moments indelibly 

etched in one’s memory—the team immediately recognized the horror of the 

situation. Still numb from what they just witnessed, the group disbanded that 

morning and agreed to reconvene at a later date.87 

Three long years would pass before the group met again on 12 

January 1989 to finish their talks. NASA already had plans to transfer the 

facility to the Air Force ESMC at the end of the fiscal year under an existing 

memorandum of understanding with the DOD. Under the proposed agreement with ESA, the Europeans would in turn install their own equipment on 

Ascension by March of 1990, to be operated by British Cable and Wireless 

personnel. The station was perfect for ESA since from its spaceport at Kourou, 

equatorial launches of the Ariane rocket flew almost directly over the island. 

Therefore, ESA requested that NASA continue operating the Ascension 

Station just a little bit longer, on a monthly reimbursable basis, until April 

1990, when their equipment would be installed and become operational.88 

Thereafter, ESA would assume full operations on its own to provide tracking 

services to its international customers. 

An agreement was thus signed on 21 February 1989, extending 

NASA operations on the island on a cost reimbursable basis, one that would 

have ESA pay NASA $283,000 per month to keep the station open.89 As for 

the facilities that ESA did not want to use, NASA was requested by the Island 

Administrator to restore the site to its preexisting condition. In this cleanup, 

the Operations Building was transferred to the Ascension government for use 

by the local community. All other buildings were demolished and the rubble 

hauled off. A significant restoration effort was the cleaning out of Devil’s 

Ashpit which had been used as a trash pit for a quarter-century. As one can 

imagine, this was no easy task since The Ashpit was quite large—30 meters 

deep by 40 meters wide by 90 meters long (100 by 125 by 300 feet)—with 

sheer, fragile walls. The cleanup took a year.90 

In this rapid succession of station closings, perhaps no other group of 

people was more affected on a day-to-day basis than the contractors and their 
240 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

families. In 1989, BFEC for example, employed over 300 people at Ascension, 

Dakar, Guam, Hawaii, Santiago and Yarragardee, a good portion of whom had 

established families at these remote outposts (except for Ascension, which was 

“singles only”).91 This meant that by shutting down these stations, a few thousand people were going to be uprooted, some from the only homes they knew. 

Of course, there were some places where it was easier to leave than others. 

Take Ascension versus Hawaii, for instance. While it may not have 

been all that difficult for folks to walk away from a place called Devil’s Ashpit— 

recall that “If you can’t go to the Moon, the next best place is Ascension 

Island!”—it was quite a different story for those who were stationed in the 

tropical settings of Hawaii. Located on a 25-acre site at Kokee State Park, the 

Hawaii Station was near Waimea Canyon on the west side of Kauai—one of the 

most scenic sights in the world. Since its establishment in 1961, the station had 

supported every U.S. human spaceflight with the exception of the first two suborbital Mercury missions. With its lush, green settings and surrounding hillside, 

the area is often used for motion picture and television location shots. Thus, it 

was not surprising that once assigned to Hawaii, one usually stayed in Hawaii. 

Many of the employees at Kokee had been there for 20 years or more 

and had established roots there. When NASA announced that the site would 

be shut down at the end of the fiscal year on 30 September 1989, most of those 

at the station were offered positions elsewhere by Bendix. Few wanted to leave 

though. In the end however, with limited job opportunities on the island for 

skilled technicians, most took the offers and reluctantly left the island. Those 

who did not left the company. After 29 years of service which saw the station track John Glenn around Earth and bring back 27 astronauts from the 

Moon, much of the land was returned to the state of Hawaii. The station was 

turned over to the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range. The 9-meter (30-foot) 

USB antenna system continued to be used for years on the Goddard Crustal 

Dynamics Project and is still being operated for science—tracking radio stars 

and studying plate tectonics by the University of Hawaii. 

Finally, Botswana, Dakar and Yarragardee—the early UHF air-toground Shuttle voice stations—were closed in 1986, 1995, and 1991, respectively. Hardware from these stations were transferred to other STDN sites or 

mostly just donated to the host country. In the case of Botswana, the legacy 

of having hosted a “space station” in their country was preserved as NASA 

donated the surplus equipment to the Botswana National Museum, who made 

an exhibit commemorating their involvement and contribution to the success 

of the early Shuttle flights.92 

★ ★ ★
Chapter 6 \ Era of Change 241 

It was clear by the end of the 1980s that the era of NASA’s worldwide, ground-based network had come to an end. Goddard’s once sprawling 

STDN had been reduced by over 75 percent. Deemphasis had come a long 

way in just a few years. If one were to ask what the largest structures ever 

assembled on the face of Earth are, answers might range from the Great Wall 

of China to the Great Pyramids of Giza. From an infrastructure point of view, 

NASA’s family of tracking networks—NASCOM, Minitrack, STADAN, 

MSFN, STDN, as well as the DSN—put together comprised one of the most 

wide-reaching infrastructures of the twentieth century, a true testament to 

the men and women who engineered it, built it, and made it work. Eventually 

though, technology and better access into space would supersede the need for 

such an extensive ground network. Instead of being tied to the surface of 

Earth, this new kind of network would now literally be based in space. It 

would change the STDN from a network using many ground stations into 

one using only a handful of satellites called the Tracking and Data Relay 

Satellite System, or TDRSS. TDRSS would enable Earth orbiting spacecraft 

such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Space Shuttle and the International 

Space Station, to continuously communicate with control centers on the 

ground without an elaborate and expensive network of stations. 

This fundamental change in spaceflight communications from primarily a ground-based network to a space-based network was something that 

NASA had in fact been working on since the early 1970s. 

In other words, the revolutionary change to this new kind of network did not take place overnight. 

Chapter 7 

A NETWORK IN SPACE 

The roots of a satellite-based communications network can be 

traced to 1945, when a Royal Air Force radar specialist and member of the 

British Interplanetary Society, Arthur C. Clarke expounded on his concept 

of what is known today as the “geosynchronous satellite.” The reason geo

synchronous communication satellites are needed is really very simple: The 

curvature of our Earth limits how far we can see. Consequently, a network of 

tracking stations, even when spread around the world, can only see and com

municate with an orbiting satellite about 15 percent of the time, only when 

ly 

e

ar 

it passed within the station’s field-of-view. In his article, Clarke accurate

hypothesized that a satellite placed into orbit at an altitude of 35,900 kilom

ters (22,300 miles) over the Equator would circle Earth at the same angul

rate that Earth rotated. In such an orbit, it would appear to an observer on 

the ground to be hanging motionless over the Equator. Thus, he concluded 

that a stationary satellite at geosynchronous altitude would be in an excellent 

position to relay communications around the globe. To this end, he suggested 

that use of three manned satellites in orbit could be used to relay programs for 

the newly invented medium of television.1

­

­

­

Clarke’s article apparently had little lasting effect, however, in spite 

of the story being repeated in the 1951–1952 publication The Exploration of 
244 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Space. Lying dormant for several years, it was not until 1954 when a scientist 

named John R. Pierce at AT&T’s Bell Telephone Laboratories carefully reevaluated 

the various technical merits (and the potential commercial windfall) of Clarke’s 

proposal. Since the terms geosynchronous and geostationary had not yet been 

invented, Pierce, in a 1954 speech and 1955 paper, elaborated on the utility of 

a communications “mirror” in space. Along these lines, he added the concept 

of a medium-orbit “repeater” and a 24-hour orbit “repeater.” In comparing 

the communications capability of a satellite, which he roughly put at 1,000 

simultaneous telephone calls, with the capacity of the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable (TAT-1), which could then carry only 36 simultaneous telephone 

calls at a cost of $40 million dollars—Pierce wondered if such a “repeater 

satellite” could be worth over a billion dollars to his company!2 

Within 10 years, Clarke’s and Pierce’s concept would be translated 

into reality as communication satellites enabled viewers from around the 

world to enjoy the 1964 Tokyo Olympics live on television. 

Spurred on by the 1957 launch of Sputnik 1 and later the Explorer 

satellites, the use of artificial satellites for communications quickly became a 

high-interest item in academia, the fledgling space industry and in the government. Many in the military saw its obvious strategic potential. NASA 

too, understood its incredible potential towards global communications. 

However, due to Congressional fears of “duplication” and in keeping with 

NASA’s civilian charter, the Agency pretty much confined itself to experiments with passive, reflective, mirror-like satellites such as Echo 1 and 2. 

These were essentially nothing more than gigantic, shiny, Mylar balloons 

that bounced radio signals from one point on Earth to another. Meanwhile, 

the DOD dabbled in the more “active” satellites which actually amplified the 

signals received, providing much higher quality and stronger returns. 

Government agencies, however, were not the only ones involved. 

In 1960, AT&T filed with the FCC for permission to launch an experimental 

communications satellite with the full intention of following it up with an 

operational system. The U.S. government was caught somewhat off guard 

since there was really no policy in place to regulate the decisions needed to 

implement the AT&T proposal. (This is somewhat akin to the situation that 

the FAA found itself in during the 1990s with respect to the commercial space 

launch market. Many laws and policies were in effect, but the FAA found itself 

having to quickly adapt them into guidelines for a cottage industry interested 

in this new commercial arena.) 

The pace quickened. By the middle of 1961, NASA had awarded a 

competitive contract to RCA—who won the contract over AT&T and Hughes 

Aircraft—to build the medium-orbit (6,500 kilometer or 4,000 miles high), 

Relay communication satellite. Undeterred, AT&T would soon build its own 

satellite, the Telstar, which NASA launched for them on a cost-reimbursable 

basis in July 1962. 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 245 

echo, america’s first communication satellite, was a passive spacecraft based on a balloon design created by engineers at NaSa’s Langley research Center. Made of highly 

reflective Mylar, the satellite measured 30.5 meters (100 feet) in diameter. Once in orbit, 

residual air inside the balloon expanded, and it would begin its task of reflecting radio 

transmissions from one ground station to another. Satellites like echo 1 shown here during an inflation test generated a lot of interest because they could be seen with the naked 

eye from the ground as they passed overhead. (NaSa Image Number GpN-2002-000122) 

On 25 May 1961, President John F. Kennedy spoke to the nation, 

committing to an American Moon landing by the end of the decade. But in 

another, long forgotten, portion of that speech, the President also committed the country to build a global satellite communications network. To this 

end, NASA and the Hughes Aircraft Company began developing a small, 

experimental, geostationary satellite called Syncom. Its first launch in January 
246 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

antennas for communicating with satellites have come a long way. “the horn” antenna 

at Bell telephone Laboratories in holmdel, New Jersey was built in 1959 for pioneering work in communicating with the NaSa echo satellites. Made of aluminum with a 

steel base, it was 15 meters (50 feet) in length and weighed in at 18 metric tons (40,000 

pounds). Used to detect radio waves that bounced off echo, this primitive antenna was 

later modified to work with the telstar Communication Satellite. In 1990, the horn was 

dedicated to the National park Service as a National historic Landmark. (NaSa Image 

Number GpN-2003-00013) 

1963 went successfully, but unfortunately, the satellite failed to operate after 

injection into geostationary orbit. The second attempt in July 1963, though, 

was a complete success. These pioneering experiments soon paved the way 

for the semi-private, U.S. government subsidized Communications Satellite 

Corporation, COMSAT, that was formed as a result of the Communications 

Satellite Act of 1962 (a fallout from Kennedy’s commitment), to pave the way 

for the world’s first commercial communications satellite.3 

Not surprisingly, the United States was not the only country in the 

West interested in this new realm. Understanding full well the global nature of 

the endeavor, NASA began negotiations with the Europeans to build ground 

stations on their soil (negotiations which AT&T had begun two years earlier 

in preparation for its Telstar experiment). Soon, Earth stations existed in Great 

Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, and Japan. Further negotiations over 

the next two years eventually led to a new international organization, one 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 247 

which would ultimately assume ownership of the satellites and responsibility 

for management of the new commercial space communications network. 

On 20 August 1964, INTELSAT (the International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium) was officially formed with America’s COMSAT as a majority owner. INTELSAT would eventually come to have more 

than 140 member nations, becoming the world’s largest commercial satellite 

communications service provider. In this cooperative, owners contribute in 

proportion to usage of satellite services and receive a return on their investment. On 6 April 1965, the consortium launched the Early Bird from Cape 

Canaveral, and the age of international satellite communications was born. 

Today, INTELSAT operates a fleet of more than 20 geostationary satellites, 

providing television, telephone, and data services to literally billions of people 

worldwide. To manage the system, the consortium establishes technical and 

operating standards for ground stations which all users must comply with. 

Using antennas as small as 1.5 feet in diameter, users such as television and 

telephone companies, along with data service providers around the world, can 

access the system on a 24/7 basis to support their customers.4 

But back in the 1960s, much of the early use of the COMSAT/ 

INTELSAT system was to provide circuits for NASA’s communications network NASCOM, relaying data back and forth between ground stations and 

their respective control centers. By the end of the decade, fortuitous timing 

led to the INTELSAT-3 series completing the global network just days before 

a billion people watched on live television mankind’s first steps on the Moon 

on 20 July 1969. 

During this time, communication satellites were fairly simple and 

not very big. Like Syncom, they were all spin-stabilized. In order to keep 

proper orientation in the weightlessness of space, an object (any object) has to 

be stabilized, either actively with an attitude control system consisting of small 

thrusters, or passively by spinning so as to conserve angular momentum (like 

how a bicycle wheel or a top stays upright when spun). By the 1970s, threeaxis stabilization using gyroscopes had matured to the point where they could 

be used to reliably maintain the orientation of a satellite in orbit.5 This made a 

huge difference. Since a satellite would no longer have to be spinning, it could 

now accommodate large directional antennas to support high data rates and 

deploy very large solar arrays for power. With more power came more equipment, sophistication, and more capabilities. 

Technology steadily improved through the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps 

an even more important improvement than new stabilization techniques was 

the increase in the amount of power that RF signals can be transmitted at 

and the utilization of higher frequencies in the RF spectrum. At the heart 

of signal amplification is a device called the Traveling Wave Tube, or TWT. 

Invented by Austrian born physicist Rudolf Kompfner and his colleagues at 
248 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Started in 1964, the International telecommunications Satellite or INteLSat ushered 

in the era of communication satellites for everyday use. today, the consortium consists 

of over 140 member nations. this photograph shows Intelsat IV in an anechoic (soundabsorbing) test chamber in 1972. Built by the hughes aircraft Company, NaSa placed it 

in geosynchronous orbit over the atlantic with a then state-of-the-art capacity of 6,000 

voice circuits or 13 television channels. (NaSa Image Number 72-h-872) 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 249 

Bell Laboratories, the TWT amplifiers date back to the beginning of the space 

communications era. Early tubes had power output only in the one-watt range 

(less than a common household nightlight). By the early 1970s, though, TWTs 

with a couple hundred watt capabilities were becoming available. What this 

meant was that ground stations no longer needed large dish reflectors costing 

millions of dollars to build. Antennas for satellite services quickly and dramatically shrank to the point where a 3-meter (10-foot) dish costing around 

$30,000 could now do the job that once required a 26-meter (85-foot) dish.6 

Advancements have continued in this field to where today, direct-broadcast 

application satellites have TWTs in the 300 watt range, requiring receive 

antennas that are only a foot or two (0.3 to 0.6 meters) in diameter and which 

cost less than a hundred dollars a piece. This has resulted in a huge leap in the 

amount and types of services available to everyday users literally anywhere 

in the world—as evidenced by the boom in the number of satellite television 

subscribers in recent years. 

These sweeping strides in communications satellite technology 

provided NASA with the technology it needed to turn the TDRSS (Tracking 

and Data Relay Satellite System) from a concept on the drawing board into 

reality.7 In fact, it would not be an overstatement to call TDRSS a national 

resource, one that has totally transformed the way space communications are 

done. In its planning and conceptual stage for about 10 years, implementation 

of the TDRSS in the 1970s and 1980s was, without a doubt, the biggest evolution in NASA tracking and communications during that time. So different 

was TDRSS that, to put it simply, it made the sprawling network of global 

ground stations a thing of the past. 

Of the many communication satellites launched prior to the Shuttle 

era, only one—ATS-6 on Apollo-Soyuz—played a key role for tracking and 

data acquisition on a human space mission. Its success in 1975 took place at an 

important juncture. By this time, the Agency had completed Apollo and had 

already conducted several years of feasibility studies on a space-based communications network. ATS-6 underscored the unique ability of a communication 

satellite to serve as an orbiting platform, greatly enlarging the field-of-view 

capable from a single location. 

Thus, the timing seemed right to establish a completely new kind 

of network, one based in space. Cost-benefit analysis done by GSFC drove the 

point home. By the 1970s, the sheer number of American spacecraft requiring 

network support had exceeded 50 and the cost of running ground stations was 

rising. Moreover, the STDN, as a ground-based system, had inherent weaknesses. Each station, for example, could monitor only two spacecraft at the same 

time and all stations working together could only hold a spacecraft in view for 

a small percentage of each orbit. TDRSS changed all that. “The network will 

take on a whole different complexion, becoming primarily a satellite-to-satellite network. But the big advantage that we’ll get from that is the amount of 
250 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

coverage we’ll get. That’s the big benefit of TDRSS,” said Henry Iuliano in 

comparing the expected performance of the TDRSS to the STDN. 

We have a very, very reliable network out there right now but 

it has wide gaps of information, compared to what we will get 

from TDRSS.There’s no comparison. During the aborted Apollo 

13 lunar mission, voice contact was very important because you 

would have to wait sometimes 20 to 25 minutes between contacts. 

We had to fit as much communication as possible into that short 

span, whereas now, once the TDRSS system is fully deployed, we’ll 

have absolute coverage for a Shuttle mission.You can call and talk 

just about any time you want to.8 

Its implementation greatly slashed the number of ground stations, 

saving NASA an estimated $500 million dollars in network operating expenses 

alone while providing this almost seamless communication capability.9 

The original plan envisioned three satellites, each placed in geosynchronous orbit: one over the Eastern Hemisphere, one over the Western 

Hemisphere, and a spare positioned between the two. They would be connected to the ground at a single ground terminal. In this way, TDRSS could 

provide 100 percent viewing of spacecraft orbiting between 1,200 and 5,000 

kilometers (745 and 3,100 miles) altitude. Craft orbiting above this altitude 

would be assigned to the DSN while for those orbiting below 1,200 kilometers, TDRSS could provide 85 percent coverage for—not perfect but still a far 

cry better than that offered by traditional ground stations.10 

These hard facts were compelling and NASA’s commitment to 

TDRSS was firm by the mid-1970s. Originally intended for inauguration 

with the Space Shuttle in the 1979 to 1980 time frame, implementation of 

the new system experienced many frustrations, and unfortunately, a tragic 

setback as well. This series of events was to prevent the TDRSS from meeting its full potential for nearly the entire decade of the 80s. Even though by 

the late 1970s, when the Agency knew that the new Space Network (SN) was 

not going to happen for a few more years, there was nevertheless optimism on 

the part of planners that there would not be too much of a delay between the 

inception of Shuttle flights and when NASA would have an operational SN in 

place. Even as late as December 1979, Goddard was counting on TDRSS taking 

over all tracking and data support of near Earth-orbiting spacecraft by 1982.11 

Though it took the better part of the decade to complete, by 1989 

NASA finally had what it had been waiting for. With TDRSS now available, 

the size of the ground network indeed shrank dramatically while communications coverage grew, from some 15 percent to over 85 percent, a six-fold 

increase. On top of that, network complexity was greatly reduced. TDRSS 

does not perform processing of user traffic but rather, operates simply as a 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 251 

a drawing of the tDrS-3 spacecraft. the tracking and Data relay Satellite System 

(tDrSS) provides nearly uninterrupted communications with the International Space 

Station (ISS), the Space Shuttle and earth orbiting satellites, replacing the intermittent 

coverage provided by the Spaceflight tracking and Data Network (StDN) ground stations. (NaSa Image Number MSFC-8893551) 

“bent-pipe” repeater, one in which signals and data between spacecraft and 

ground terminals are relayed but not processed in real time. One Goddard network manager prognosticated (correctly, as it turns out) in 1989 on the future 

of space communications on the eve of a fully operational TDRSS network. 

We’re certainly not going to go out of business. We’ll start 

exchanging data through international programs, and there’ll be 

increased contact with the universities and foreign space programs. 

We’ll still maintain a NASCOM presence in Europe and Australia 

through the DSN and the domestic network is going to continue 

to grow in communications capabilities through the universities and 

scientific project control centers. As the tracking stations go away 

and the Shuttle flies on a regular basis, we’ll have more and more 

satellites and more and more scientific data to exchange, so we’ll 

be changing the network. Instead of linking up to tracking stations 

around the world, we’re linking up users to the data we’re getting 

back from the spacecraft, and that’s going to continue to grow.12 
252 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

West Node 

Spare Node 

East Node 

TDRS-1 

TDZ 

South Pole S-band 

Single Access 

(171 W, 174 W) 

(062 W, 079 W) 

(041 W, 047W) 

(049 W) 

(275 W) 

(NSF) 

Single Access K & S band 

Multiple 

Access 

SGL 

SGL 

SGL 

White Sands 

Complex 

the tracking and Data relay Satellite System, tDrSS. the first generation Space 

Network used S and Ku-band to relay communications from up to 20 satellites at the 

same time. Ka-band capability was added beginning with three second generation 

satellites in the early 2000s. (adapted from roger Flaherty, Satellite Communications, 

Goddard Space Flight Center, May 2002) 

This is how the system works. Data, voice, and video acquired by 

the constellation of satellites are relayed to a centrally-located terminal on the 

grounds of NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in southern New Mexico— 

the White Sands Ground Terminal—or on Guam. From there, the raw data 

is sent directly by domestic communications satellites to control centers at 

the JSC, the GSFC or wherever it may be needed by independent users. In 

this way, nearly continuous communications with the ISS, for example, is 

allowed. This permits far greater flexibility in mission operations than had 

been previously achievable with a network of stations on the ground. To carry 

out the commercial side of the program, TDRSS also serves the space and 

science community at large by providing near-continuous coverage for over 

two dozen low-Earth orbiting spacecraft all at the same time. As one former 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 253 

manager put it, this new kind of space-centric network “focuses on the total 

data system, from instrument to scientist.”13 

All this ties back to just how the TDRSS came about. Studies for a 

tracking and data system that would rely on satellites rather than on a network 

of ground stations date back to the early 1960s. It was the DOD, not NASA, 

who first planted the seed. In the interest of controlling the “high ground,” 

the United States Air Force knew that a space-based communications network could be the key. To this end, they held discussions with the Lockheed 

Missiles and Space Company and General Electric to investigate the feasibility 

of putting into space a so-called network of “Instrumentation Satellites.” 

NASA, however, was not far behind. In 1964, tracking personnel at the GSFC requested that Headquarter’s OTDA consider funding an 

“orbiting tracking and data station” as a research and development project. 

OTDA managers in Washington were intrigued with the idea and put it 

on the agenda for Future Advanced Studies. Two years later in April 1966, 

the RCA Astro-Electronics Division and Lockheed were both awarded sixmonth contracts to define the characteristics of what was by then called an 

“Orbiting Data Relay Network.” 

By fall of the following year, OTDA was convinced that the spacebased concept had a future. Goddard was thus tasked to establish a Data Relay 

Satellite System (DRSS) Requirements and Interface Panel, which included 

specialists from human spaceflight and science applications offices from around 

NASA. This panel’s assignment was to oversee the definition and startup of 

such a system.14 

The DRSS focused on a basic plan that called for a two satellite 

network in geosynchronous orbit over the Equator. In this configuration, an 

“East” satellite would be placed off the northeast coast of Brazil and a “West” 

satellite placed southwest of the Hawaiian islands. The goal was to have a system that could “be developed to augment and, to the extent practical, replace 

certain of the facilities that [comprised] NASA’s tracking and data acquisition 

network.”15 The Agency was hoping for an operational network in orbit in 

the 1974 to 1975 time frame. To do this, Goddard had to expend considerable 

effort designing a system that would meet user needs at a time when most of 

the users were not even around yet. In other words, how did NASA know that 

this system it was designing would meet the needs of a future user community 

for the next 15 years? 

To answer these questions, network planners developed what 

was called “loading analysis” computer programs. These programs evaluated whether the designs would satisfy user demands and determined how 

changes to staffing and closure of ground stations would affect the existing 

users. Meetings were held to identify the needs, understand onboard recording capabilities, data dump requirements, antenna design, and orbit planning. 
254 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

For instance, it was through such analysis that Goddard came to understand 

that two so-called Single Access (SA) antennas and an array of 30 Multiple 

Access (MA) antennas could be used to satisfy those needs. (The number 

of spacecraft that can be supported by the MA system is determined by the 

phasing equipment on the ground, not by the number of antennas on the 

spacecraft.) From a station closure standpoint, loading analysis was used to 

help phase-down ground station shifts and closures in anticipation of each 

successful TDRS launch. 

By May of 1971, Goddard was ready to issue Requests for Proposals 

to the industry for design of what was now officially called the Tracking and 

Data Relay Satellite System—TDRSS. An open competition led to Hughes 

Aircraft and North American Rockwell both being awarded two-year design 

contracts. However, before the contractors could finish their studies, NASA 

management realized that a budget conscious Congress would likely not fully 

fund development from the ground up of an effort that was still at a minimum 

four or five years down the road. 

NASA had to think about new ways to procure TDRSS. 

In what could only be termed a radical departure from the way it 

had operated up until then—and in an effort to get the project started without 

committing the Agency to a future purchase of a suite of satellites—OTDA 

decided to lease rather than buy a satellite system. In other words, rather than 

proceeding with a government-owned and operated system, NASA would, 

in essence, negotiate with private industry for a long term contract, one that 

would have the latter sell communication services back to the government. 

Since TDRSS was categorized as a support program rather than an Agency 

research and development program, NASA considered leasing to be a viable 

option. Besides, all the technology required to implement the system was 

labeled as either off-the-shelf or in a high enough technology readiness level 

that leasing was considered no riskier than buying.16 

In a flip-flop of the traditional customer-client relationship, the 

space agency was now a customer of private industry. Again, the impetus for 

this fundamental departure in the way NASA did business was rather simple 

and as usual, came down to economics. By obtaining this capability from 

industry on a long term, fixed price service basis, the Agency hoped to save 

money, and at the same time, spur on the commercial space sector. 

In September 1973, Administrator James C. Fletcher wrote to individual members of Congress advising them of the Agency’s budget needs for 

FY 1975. Among the new programs listed was TDRSS. Regarding the crucial role that the new system will play in Space Transportation System (STS) 

(Shuttle) operations, he wrote: 

Our studies have shown that the only way to meet our future 

tracking and data acquisition needs with reasonable expenditure of 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 255 

funds will be through a . . .TDRSS. Such a system will improve our 

Earth orbital tracking and data acquisition capabilities and meet the 

high data rates anticipated when the Space Shuttle is in operation, 

while at the same time, permitting the elimination of most of the 

ground stations in the present.17 

Fletcher’s statement to Congress captured the main reason for 

TDRSS: it was cheaper than augmenting the ground stations to meet Shuttle 

requirements. 

The Agency had already identified six companies that were interested in the project, but, in this case, needed the assistance of Congress to 

develop the necessary legislation to authorize NASA to enter into such a contractual arrangement, since something like this had never been done before. 

Congress debated the wisdom of such a relationship through the spring of 

1974, but finally authorized the go-ahead in May.18 

Looking back over the last 50 years, the transfusion of technology 

from the government-borne space program to the private sector has occurred 

in many areas. Nowhere has this been more visible than in the realm of communications. Even in 1977, Gerald Truszynski summed it up rather succinctly 

when he testified before Congress, saying “The TDRSS contract, we think, 

is a good example of government developments moving into commercial 

applications.”19 

NASA now had the authority it needed to proceed with this leasing venture. It was at this time that the Agency’s Headquarters made the 

(fatalistic in hindsight) decision that NASA had no basis to preclude telecommunications companies from bidding. The fallout of this decision was 

that by October 1974, no less than 27 companies or teams of companies had 

indicated their interest in bidding for the design, fabrication and operation 

of TDRSS. On 7 February 1975, Goddard issued a Request for Proposals 

for Phase I studies which would detail the system design and cost. In June, 

awards went to two contractor teams: RCA Global Communications, Inc., 

and Western Union Space Communications, Inc. A separate contract was 

awarded to Hughes Aircraft to define the user antennas systems that would be 

required by customer satellites.20 

By 15 January 1976, Western Union and RCA had completed their 

six-month Phase I studies. Both were now intensely competing for the Phase 

II production contract, the winner of which would actually build and operate the system. These two were not the only ones busy. Throughout the year, 

announcements came of awards for several smaller, support contracts. One 

was given to Hughes, as expected, for the company to continue on the user 

(customer) antenna system. Others were awarded for building various support 

hardware. The big announcement for the TDRSS prime contract itself did 

not come, however, until the end of the year. 
256 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

On 12 December 1976, in what could only be called a shock to the 

aerospace industry, NASA awarded the lucrative, 10 year, $800 million prime 

contract to Western Union Space Communications, Inc., otherwise known 

as Spacecom—a wholly owned subsidiary of the Western Union Corporation 

headquartered in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. It ranked among the largest contracts ever awarded by the Agency, even dating back to the big procurement days of Apollo. Western Union, while a leading communication 

services provider (it continues to be one of the largest wire service companies 

in the world), had virtually no experience in the aerospace world. 

Under the Western Union team, TRW’s Defense and Space 

Systems Group in Redondo Beach, California would build the satellites and 

provide the computers and software for the ground terminal at White Sands. 

Unlike its prime, TRW was a leading satellite manufacturer for the DOD 

and NASA, and thus provided the valuable experience of working on large 

aerospace projects that Western Union so sorely lacked. In addition to TRW, 

the Harris Corporation’s Government Communications Systems Division in 

Melbourne, Florida, was on the team. Harris, a leader in communications and 

information technology, was responsible for $60 million of the contract to 

build and integrate the system’s antennas at the White Sands terminal.21 

After the network was up and running, terms of the contract called 

for 10 years of services to be provided by Western Union Spacecom to NASA 

in both the space and ground segments. This included six spacecraft with 

components for a seventh. But here is where the contract was different. Unlike 

traditional procurements where the government provided funding from the 

onset, no money would be forthcoming to Western Union until the system 

was operational. Since no funds would be forthcoming from NASA until 

TDRSS became operational, the development of the project was financed 

with loans provided to Western Union by the Federal Financing Bank, an arm 

of the U.S. Treasury. To make this work, Congress had to actually pass a law, 

which they did on 30 July 1977. Under the terms of Public Law 95-76, NASA 

would make loan repayments to the bank once services began.22 

Unfortunately, and almost from the beginning, the contract with 

Western Union ran into problems. While large, government procurements 

on this scale are already difficult enough to handle, the TDRSS procurement 

had an added level of complexity. More specifically, the space agency was 

trying (for the first time) to build what was known as a “shared system.” 

What this meant was that TDRSS would actually serve two purposes: It 

would be designed and built to provide NASA with a new communications 

network, but it would also be designed and built to provide commercial 

communications. Part of this venture called for one satellite to be dedicated 

exclusively for use by Western Union to provide domestic communication 

services once the constellation was complete. 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 257 

This sharing of the system introduced some technical complications into the system. But that was not the main problem. What really became 

an issue to NASA was that Western Union was unable to market the commercial part of it. Bob Spearing, NASA’s Director of Space Communications 

who was at Goddard during this time, explained what happened: 

In a sense, they [Western Union] were ahead of their time. 

They were designing a commercial satellite package that worked at 

Ku-band. Ku-band was not a household word at the time. It was a 

new emerging capability and they just weren’t able to get traction. 

So that created some difficulties in terms of how they were going 

to proceed with NASA.The idea of the shared system was that it 

costs less because the satellite would serve two purposes.When that 

started to go down the drain, there were a lot of contractual issues 

that transpired with NASA to try and resolve that problem leading 

eventually to NASA actually buying out the commercial side of 

the system. 

By buying out the system, the Agency in essence changed TDRSS 

from a shared system back to one that was basically dedicated for NASA use. 

However, the commercial capability remained on the satellites. As Spearing 

said, “The design was far enough along at that point that it would have been 

much more costly to scrap the design and start over, so we actually built the 

satellites with the commercial capability.”23 

In 1980, in the first of a succession of moves, the TDRSS operations contract was transferred to a partnership of Western Union, Fairchild 

and Continental Telephone. Then three years later, in July 1983, Western 

Union got out of the contract all together by selling its 50 percent of the 

business to the other two partners. The buyout continued. In 1985, Fairchild, 

sold its share, leaving Continental Telecom—better known as Contel—as the 

sole owner of Spacecom and the TDRSS contract. This continued until 1990 

when a new contract was negotiated which finally transferred ownership of 

the system back to NASA. Contel remained onboard but was now the space 

agency’s contractor that operated the system for NASA.24 

The failure of Western Union in their role as the TDRSS prime 

contractor can be traced in large part to the nature of the company itself. 

Unlike its subcontractors, TRW and Harris, Western Union was not a major 

player in the aerospace industry. As such, it operated in the highly regulated 

environment of the telecommunications industry where it was not unusual 

to find four lawyers and managers for every engineer. As a communication 

services provider, it knew how to get the most out of a network. However, 

it lacked the experience to actually build one. From a technical standpoint, 

the concurrent development of the TDRSS with the Space Shuttle in the late 
258 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

1970s also meant that Western Union had to work closely with Rockwell (the 

Orbiter prime contractor) as well as the JSC. This was again something that 

the company did not do successfully. Western Union’s function on the contract thus became more and more administrative than technical, even to the 

point where TRW ended up assuming most of the systems engineering and 

integration role. 

Former Associate Administrator for the Office of Space Operations 

Robert O. Aller presented to senior Agency management and Congress in 

1989 a “lessons learned” workshop from the TDRSS procurement process. 

Aller gathered 30 NASA and industry people who were closely involved in 

the process to review its successes and its problems. The eight lessons learned 

concisely addressed the heart of the matter: 

1	 Shared Service Concept. The concept of combining a commercial 

need with an established NASA need is valid, and may offer 

significant savings to the government through shared costs;however, the rights and operational utilization needs, availability, and 

privileges of each party must be clearly established in advance. 

2	 Leased-Service Concept. A leased-service concept should be based 

on the use of available commercial services or existing system 

technology if service is mission-critical. 

3	 Interdependency with Government-Provided Services. The interdependency of government-provided services to the establishment 

of a shared-lease service should be avoided or minimized to avoid 

government impact to the enabling of the leased services. 

4	 Fixed-Price Contract for Developmental Work. A fixed-price contract 

is not appropriate for development of a mission-critical support 

system where significant technology development may be required 

or where substantial changes to requirements may occur. 

5	 Government Control Under Leased Service. Under a leased-service 

arrangement, NASA must accept some loss of control over physical assets and accept risks of system outages or failures. 

Operational Interface. In a fixed-price environment, establish the 

government/contractor operational interface at a point where 

changes in requirements affect only the government side, so far 

as possible. 

6
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 259 

7	 End-to-End Engineering and Operations Analysis. In a leasedservice approach to obtaining a mission support capability, it is 

just as essential initially to establish a comprehensive end-toend systems engineering analysis and an operations and testing 

plan as would be done in a conventional NASA space system 

development program. 

8	 Considerations for Prime Contractor. The prime contractor must be 

one who has an extensive background in the business at hand.25 

Spearing elaborated on these lessons and what happened: 

In a sense, it was like NASA does today. In other words, if 

NASA lets a contract today, we would be in that oversight and 

management role and we would have a group of contractors handling the various elements, usually one lead contractor with some 

subcontractors associated with it.So we had this extra layer in there, 

if you will, with Western Union, driven principally by this shared 

system concept.26 

Despite these challenges, work on TDRSS pressed on. Entering its 

final year of development in 1979, hardware fabrication continued in both the 

space and ground segments.27 In the space segment, manufacturing of the high 

precision spacecraft antennas was the main item. Other activities included 

finishing up work on the propulsion system, specifically, qualification testing 

of the propellant tanks and acceptance testing of the Reaction Control System 

(RCS) that will be used to maneuver the satellites. In the ground segment, 

the Operations Building and ground antenna installation at the White Sands 

Ground Terminal (WSGT) were completed while hardware checkout and 

software development continued.28 

Since nothing like TDRSS had been built before, technical challenges were expected. They were essentially the kind of things expected with 

building a brand new system, both in the design, and in particular, with the 

software. One way to describe the nature of a networked system involving 

many components such as the TDRSS is that it is “tightly coupled.” This 

means that the software is such that if there is an anomaly in one part, it is 

going to affect a lot of other parts of the system. Along these lines, TDRSS 

was not only a tightly coupled system but an integrated system as well, with 

many subsystems that all had to work together. As a forerunner to today’s 

so-called lights-out operation, TDRSS was envisioned by its designers to be 

capable of around-the-clock, unattended automatic operations. 
260 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

For example, an operating schedule could be uploaded to a TDRS 

spacecraft. From there, it was up to the software to control the system, both 

on the ground and aboard the spacecraft—to configure links and acquire a 

given user satellite at the appropriate times. This was not at all trivial considering that each TDRS might be accessing 20 satellites at the same time, each 

in their own orbit while entering and exiting the spacecraft’s field-of-view. 

With scheduling now automated, the number of ground controllers and the 

operational cost could be greatly reduced, to the point where personnel were 

needed only to monitor the system and implement changes. This move to 

systems automation was a major intent of the TDRSS. Thus for TDRSS to 

work, the software simply had to work. 

Eventually, TRW engineers, working with Goddard, ironed out 

the problems. To demonstrate its capability, Spearing recalled that 

One day, just to show off a little bit, when we got it working, 

we had the operations team actually get up from their consoles 

and walk out of the room. We actually watched from a monitor 

to see how the system did. It went right through the whole process, acquired the spacecraft, got the signal and the data flowed out 

the back door.We wouldn’t do that normally—just sort of a little 

showoff thing that we did for the local folks.We were not tracking 

the satellite operationally, just using it as a target of opportunity.29 

But it proved the point: TDRSS was ready. 

Another key hurdle that had to be cleared by the Agency as the initial operating capability of TDRSS approached was to make sure that there was 

not going to be radio frequency interference with other transmissions. A FCC 

Electromagnetic Compatibility Analysis was done in Annapolis to make sure that 

NASA’s new system would “operate on a not-to-interfere basis with other services” operating in the 13.25 to 15.35-GHz regime.30 At the heart of this analysis 

were classified DOD assets that operated in the same frequency range. 

With the FCC analysis showing no serious radio frequency conflicts—and with the planned initial operating capability of the Space Shuttle 

quickly approaching—GSFC, that same year, made some rather significant 

decisions. The most important of these had to do with how the new satellites 

were going to be launched. Instead of sticking with the original decision to use 

a combination of expendable launch vehicles like the Atlas/Centaur and the 

reusable Shuttle, it tied TDRS launches exclusively to the latter. To do this, 

the spacecraft would be mounted atop an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) rocket 

and the whole stack loaded horizontally inside the Shuttle payload bay. Once 

in Earth orbit, the TDRS/IUS stack would be raised up and gently deployed 

(literally pushed away) from the Orbiter. After it had moved a safe distance, 

the IUS would be ignited placing the TDRS on a course to geosynchronous 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 261 

orbit. The launch mode was officially tied to cost but ostensibly made the 

Shuttle that much more indispensable as it would now be the TDRS’s only 

ticket into space. NASA, in essence, became a key supplier to its own satellite 

contractor. It was a watershed decision, one that would end up directly affecting the fate of TDRSS for years to come. 

Other modifications had more to do with the capabilities of the 

satellite itself. Provisions for increasing spacecraft weight, reliability and 

station-keeping fuel reserves were added. Its tolerance in high radio frequency 

interference environments up in geosynchronous orbit was improved. (A 

Spacecom analysis done the year before had indicated that pulsed interference 

signals emanating from ground radar systems could create substantial TDRSS 

system upsets.) Overall, the value of these modifications added about $80 

million to the project, which brought the total value to $866 million, plus 

award fees. When it became apparent that the Shuttle was not going to fly 

until after 1980, NASA slipped the schedule and delayed the launch of TDRS1 until December 1980. As it turned out, it would not fly until 1983.31 

From 1983 to 1995, NASA launched seven (TDRS-1 through 7) 

first generation TDRSS satellites. At the time, they were the largest and most 

advanced communication satellites ever made, weighing 2,270 kilograms 

(5,000 pounds) each and measuring 17.4 meters (57 feet) from one end of the 

solar panels to the other (equivalent to the height of a five-story building). 

In fact, the spacecraft was so large it would collapse under its own weight 

and could only be opened in the weightlessness of space.32 Physical attributes 

aside, the heart of the spacecraft is its data handling capability. Operating in 

the S- and Ku-band, each satellite’s electronic relay system could handle up to 

300 million bits of information per second (300 Mbps), unheard of at the time 

considering 150 Mbps was considered high-rate service. Since eight bits of 

data make one digital word, this capability was somewhat akin to processing 

three and a half, 20-volume sets of encyclopedias every second.33 

Looking somewhat like a giant, robotic bird out of a science fiction novel, the TDRSS spacecraft had several distinguishing, easily recognizable features. Foremost among them were the two huge, wing-like solar 

arrays which provided the satellite with over 1,800-watts of electrical power. 

The total array consisted of six (three on each side) 3.8 by 1.3-meter (12.6 by 

4.2-foot) panels weighing approximately 130 kilograms (288 pounds) with a 

total photo-cell area of 30 square meters (317 square feet). These wings were 

movable so they could be kept pointed to the Sun. To do this, the arrays rotated 

about a common axis by two identical electro-mechanical drive assemblies 

which were individually controlled (Sun oriented) by the onboard Attitude 

Control System (ACS).34 

Solar energy converted by the photo-voltaic cells was then used to 

charge the onboard nickel-cadmium (NiCd) batteries. These were capable of 

producing a power output of 1,440 watts and were housed in the hexagonal 
Multiple Access Antenna 

Single Access Antenna 

Omni Antenna 

Space-to-Ground Link Antenna 

Single Access Antenna 

Multiple Access Space-to-Ground 

Single Access Antenna Antenna Omni Antenna Link Antenna 

• Dual-frequency • 30 Elements: 12 • S-band TT&C • 2.0m Ku-band antenna:

communications: diplexed for transmit/ • LHC - 14.6–15.25 GHz (uplink)

- S-band: 2.025–2.120 30 for receive polarization - 13.4–14.05 GHz 

GHz (Forward), • S-band (downlink) 

2.200–2.300 GHz communications: • WSC/GRGT-TDRS uplink/ 

(Return) - 2.1064 GHz (Forward) downlink 

- Ku-band: 13.775 GHz - 2.2875 GHz (Return) • Orthogonal, linear (Forward), 15.0034 GHz • Circular polarization polarization (Return) (LHC only) 

• Circular polarization • ±13o conical Field-of- (LHC or RHC) view 

• ±22oE-W, ±28oN-S 

rectangular Field-of-View

the first generation tracking and Data relay Satellite (tDrS-1 through 7). (adapted from 

Space Network User’s Guide, SNUG-450, revision 8, NaSa Goddard Space Flight Center) 

262 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 263 

equipment module of the main body of the spacecraft. Since electricity was a 

precious commodity (true of any spacecraft), TDRS battery usage was carefully monitored and controlled via the ground at White Sands. To maintain 

spacecraft weight symmetry, these batteries were configured in two assemblies, each comprised of 36 sealed NiCd cells. With each assembly weighing 

66 kilograms (145 pounds), they were quite heavy, but had good electrical 

capacity at 40 amp-hours each, about that of an automobile battery.35 

To show just how far technology had come over the years, the 10 

milliwatt mercury battery that powered the transmitter on the old Vanguard 

satellite was designed to last 10 to 14 days. Since the TDRS batteries were 

not self-contained but rechargeable via solar power, their design life was 10 

years minimum. Since the spacecraft had four major power busses, electricity 

was routed from the solar arrays and batteries to the spacecraft systems using 

an onboard Power Control Unit (PCU). As its name implied, the PCU controlled the charge and discharge rates of the batteries. 

All active space vehicles require some type of ACS, or Attitude 

Control System—unless the spacecraft is purely passive like the Echo. On the 

TDRS, the onboard ACS contained all the equipment necessary to control 

its orientation and stabilization. In addition, it served to point the antennas, 

drove the solar arrays and controlled thruster firings for precise, three-axis station keeping. Like most modern control systems, the ACS used a combination 

of miniature momentum wheels, gyroscopes, and accelerometers to precisely 

measure its inertial attitude and position in space (exactly how it was oriented 

with respect to the stars and the horizon). An important capability that the 

ACS provided was to recover the satellite should there be a loss in attitude 

control—for example, a spin from a highly unlikely, nondestructive impact 

with space debris.36 

Since the spacecraft was designed to stay in orbit for at least 10 

years, it carried its own fuel to provided impulses for maneuvering and precision station keeping. Onboard were 680 kilograms (1,500 pounds) of hydrazine propellant, enough to operate the spacecraft for 10 years.37 Like electrical 

power, the propellant budget was also carefully monitored on the ground. 

Rounding out the ACS was a solar sail which compensated for the effects of 

solar wind against the asymmetrical body shape of the satellite. 

In addition to power and propulsion, a critical requirement for any 

spacecraft is the thermal protection needed for it to survive the extreme temperatures of space. On the surface of Earth, we are protected by the atmosphere 

so that temperature changes are relatively gradual. But outside the atmosphere, 

temperatures can swing by more than 280°C (500°F) during each orbit. When 

TDRS was in daylight, the temperature could reach 117°C (243°F); when it 

was on the night side, the temperature dropped to -173°C (-279°F). This is 

why spacecraft are often seen wrapped in gold thermal protection blankets. 

TDRS’s Thermal Control System (TCS) maintained its temperature within 
264 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

acceptable limits during all prelaunch, launch, orbit insertion, and on-orbit 

activities for the duration of its mission. To control the temperature, the TCS 

used a combination of insulation blankets, radiator panels, thermostatically 

controlled heaters, and special reflective surface coatings. For example, radiators were located on the upper and lower faces of the equipment compartment 

to help reduce solar heating effects. Components with nonradiating external 

surfaces were covered by aluminized Mylar or Kapton insulation blankets 

which were electrically grounded together to the main spacecraft structure so 

as to prevent any on-orbit static charge build up.38 

Along with the solar arrays, the antennas of the spacecraft were 

undoubtedly its most prominent features. In fact, TDRS carried five antennas. 

Particularly noticeable were the two 4.9-meter (16-foot) diameter, high-gain 

parabolic antennas which resemble giant parasols after unfurling. These were 

the so-called Single Access (SA) antennas, providing dual frequency communications at both the S-band (2.025 to 2.300 GHz) and Ku-band (13.775 to 

15.0034 GHz). They were called SA because they tracked and relayed communications only with a single user spacecraft at any one time, in response 

to ground commands. The two SA antennas were steerable in two-axes and 

could be slewed for this purpose, following an object as it moved below, crossing TDRS’s field-of-view.39 

The high-rate service provided by these antennas was available to 

different satellite users who wanted to use the TDRSS on a time-shared basis. 

While the antenna may only be pointed at a single position, it was capable 

of supporting two users if they were operating at the different S- and KuBand frequencies. In other words, with the SA antennas capable of handling 

dual frequencies, each could actually be used to support two user satellites at 

the same time—one on S-band and one on Ku-band—if both were within 

the antenna’s field-of-view. To keep design complexity at a minimum and 

to reduce circuit cable loss (that is, loss of radio signal strength as it travels 

through a finite length of wiring), the SA receivers and transmitters were 

actually mounted on the back of these large antennas. 

Since every pound that is launched into space drives up the cost, 

materials are usually selected with as high a strength-to-weight ratio as possible, and as durable as possible; exotic manufacturing techniques are thus 

not uncommon. This was particularly true with something as big as the SA 

antennas. In this case, the primary reflector surface was made of a molybdenum wire mesh, woven like cloth, on the same type of machine used to make 

material for women’s hosiery. For RF reflectivity and thermal tolerance, it was 

clad in 14-carat gold. When unfurled, its 18.9 square meters (203 square feet) 

of mesh was stretched tightly on 16 high-strength tubular ribs by fine, threadlike quartz cords. In this way, the antenna looked somewhat like a large, 

glittering, metallic spiderweb. Despite the size, the entire antenna structure 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 265 

weighed only about 23 kilograms (50 pounds) on Earth. To help explain 

their lightweight sophistication, NASA liked to publicize the following fact: 

Because of the support and structure that would be needed to counterbalance 

the effect of gravity, an antenna of similar capability and size based on Earth 

would need to weigh about 2,270 kilograms (5,000 pounds).40 

Mounted on the lower side of the spacecraft’s main body was 

the MA antenna. It was an electronically steerable, 30-element, phasedarray antenna used to relay communications for multiple customer satellites 

simultaneously. To relay signals, 12 of the elements—called helices—were 

diplexed (split) for transmit and receive while all 20 were used as receive elements. Signals from each helix antenna were received at the same frequency, 

multiplexed or combined into a single composite signal and transmitted to 

the ground. In the ground equipment, the combined signal was demultiplexed and distributed to 20 sets of beam-forming equipment that discriminate among the 30 signals to extract signals of individual users. So a TDRS 

functioned somewhat like a celestial switchboard, receiving data from up to 

20 different satellites while transmitting to 12, all at the same time. (The 12 

that it was transmitting to could be other satellites or be the same ones from 

which it was receiving data.)41 

From its vantage point at geosynchronous altitude, the 13o fieldof-view of the MA meant it could see all spacecraft in orbits of 1000 km (620 

miles) or below—the majority of low-Earth orbit spacecraft. Not only could it 

track all spacecraft below this altitude, it could also track many aircraft simultaneously. The MA service was attractive because it was very reliable, and 

for TT&C and low science data rate functions, it could provide user support 

everywhere and at any time. By contrast, the SA service was attractive because 

it could handle high data rates (300 kbps for S-band or 25 Mbps for Ku-band 

SA forward service versus only 10 kbps for MA service). Another difference 

was that the MA antenna operated only in the S-band. More specifically, it 

forwarded signals at 2106.4 MHz and received return signals at 2287.5 MHz.42 

When the system was being designed in the 1970s, this S-band only capability 

was deemed sufficient by most communications experts for handling the commercial satellite traffic then envisioned for the coming decade. This is only 

partially true now 35 years later. 

While the Single and Multiple Access antennas were fine for communicating, tracking, and relaying data between the TDRS and other satellites, they could not be used to actually link the spacecraft with the ground. 

This was done with a separate Space-to-Ground Link antenna, or the SGL. It 

was a pointable, 2-meter (6.6-foot) diameter dish whose only purpose was to 

provide the uplink and downlink between the TDRS and the ground terminals at Whites Sands and Guam. Signals were relayed with the SGL using the 

more bandwidth efficient Ku-band (13.4 to 15.25 GHz). The SGL antenna, 

unassuming in appearance compared to the pair of SA antennas, handled all 
266 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the tracking and Data relay Satellite (tDrS) stowed in the Shuttle payload bay is raised 

to a vertical attitude in preparation for deployment from low-earth orbit. Shown here is 

tDrS-6 being deployed from the Shuttle Endeavour on StS-54 on 13 January 1993. 

Clearly visible is one of the Single access (Sa) parasol antennas seen folded at the top. 

the solar arrays are also in the stowed position. the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) is visible 

below the satellite. (NaSa Image Number StS054-71-025) 

customer scheduling and service requests as well as NASA’s own TDRSS command and telemetry. It was, in essence, the customers’ only electronic link 

back to Earth. 

Finally, there was the Omni Antenna which supported the spacecraft’s TT&C system. The TT&C collected data from the various onboard 

subsystems and transmitted the telemetry down to White Sands so that the 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 267 

spacecraft’s health and status could be ascertained (for example, how fast were 

the batteries discharging). Conversely, it processed and implemented commands uplinked from the ground (for example, initiate thruster firings to 

rotate the craft). The TT&C system provided range and range rate information 

by computing precise turnaround-and-retransmission delays in signals to-andfrom the ground. 

Once the TDRS was operational in orbit, TT&C was normally 

done at Ku-band through the SGL antenna. However, there were exceptions 

and that was where the Omni came in. Looking rather inconspicuous—an 

oddly-shaped polygon—this omni-directional antenna mounted on the side 

of the main structural body operated in the S-band and was used strictly by 

NASA for command and control. Specifically, it was used during deployment 

from the Shuttle and, if necessary, during system recovery in the event of 

an emergency. It supported no customer services. With the Omni, TDRSS 

control on the ground could switch satellite operations to failsafe mode at any 

time for a variety of reasons: prevention of command lockout caused by failure of the primary SGL equipment, anomalous spacecraft attitude or pointing 

errors, and something that NASA hoped never happens—remote (hostile) 

takeover of the spacecraft. To put it simply, if one thinks of the SGL as the 

spacecraft’s normal link back to Earth, then the Omni was, for all intents and 

purposes, the spacecraft’s last-chance lifeline.43 

★ ★ ★

When STS-6 left Pad 39A at the KSC on the afternoon of 4 April 

1983, it had a few firsts. It was the first flight of the new Shuttle Challenger. It was 

the first use of the improved, lightweight External Tank and the lightweight 

SRB casings. The mission had the first spacewalk (EVA) of the Shuttle program, one that lasted 4 hours and 17 minutes to check out the new generation 

of spacesuits that will be used by Shuttle astronauts. And finally, it launched the 

first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, TDRS-1. 

The launch, originally slated for 20 January 1983, was delayed several times due to leaks discovered in Challenger’s main engine fuel lines while 

it was on the pad. But in an unfortunate turn of events, as engine repairs were 

being made, a severe rain storm swept through the Cape that caused TDRS-1 

to be contaminated while it was still in the Payload Changeout Room (PCR) 

at the pad. As a result, workers had to take it back to its checkout facility, have 

it cleaned, rechecked and remounted into the Shuttle payload bay. (The PCR 

and the payload bay first had to be cleaned out also.) With this temporary 

roadblock cleared, STS-6, commanded by Skylab veteran Paul Weitz, lifted 

off without further delay at 1:30 pm. EST on 4 April, sending the crew of four 

on their five-day mission to deploy the first TDRS.44 
268 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

tDrS deployment sequence. (Space Shuttle Mission StS-54 press Kit, January 1993, 

NaSa headquarters) 

Deployment of a TDRS from the Space Shuttle is a well orchestrated series of events. After reaching orbit, the Shuttle’s payload bay doors 

are opened and its Ku-band antenna deployed. This antenna—stowed on the 

right, forward side of the payload bay—was crucial for checking out and communicating with the new satellite. As efficient a bandwidth as Ku-band is, one 

drawback of having to operate in this high frequency is the inherently narrow 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 269 

pencil-like beam needed to focus the signals.45 This makes it somewhat difficult for the SGL antenna to lock onto the signal in order to communicate with 

the Shuttle. However, since an S-band system can get by with an inherently 

larger beam, the Omni antenna is first used to lock the Ku-band antenna into 

position after the satellite is deployed from the Shuttle—a process known as 

acquisition. For anyone who has ever looked for an object in the night sky 
270 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

using a telescope, this is not unlike having to first use a finder-scope to point 

the main telescope in the vicinity of the star. 

Once the Omni has locked on, the Ku-band system is turned on. 

To perform the acquisition, the Shuttle’s Ku-band antenna is gimbaled so it 

can acquire the TDRS by executing a preprogrammed search. In this search, 

if the satellite’s SGL signal is not detected within the first 8° of a scan, the 

search automatically expands to 20° and is repeated. The entire search typically takes only about three minutes. The scanning stops once the acquired 

signal strength meets a given threshold. At that point, the Ku-band system 

becomes operational.46 

About an hour after release, having moved sufficiently far from the 

Shuttle, the IUS first-stage rocket motor is ignited. Built by Boeing Aerospace 

for the U.S. Air Force, the two-stage IUS solid-rocket boosts the TDRS into 

its 35,900 kilometer (22,300 mile) geosynchronous orbit since the Shuttle 

itself cannot go that high. This is then followed by a second-stage motor burn. 

Once this burn is successfully completed, the TDRS—still attached to the 

IUS—is well on its way to geosynchronous orbit and the Shuttle and her crew 

have essentially done their job. 

There is, however, still more to do, this time by the ground. First, 

there is the geosynchronous insertion burn to circularize the spacecraft’s orbit 

at geosynchronous altitude. This is followed by separation of the satellite from 

the now spent IUS. At this point, the TDRSS team at White Sands commands deployment of the solar arrays. The two 4.9-meter (16-foot) diameter 

SA antennas are then unfurled and pointed toward Earth for the spacecraft 

to begin its checkout. This testing will take place over the next three to five 

months. During this time, the ground will also command small thruster firings to slowly move the craft and position it at its desired operating location. 

Joining Weitz on this mission were Pilot Karol J. Bobko and Mission 

Specialists Donald H. Peterson and F. Story Musgrave, both of whom would 

deploy the satellite from controls inside the aft flight deck. After Challenger was 

successfully inserted into a 286-kilometer (178-mile) circular orbit, the payload 

bay doors were opened and the TDRS-1/IUS stack was raised. Ten hours after 

launch Peterson flipped the switches which allowed the giant satellite to be 

released and gently pushed away from the Shuttle. The first engine burn went 

perfectly. However, the second did not; the motor shutdown prematurely. 

For almost three hours, America’s first TDRS appeared to be lost, 

deaf to all commands. At 9 a.m. EST the following morning—as Goddard 

engineers were busy with contingency procedures—the Goldstone tracking 

station received a faint indication that it had indeed separated from the spent 

IUS. However, its orbit was far from what was needed. Instead of a nice, 

circular 35,900 kilometer orbit, the incomplete engine burn had stranded 

TDRS-1 in a useless 35,325 by 21,790-kilometer (21,950 by 13,540- mile), 

elliptical orbit. Furthermore, instead of zero inclination (orbit parallel to the 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 271 

Equator), it was crossing the Equator at an angle of 2.4o. As if that was not 

enough, the spacecraft was spinning out of control at an alarming rate of 30 

revolutions per minute, or once every two seconds. 

From the ground, the situation looked bleak. There was hope, 

however: Use the onboard ACS (designed only for station keeping maneuvers and for adjusting the satellite’s location) to actually finish boosting it 

into geosynchronous orbit. Over the next two months, engineers at Goddard, 

TRW and Contel worked out a series of burns using the small (one pound 

thrust) ACS thrusters to carefully nudge the spacecraft into the proper orbit. 

Since the thrusters are so small, this orbit transfer could not be done with one 

maneuver. It, in fact, took 39 separate commands and consumed some 400 

kilograms (900 pounds) of the usable 635 kilograms (1,400 pounds) of fuel 

onboard TDRS-1. The maneuvers began on 6 June 1983 and took a total of 

three weeks. During this time, overheating caused the total loss of one of the 

two sets of 12 thrusters plus one thruster from the other set. 

But the patience paid off. On 29 June 1983, TDRS-1 reached its 

destination, parking itself over the Equator in a “figure-8” loop at 41° west 

longitude, just off the northeast coast of Brazil. There was much to celebrate 

at Goddard. As one flight controller put it, “It was a cliff hanger.”47 

A week later, TDRS-1 was turned on for testing. All went well until 

October when the spacecraft began to be plagued by a series of component failures. First, one of the Ku-band SA diplexers used to combine RF signals failed. 

Shortly thereafter, one of the Ku-band TWT amplifiers on the same antenna 

failed crippling the forward link relay service that it could provide. The failures 

continued. On 19 November 1983, one of the two TWT amplifiers serving 

the other SA antenna also failed. This meant that TDRS-1 had lost one of its 

primary capabilities, the Single Access, Ku-band, forward link relay. 

One of the consequences of losing this link was that it prohibited 

the use of the Text And Graphics System (TAGS) onboard the Shuttle. TAGS 

was a high-resolution facsimile system that scanned text or graphics and converted the analog scan into a digital bit-stream. Basically, a fancy fax machine 

that operated via telemetry, it provided an on-orbit capability to transmit text, 

maps, high resolution schematics and photographs between the astronauts and 

Houston. In lieu of TAGS, Mission Control—not until 1989 as it turned 

out—had to resort to using the old S-band, Apollo-era teletype system to 

relay text-only instructions up to the crew (for example, procedures, weather, 

crew activity plan changes, etc.).48 

Despite these annoying setbacks, Goddard continued testing over 

the next 12 months. The fact that the craft had lost a major link capability 

notwithstanding, NASA declared TDRS-1 operational in December 1984, 

saying “Working solo, TDRS-1 provided more communication coverage . . . 

than the entire network of NASA tracking stations had provided in all previous Shuttle missions.”49 
272 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

It had been a long 20 months since TDRS-1 left Pad 39A. 

The ensuing years have born witness to this declaration. Besides 

serving as one of the two primary satellites in the early Space Network, 

TDRS-1, over the years, accumulated a number of firsts to its credit. It was 

the first satellite used to support KSC launches in the early 1990s, returning 

real-time telemetry and video. It also helped close the Zone of Exclusion over 

the Indian Ocean (explained later in the chapter), providing 100 percent coverage for the ISS, the Space Shuttle and low Earth orbit satellites. In March 

1992, Goddard called on TDRS-1 to quickly aid its Compton Gamma Ray 

Observatory (CGRO) when data recorders onboard the spacecraft failed. 

Since the satellite was precessing (that is, changing its orbital inclination or tilt with respect to the Equator) in its orbit almost 1o per year since 

its deployment, it was used serendipitously in ways never expected. Due to 

its changing orbit, TDRS-1 was the first satellite able to connect both Poles. 

In cooperation with the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA put a 

ground station for TDRS-1 in January of 1998 at the exact location of the 

(true) South Pole. The terminal has since given scientists at the AmundsenScott Base in Antarctica the year-round ability to return high volumes of science data to the continental United States. With it, the first connection to the 

Internet—and the first live Web cast—from the North Pole was done as was 

the first Pole-to-Pole telephone call connecting the North Pole to the South 

Pole. The event was even recorded in ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’ and the 

Guinness World Records in April 1999.50 

NASA considered retiring the aging satellite in 1998, but instead 

allowed the NSF and others to use it for scientific, humanitarian and educational purposes. For example, TDRS-1 was used in 1998 for a medical emergency at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Its high-speed connectivity allowed 

scientists to conduct a telemedicine conference, allowing doctors in the U.S. 

to teleconference a welder through an operation on a woman diagnosed with 

breast cancer. 

A second working satellite placed into orbit in January 1986 would 

have meant an operational TDRSS and attendant closure of most ground stations shortly thereafter. Those plans were, however, suddenly dashed when the 

Space Shuttle Challenger met with a horrific demise 73 seconds into its mission 

on 28 January 1986 (STS-51L). At 11:38 EST that morning, it was launched 

atop Pad 39B at the KSC in the 36°F chill of the south Florida winter, the 

coldest ever for a Shuttle mission. The mission was the most publicized NASA 

flight since Sally K. Ride became the first American woman in space on STS7 two and a half years earlier. Challenger’s crew of seven was commanded by 

Shuttle veteran Francis R. “Dick” Scobee; joining him were Pilot Michael J. 

Smith; Mission Specialists Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, and Ronald E. 

McNair; and Payload Specialists S. Christa McAuliffe, a high school social studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire and Gregory B. Jarvis, an engineer 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 273 

with TRW. The primary mission of the planned week-long flight was to deploy 

and checkout TDRS-2. However, the fact that McAuliffe was going into space 

garnered the flight more national attention than usual from the media, much 

more so than on any of the previous 17 missions since STS-7. 

From liftoff until telemetry was lost, no flight controller observed 

any indication of a problem, although post-flight analysis showed telemetry 

had uncovered some anomalies regarding pressures inside the starboard SRB 

motor shortly after liftoff. The last voice transmission was received via Ponce 

de Leon as Scobee acknowledged a routine main engine throttle up call from 

the Capcom with simply a “Roger, go at throttle up.” Three seconds later, 

a horrified crowd—including many in the crewmembers’ families and students who had made the trip from New Hampshire to cheer on McAuliffe— 

watched, stunned, as Challenger erupted into a giant ball of flames. 

Many unfamiliar with the Space Shuttle at first thought this was 

the routine separation of the SRBs. However, the onlookers soon realized 

that something was happening that was anything but routine when they saw 

the SRBs emerging from the cloud without any sign of Challenger. The crew 

the Challenger crewmember remains are transferred from seven hearse vehicles to a 

C-141 at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility for transport to Dover air 

Force Base, Delaware. the accident that claimed the lives of the five NaSa astronauts 

and two payload Specialists also set back construction of the tDrSS Space Network by 

32 months. (NaSa Image Number GpN-2000-001480) 
274 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

apparently had no indication of any problems before the Orbiter rapidly broke 

apart.51 No alarms ever sounded on the flight deck. The first evidence of the 

accident came from live video coverage on the ground and when radars at the 

Cape began picking up multiple objects. 

A Presidential Commission (the Rogers Commission, named after 

Commission Chairman William P. Rogers, a former Secretary of State in the 

Nixon administration) was formed by President Reagan on 3 February 1986 

under Executive Order 12546 to investigate the accident, which by then had 

assumed national tragedy proportions. Four months later, the Commission issued 

its report which included the following conclusion on the cause of the accident: 

The consensus of the Commission and participating investigative agencies is that the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger 

was caused by a failure in the joint between the two lower segments of the right Solid Rocket Motor. The specific failure was 

the destruction of the seals that are intended to prevent hot gases 

from leaking through the joint during the propellant burn of 

the rocket motor. The evidence assembled by the Commission 

indicates that no other element of the Space Shuttle system contributed to this failure.52 

Besides the tremendous shock of having lost a flight crew for the 

first time on an actual mission—other astronauts and astronaut candidates had 

been killed before during training and on ground tests—the space agency 

had to deal with the ramifications of a nearly three-year wait as the Shuttle 

would not fly again until September of 1988. The launch manifest had to 

be rearranged. Foremost among the considerations was to resume deployment of the TDRSs as soon as possible. Getting TDRSS operational had an 

extremely high priority at NASA as its capabilities were needed by so many 

science application satellite missions and of course, the Space Shuttle itself. 

The SN simply had to be established as quickly as possible after Shuttle flights 

resumed. In what is somewhat of a bittersweet irony, the TDRSS program in 

a way benefited from the Challenger disaster in that the hiatus allowed TDRS1 to be shaken down as a prototype. The added time before the launch of the 

next spacecraft, TDRS-3, allowed problems with TDRS-1 to be fixed. This 

probably led to longer useful life of the succeeding spacecraft. 

After the accident, Shuttle launches were put on hold indefinitely. 

Since Challenger was to have launched all the early TDRS, NASA used 

this down time to begin modifying the payload bay of Discovery for it to 

assume this duty. Following the Rogers investigation and an extensive redesign to the SRBs, Return-to-Flight processing finally began in earnest in 

September of 1987. 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 275 

On 16 May 1988, TDRS-3 arrived at the KSC from California 

followed by its IUS eight days later. By the end of May, mechanical mating 

of the two was complete. The pace picked up from there. On the morning of 

July 4th, in a symbolic gesture befitting the moment, the entire STS-26 stack 

was rolled-out of the Vehicle Assembly Building to take the Shuttle’s first steps 

back into space by making its three-mile journey to Pad 39B. Countdown 

tests were conducted over the next few weeks which revealed some leaks 

with the Main Propulsion System as well as the Orbital Maneuvering System. 

However, repairs were successfully done on the pad and on August 29, technicians installed the satellite into Discovery’s payload bay. One month later, 

NASA managers gave the final go-ahead for launch.53 

At 11:37 a.m. EDT on the morning of 29 September 1988, STS26, with NASA’s most experienced crew to date, took to the skies of eastern 

Florida. After 32 long months, the Shuttle was back in space, this time flying 

with redesigned SRB field joints along with other safety and performance 

upgrades, including for the first time since STS-4, a (limited) crew escape 

capability. This time, the launch was flawless.54 

Twelve minutes later, Discovery was in orbit. Onboard was TDRS3. Six hours after reaching orbit, the crew successfully sent it on its way to 

its geosynchronous destination over the Pacific. NASA had for some time 

considered not putting the TDRS-3 payload on STS-26 since it was going to 

be the first mission following Challenger. Risk analysis showed, however, that 

it would have made little difference in terms of probability to mission success 

whether the payload was launched then or on a later mission since launch risk 

did not vary significantly from mission to mission. More importantly, getting 

TDRS-3 deployed was critical for the success of missions down the line. 

With TDRS-3 (and TDRS-1) firmly in orbit, NASA finally had 

its long-awaited, dual-satellite SN capability. The two were referred to as 

TDRS-West and a TDRS-East, respectively. But the constellation was far 

from complete. The network called for even more satellites, including onorbit spares plus a replacement for the one that was lost on Challenger. In fact, 

the original, first generation constellation called for six satellites total. Today, 

there are nine TDRSS spacecraft on orbit all together. 

In the years since, NASA has been criticized (mostly from opposition in Congress) as to why there are so many satellites “up there”? After all, 

only two are needed to provide 85 percent coverage while three can provide 

100 percent. The answer lies in something called “availability of the system.” 

As a communications network, TDRSS, from the beginning, was designed 

with a very high probability that it would be there when needed. Thus, a very 

high mark or “figure-of-merit” was put on the system—an assurance that 

it was going to be available. Former Associate Administrator Charles Force 

explained what that meant in terms of the number of satellites required: 
276 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Table 7-1: First Generation TDRSS Constellation55 

Satellite 

Launch Date 

Shuttle Mission 

Geosynchronous 

Longitude Location 

TDRS-1 (F1*) April 4, 1983 

STS-6 Challenger 

49 ̊W Off the northeast coast of 

Brazil 

TDRS-2 January 28, 1986 

STS-51L Challenger 

—

TDRS-3 (F3) September 29, 1988 

STS-26 Discovery 

85 ̊E Indian Ocean 

TDRS-4 (F4) March 13, 1989 

STS-29 Discovery 

41 ̊W Atlantic Ocean east of Brazil 

TDRS-5 (F5) August 2, 1991 

STS-43 Atlantis 

174 ̊W Pacific Ocean over the 

Phoenix Islands 

TDRS-6 (F6) January 13, 1993 

STS-54 Endeavour 

47 ̊W Off the northeast coast of 

Brazil 

TDRS-7 (F7) July 13, 1995 

STS-70 Discovery 

171 ̊W Pacific Ocean over the 

Phoenix Islands 

*GSFC designation F1 through F7 represents TDRS-1 through TDRS-7 

There are more satellites and more capacity than you need 

because you are shooting at that mark. So that mark is what drove 

the number of TDRSs which were ordered and the replenishment 

satellites. . . .The reason goes right back to the criticality of it and 

the need to make sure that the capacity was there when needed. 

My analogy to a light switch:You turn on a switch and there is a 

satellite up there to do the job.56 

Then the issue came up. What should NASA do with all these extra 

satellites—most of which were not needed yet because of the success of those 

already in orbit? The answer, in the eyes of the space agency, was quite simple: 

warehouse (store) them in orbit. Said Force: 

There were some studies done, primarily by TRW . . . which 

said . . . there’s nothing on the satellite that really wears out with 

use except the solar cells degrade slightly with time, [so] there 

was plenty of capacity there. The riskiest thing about a TDRS is 

the launch phase, as demonstrated by the fact that we lost one on 

Challenger and the first one halfway to geosync because the IUS 

failed. So the decision at that point was, we’re better off storing 

them in orbit because then you get by the infant mortality—the 

launch failures and all that sort of stuff. So that’s basically why there 

are so many TDRSs up there. If you look at the requirement, hav­
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 277 

ing 96 percent probability that you’re going to have TDRSS capacity that is needed,...then you have to have x-number of TDRSs. 

And once you’ve got them, you might as well launch them and 

store them on-orbit.57 

In fact, the operational availability of the TDRSS is not 96 percent 

but has exceeded 99 percent. This is thus a clear case where the requirement— 

and not the cost—drove the program.58 

On 13 March 1989, TDRS-4 was launched on STS-29 again 

aboard Discovery. After successfully attaining orbit, it was slowly positioned as 

TDRS-East off the coast of Brazil. After that, TDRS-1 was slowly moved to 

the spare position where it has served ever since on a limited basis under the 

inauspicious name of WART (White Sands Complex Alternative Resource 

Terminal), used by the NSF in their research activities at the South Pole. 

TDRS-5 followed on STS-43 on 2 August 1991, this time aboard 

the Shuttle Atlantis. Seventeen months later, on 13 January 1993, TDRS-6 was 

launched on STS-54 aboard Endeavour. The last of the first generation satellites, 

TDRS-7, (included with NASA’s Challenger replacement fund) went into orbit 

13 July 1995 aboard Discovery on STS-70. It was the replacement for the one 

lost on Challenger. With it, NASA’s first generation TDRSS was completed. 

Table 7-1 is a summary of the SN as it appeared during the 1990s. 

Since the satellites are capable of being repositioned and NASA at times 

changes their locations so as to maximize network efficiency or to meet specific mission demands, a good way to look at the table is that it shows the 

locations for a baseline TDRSS constellation. 

If one were to take a close look at the satellite locations making up 

the TDRSS constellation, it can be seen that they are clustered in groups of 

roughly 130o apart in longitude around the Equator. This spacing is not by 

chance and has to do with where NASA wanted to put its central network 

ground terminal. 

Take, for example, a case where two satellites are spaced 180° apart 

in geosynchronous orbit, one over the Eastern Hemisphere and the other 

over the West. In this arrangement, they would be able to provide complete 

global coverage. But due to curvature of Earth, however, two ground terminals would be required to communicate with them. If this spacing were to 

be reduced, however, from 180o to 130o, then only a single ground terminal 

would be needed. 

Goddard network planners understood this well and very early on 

in the program, decided to take advantage of this by locating a single terminal at White Sands in southern New Mexico. The White Sands Ground 

Terminal (WSGT) provides a perfect line-of-sight vantage point from the 

western United States where communications with both TDRS-East and 

TDRS-West could be maintained. To protect physical security, NASA also 
278 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

wanted a location in the continental United States. Finally, like the Mojave 

Desert of California, White Sands is relatively dry in terms of annual rainfall, 

which is important since rain can interfere with Ku-band transmission—one 

of its few disadvantages. 

In addition to meeting these requirements, White Sands had also 

continuously served NASA since 1961. Taken together, the decision to put the 

TDRSS ground terminal there was really quite logical. It is interesting to note 

that when the TDRSS Source Evaluation Board (SEB) was deciding between 

Western Union and RCA as to which would be awarded the contract, it gave 

the option for both bidders to propose putting the central ground terminal 

elsewhere, as long as it was within the continental United States. Neither bidder chose to do that, both opting instead to use the government-furnished 

land on White Sands, the birthplace of America’s missile testing activities 30 

years earlier.59 

Located 25 kilometers (16 miles) northeast of the city of Las Cruces, 

New Mexico, the WSGT is one of the largest and most complex communication terminals ever built. Run by the Space Network Project Office at the 

GSFC, the WSGT provides the acquisition and relay hardware and software 

necessary to ensure uninterrupted communications between customer spacecraft in orbit and the NASA Integrated Services Network (NISN) that interfaces to the various spacecraft control centers. In other words, it is the critical 

hub on the ground that links a user spacecraft to its control center. Without 

it, data from the TDRSS cannot reach its user and commands cannot be sent 

up to the satellite. 

The NISN provides the critical ground circuits which make the system a true network; without it, TDRSS would just be a collection of satellites and antennas. The ground terminal maintains each TDRS spacecraft in a 

nominal communication mode (Ku-band) at all times and ensures that all systems aboard the spacecraft are properly configured and functioning properly. It 

transmits the so-called “forward” link traffic to each TDRS spacecraft for relay 

to the designated user satellite. Conversely, the ground terminal receives and 

processes customer spacecraft “return” link, formats and then transmits the data 

to the NISN interface which carries the data to the rest of the user community. 

In addition to providing data services, the health and status of each 

TDRS spacecraft must be monitored. This is done by flight controllers at 

White Sands who also track “the birds” in space. As with any large space project, testing and simulation are done on a regular basis so as to evaluate the performance of all the elements that make up the system. For example, “mission 

sims” are conducted with White Sands sending commands via the tracking 

and data relay satellites to the user spacecraft, ordering it to perform certain 

functions and self-test diagnostics. If the tests involve the Shuttle or the ISS, 

these commands would originate from the JSC in Houston. Otherwise, they 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 279 

the White Sands Ground terminal (WSGt) is the central hub of NaSa’s tracking and Data 

relay Satellite System (tDrSS). It continues the space agency’s tracking and data network 

presence on the south New Mexico range, a legacy that dates back to 1961. (NaSa Image 

Number hQtC83-907) 

would come from the Project Control Centers at the GSFC or the Network 

Control Center (NCC) at White Sands.60 

From the outside, the complex is dominated by three 60-foot Kuband dish antennas. Designated “North,” “South,” and “Central,” they are 

the link from the ground to the TDRSS spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit 

35,900 kilometers in the sky. They handle every aspect of TDRSS transmissions, from voice to television to data. Satellite commands received from 

various NASA sources are also modulated onto Ku-band frequencies and 

transmitted to orbit via the system. Because of the extremely short wavelength of Ku-band signals, there is very little room for error. These antennas 

are extremely precise. Surfaces of these antenna dishes cannot deviate by more 

than 0.5 millimeter (0.02 inches) from norm (about the width of 20 human 

hairs) under the extremes of the Southwest desert climate, such as tempera­
280 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

tures and winds, plus the loading variations introduced by gravity at various 

pointing angles. In addition to tolerance, they also have very narrow beamwidths operating in the Ku-band. As a result, Harris had to build them to 

very fine specifications so that they can be pointed at anytime to within 0.03 

degree and track within 0.01 degree accuracy.61 

The complexity of the system can be illustrated by looking at what 

goes on inside the TDRSS Operations Control Center, the large building 

next to the antennas. Satellite command and control functions ordinarily 

found in the space segment of a traditional communication system are, for 

TDRSS, performed by the ground terminal. At the heart of the WSGT are 

the three redundant Space-to-Ground Link Terminals (SGLTs) each of which 

is supported by one of the Ku-band antennas to transmit and receive user traffic. Here resides over 300 racks of state-of-the-art electronics equipment that 

handle everything from data routing to precise timing synchronized to the 

United States Naval Observatory cesium clock to nanosecond—one-billionth 

of a second—accuracy. 

The three SGLTs operate autonomously and are, for the most part, 

fully redundant. This means that if one of the SGLTs were to fail, then only 

the TDRS and services supported by that SGLT would be impacted. Breaking 

down the system even further, each SGLT is capable of providing four, Single 

Access, forward and return services for customers. In addition to SA services, 

two of the three SGLTs can support up to five MA return services along with 

one forward MA service. 

From this control center, NASA can schedule TDRSS support 

for users and distribute the data from White Sands. Also at the ground terminal are several smaller S-band Tracking, Telemetry & Command System 

(STTCS) antennas. These are used to provide contingency communications 

to a TDRSS spacecraft in the event of a SGLT failure. They are also used to 

communicate with the other on-orbit spare satellites. As an everyday analogy, the STTCS is somewhat like the “service elevator” in the back of a fivestar hotel that is used for maintenance, whereas the SGLTs are like the main 

“guest elevators” that go directly from the guest floors to the front lobby. The 

White Sands ground terminal and satellites are all automatic and receive their 

operational inputs from the NCC at the GSFC. The NCC is critical to the 

operation of the system and is in many ways the brain of the system. Several 

functions are carried out by the NCC: 1) It serves as the user interface and 

command center of the system. 2) It provides overall management and monitoring of the system. 3) It sets up conflict free schedules and establishes the 

user unique configuration details (satellite assignment, start and stop times, 

antenna assignment, pointing information) required for the satellites. To this 

end, over 40 unique configurable items can be provided by the NCC. 62 

As technically challenging as the whole process seemed, the Agency 

had good evidence that it was all going to work out. A data relay satellite, ATS­
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 281 

6, had been used with success in 1975 on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Two 

years later, on 6 December 1977, the Seasat Program provided for data transmission via satellite from Alaska simultaneously to the GSFC and the Naval 

Fleet Numerical Weather Center in Monterey California. Even though the data 

rate was a low 1.544 Mbps, the transmissions served as a feasibility demonstration for the WSGT which would end up using the same types of circuits.63 

On 17 August 1981, four years after ground break on the project, Ed 

Smylie, Associate Administrator for Tracking and Data Acquisition, presided 

over the acceptance ceremony of the White Sands TDRSS Ground Terminal. 

Other NASA dignitaries included Jesse C. Jones, the new Facility Manager 

and his Deputy Louis Gomez. The opening of this new communications terminal—the largest of its kind anywhere in the world—was a much needed 

infusion to the south New Mexico economy which has been tied so closely to 

the DOD. In 1981, for instance, the value of NASA’s contracts and grants to 

institutions in New Mexico, and White Sands in particular, provided between 

$20 to $30 million per year and accounted for 600 jobs and 66 contracts in the 

private sector and universities such as New Mexico State University in nearby 

Las Cruces and the New Mexico Institute of Technology in Socorro.64 

With Holloman Air Force Base—operating right outside the gates 

of White Sands Missile Range—soon to be designated as the home for the 

Air Force’s then most advanced and stealthy aircraft, the F-117A Nighthawk 

(better known as the Stealth Fighter), the flatlands of Otero County soon 

boasted some of the most advanced technology found anywhere. Added to this 

was the diverse work NASA was doing with the Department of the Interior 

in the use of remote sensing for diverse applications such as timber management, land cover classification, grasslands range management, and deer habitat 

identification. 

On the cultural realm, satellite remote sensing technology supported by TDRSS was used by the National Parks Service to uncover features of prehistoric ruins not visible by conventional aerial photography. As 

an example, Smylie pointed out in his dedication speech the new insight into 

the society of the Anasazi Indians that had been gained by remote sensing. 

TDRSS continues to support Earth science research today.65 

★ ★ ★

With six TDRSS spacecraft now in orbit, the question of reliability 

and the need to support more than just three operational satellites (TDRS-East, 

TDRS-West and the spare) became an issue. The WSGT had three antenna 

systems, perfect for supporting these three operational spacecraft. But now six 

TDRSs were in orbit all needing support from the ground. This, combined 

with a host of data-intensive missions that NASA was planning—missions 

such as the Great Observatories, Spacelab and Spacehab (orbital workshops 
282 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

attached to the Shuttle payload bay), Space Station Freedom (the canceled, U.S.­

only forerunner to the ISS) and the Cosmic Background Explorer—and the 

huge amounts of data returned to Earth all pointed to the need for a second 

TDRSS ground terminal. In August of 1987, NASA approved Project 9717 to 

construct a Second TDRSS Ground Terminal at White Sands. 

The STGT, as it would be called, is identical to the first terminal and 

is in fact located just five kilometers (three miles) to the north. Its purpose is 

really twofold: In addition to keeping up with America’s spaceflight communication requirements in the 1990s and beyond, it would serve as a backup to the 

WSGT, eliminating it as a single point of failure in the event of a breakdown 

or during planned outages for system upgrades and repairs.66 This point was 

driven home on 1 September 1983. On that day, controllers were busy checking out the TDRS-1 spacecraft after it had finally made it to its duty station 

in geosynchronous orbit, when a sudden failure at the WSGT caused a threehour communication outage with the Shuttle (STS-8). Flight controllers did 

not wake the crew, however, since all indications through other communication links (transponders were in place which could operate in either TDRS or 

ground network mode) showed that everything was otherwise normal onboard 

the vehicle and that this was strictly a communications problem.67 Nevertheless, 

it was a good lesson that a backup was needed. In fact, this second ground terminal was considered so important that design specifications called for it to have 

greater than 0.9999 reliability, or less than one hour per year of down time.68 

In 1987, the TDRSS program office initiated competitive definition 

phase studies for the development of a STGT. A year later, General Electric’s 

Military and Data Systems Operations of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, received 

the prime contract to build the second terminal. This included all the design, 

development, installation, and testing of the $245 million worth of communication and computer hardware along with all the software. The $14 million 

building construction contract was awarded to Argee Corporation, a civil and 

mining construction company of Denver, Colorado.69 

As massive as the original, this new terminal also boasted a 7,430- 

square meter (80,000-square foot) operations building, a 2,320-square meter 

(25,000-square foot) technical support building and an 830-square meter (9,000­

square foot) power plant. Coming on the heels of the Challenger accident, and 

with the rather significant windfall to southern New Mexico economy, ground 

breaking for the new terminal on 9 September 1987 was quite the public affairs 

event. Speakers included Robert O. Aller, NASA Associate Administrator for 

Space Tracking and Data Systems; GSFC Deputy Director John J. Quann; and 

Captain Frederick H. “Rick” Hauck, Commander of the first mission following Challenger. In addition to representatives from State and U.S. Congress, dignitaries included Major General Joseph S. Owens, Commander of the White 

Sands Missile Range; John P. Stapp and Gregory P. Kennedy from Alamogordo’s 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 283 

photograph of the Second tDrSS Ground terminal (StGt) at the White Sands Missile 

range in Southern New Mexico. towering over the main Operations Building are the 

three 18.3-meter (60-foot) Ku-band antennas. the San andres Mountains are in the 

background. (photograph courtesy of NaSa) 

own International Space Hall of Fame (one of New Mexico’s top tourist attractions); and even archaeologists from nearby Las Cruces.70 

Before any concrete could be poured, though, NASA had an 

obligation, this one regarding the environment. In keeping with its federal 

mandate to protect cultural and natural resources, test excavations had to be 

conducted near the site of the terminal to see if construction would adversely 

impact any significant archaeological or historical sites. To this end, the space 

agency hired the firm of Batcho & Kauffman from Las Cruces to serve as 

archaeological consultants for this new Space Age project. 

Sure enough, excavations soon uncovered Native American artifacts on the site. Further digs revealed that NASA had in fact stumbled onto 

quite the archaeological find. In their report, the archaeologists noted that: 

“ . . . it soon became apparent that one of the sites contained the undisturbed 

remains of a pithouse settlement, while the other—located a few miles farther 

south—contained the remains of a temporary camp, probably once used to 

gather and process wild foods.”71 

Further research showed these pithouses to be a common type of 

dwelling used by prehistoric Indians in the Southwest United States. Charred 
284 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

roofing material was also found which carbon dated to some time between 

650 and 750 A.D., meaning the site was more than 1,300 years old! In addition 

to the pithouse settlements themselves, a broad area around the dig was also 

excavated in what archaeologists call the “activity areas.” The completeness of 

the find was confirmed as the activity areas contained the remains of outdoor 

camp and cooking fires, as well as large quantities of debris including pieces 

of broken pottery, several arrowheads and discarded or broken stone tools and 

the chips of stones leftover from making them. Also found was a large amount 

of burnt and unburnt animal bones—the last remains of many meals. 

Because of the find, NASA had to move to a second, nearby site. 

It too was excavated. Though not as robust as the first site, a well-preserved 

roasting pit, about 1,000 years old, was found. Based on information from 

early settlers in the area, archaeologists were able to trace the find back to the 

original Mescalero Apaches of the Southwest. 

Construction of the terminal eventually embarked on a plot of land 

near the archaeological find. As serendipity would have it, what started out as 

NASA simply fulfilling a legal obligation unexpectedly turned into a portal 

to the past. As one of the archaeologists on the project put it: “While construction is about to begin on this new, high technology facility—to give us 

another window into space—archaeologists have, likewise, been able to open 

a small, yet intimate, window into the dim past.”72 

Two and a half years after the ground breaking ceremony, Agency 

officials once again returned to White Sands, this time to hold a formal ribbon cutting ceremony dedicating the new and second White Sands terminal. 

Present at the February 1990 ceremony were NASA Administrator Richard 

H. Truly and his wife; Goddard Center Director John W. Townsend, Jr.; a 

contingent of New Mexico officials from Albuquerque and Las Cruces; and 

astronauts John E. Blaha and James F. Buchli, crewmembers of STS-29 that 

deployed TDRS-4.73 

With civil construction finished and the new terminal set to open, 

the Agency wanted something special to tie the White Sands Complex (note the 

new name) to the Native American and Southwestern roots of New Mexico. 

After considering several options, the Office of Space Communications, along 

with the nonprofit New Mexico Space Grant Consortium and New Mexico 

State University, decided to sponsor a “Name the Ground Terminals” contest. 

In keeping with the spirit of the “Land of Enchantment” and the 

Agency’s charter, entries had to 1) Relate to Native American, Hispanic or 

African American local culture; 2) Be appropriate for space communications 

and America’s involvement in space; 3) Limited to one to two words in length; 

and 4) Show relationship between the two names. Teams from elementary, 

middle and high schools in qualifying school districts of southern New Mexico 

competed. These teams had to abide by some simple rules, such as four students per team along with a team coordinator. Teachers were responsible for 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 285 

guiding their team’s activities and for submitting their entry. And each team 

could submit only two names, one for each ground terminal.74 

Just as NASA had hoped, the contest proved to be popular, especially among elementary and middle schoolers. More than 100 entries were 

received. From these, two names—submitted by a team of four girls from Zia 

Middle School in Las Cruces—were selected: Cacique (kah-see-keh) which 

means “leader” and Danzante (dahn-zahn-teh) which means “dancer”. Roots 

of the winning names can be traced back to the Tortugas Indians who preserve their culture through traditional dance. In reaching the names, “the 

students compared the TDRSS to the Tortugas dancers. The dancers comthe Compton Gamma-ray Observatory (CGrO) is deployed by the remote Manipulator 

System aboard the Space Shuttle atlantis during StS-37 in april 1991. For nearly nine 

years, the observatory studied gamma-rays from objects like black holes, pulsars, quasars, neutron stars, and other celestial objects. the information returned has provided 

scientists clues to the birth, evolution and death of stars, galaxies, and the universe. 

It reentered earth’s atmosphere and ended its very successful mission in June 2000. 

(NaSa Image Number MSFC-0003356) 
286 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

municate through complex maneuvers as do the TDRSS satellites, [and] the 

ground terminals are the leaders of this orbital dance,” said Wilson T. Lundy, 

Manager of the White Sands Complex, in an interview after the winning 

entrants were selected.75 

NASA was elated. As Charles Force put it, “To those familiar with 

the culture of the Southwest, these names will give meaning to the purpose of 

the stations. To those who understand the role of the stations, the names will 

convey appreciation for the culture of the area.”76 Although the names of the 

stations were never really embraced by the technical community, the contest 

was politically successful and had more than fulfilled its purpose. 

As for the four girls from Zia Middle School, they received a two-day, 

all expenses paid trip to tour the JSC in neighboring Texas. In a ceremony on 17 

May 1993, the names for the White Sands terminals were officially announced, 

with presentation of awards to the students by retired Apollo 8 Commander and 

Las Cruces businessman Frank Borman.A year later, the Danzante terminal was 

accepted by NASA and declared a fully operational part of the TDRSS. 

★ ★ ★

On the morning of 5 April 1991, the Shuttle Atlantis took off on a 

six-day mission, the highlight of which was deployment of the CGRO. Named 

after Ohio Nobel Prize laureate Arthur Holly Compton for his research demonstrating the particle behavior of electromagnetic radiation, the second of NASA’s 

“Great Observatories” to be launched into space, the CGRO, at 17 metric tons 

(37,500 pounds), was the heaviest astrophysical payload ever flown into space. 

The Great Observatories of NASA were four of the largest and 

most powerful space-based telescopes ever put into orbit. Each was similar 

in terms of its size, cost and scope of the program, and all have since made a 

substantial contribution to our understanding of the deep space environment, 

greatly expanding our knowledge of the known universe. Each of these four 

space-based observatories was designed to investigate a specific region of the 

electromagnetic spectrum. 

Undoubtedly the best known of the four is the first one to be put 

into space: the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Launched aboard 

STS-31 on 24 April 1990, the HST primarily observes the visible spectrum. 

Besides the incredible photographs that have since come from the telescope, 

it also received a lot of media scrutiny early-on over its “blurred vision,” a 

manifestation of a manufacturing imperfection in which the objective mirror 

was ground too flat by 2.2-microns, or 1/50th the width of a human hair. 

Demonstrating the irreplaceable value of human spaceflight, this error was corrected when the crew of STS-61, over the course of four spacewalks, installed 

and checked out corrective optics to the telescope in December 1993. 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 287 

Besides the HST and CGRO,there is the Chandra X-ray Observatory, 

launched on 23 July 1999 aboard STS-93 and the Space Infrared Telescope 

Facility (SIRTF) whose primary mission, as its name implies, is observation of 

the infrared spectrum. (The SIRTF, launched on 25 August 2003 aboard a Delta 

II rocket, was later renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope.)77 Aside from performing each telescope’s own mission, most of which cannot be replicated by ground 

observatories, the Great Observatories program allows the four to synergistically 

interact with each other for greater combined scientific returns.Each astronomical object in the sky radiates in different wavelengths. But by training two or 

more observatories on an object,combined data can be returned to paint a much 

more comprehensive picture than is possible with just a single instrument.78 

After its deployment from STS-37, the CGRO operated as advertised for almost a year, returning more data on that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum than the previous six decades put together. But in March 

1992, it suffered a failure of its two onboard tape recorders which restricted 

downlinks of scientific data to real time only. With the tape recorders gone, 

CGRO was able to relay only slightly more than half of the science data it 

collected, because it could not point at a TDRS all the time. 

While TDRSS coverage had been about 65 percent of each orbit, 

scientists could not even collect that percentage of data anymore because 

Compton’s instruments had to be turned off during the part of each orbit 

when it passed through the elevated background radiation of the South 

Atlantic Anomaly—a region of significantly increased space radiation experienced by satellites passing over the South Atlantic Ocean.79 This reduction 

in data return presented an obstacle to the Goddard science team. NASA, 

understandably, wanted to get back to the point where all of the data could 

be retrieved. Furthermore, real-time data dumps could only be done at the 

very slow rate of 32 kilobits-per-second whereas the playback rate was 512 

kilobits-per-second.80 

Considering all these factors, in March 1992, Goddard’s Mission 

Operations and Data Systems Division was tasked to study approaches to solve 

this problem utilizing any combination of ground or space resources available. 

Analysis quickly ruled out an independent, Compton-only, ground station as a 

solution due to potential high cost with a relatively small increase in additional 

coverage. An on-orbit Shuttle repair was also looked at but proved too costly, 

even if just one time. But the same study showed that a TDRSS solution could 

produce (up to) full, 100 percent coverage for the Compton observatory.81 

The solution was this. One of the existing TDRS spacecraft had 

to be moved and located somewhere over the Indian Ocean. Despite the fact 

that TDRS-1 was near the end of its 10 year design life, it was apparent that 

its remaining functionality—fuel, health, and condition of onboard instruments—was still meeting the requirements needed for an Indian Ocean satellite. Since this location could not be viewed by the White Sands Complex 
171 ̊W 

TDRS-3 

TDRS-5 

174 ̊W 

Backup 

TDRS-6 

Backup 

62 ̊W 

TDRS-4 

41 ̊W 

TDRS-1 

85 ̊E 

(Compton-GRO) 

Compton GRO 

Remote Tracking Station 

Tidbinbilla, Australia 

White Sands, NM 

Ground Terminal Complex 

288 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the first generation tracking and Data relay Satellite System (tDrSS) constellation 

as it appeared in 1994, with five orbiting satellites—two operational and three backups— 

in communication with the White Sands Ground terminal (WSGt) and the GrO remote 

terminal System. (Space Shuttle Mission StS-54 press Kit, January 1993, NaSa 

headquarters) 

(being inside the so-called Zone of Exclusion from North America), the solution was to consider a ground terminal which could see a TDRS spacecraft if 

placed over the Indian Ocean. 

The existing DSN sites at Madrid and Canberra could observe the 

TDRS and were thus (initially) the prime candidates. Of the two, Canberra 

had a slightly better line-of-sight. In addition, it had the advantage of being 

located in an English speaking country and had a NASA-like culture in its 

operating infrastructure, the Australian Space Office (ASO). Other ground 

locations were examined too, for example eastern Africa, but were disqualified mainly because they were not under direct NASA control.82 

Following completion of the study that summer, Goddard sent out 

a site survey team, which along with members of the ASO, visited five sites 

throughout the commonwealth. Reminiscent of the old STADAN days, the 

team considered such factors as existing hardware, accessibility to long distance communications, transportation and overall logistical support requirements. Based on this survey, the NASA site at the Canberra Deep Space 

Communication Complex (CDSCC) was selected. The pace of establishing the 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 289 

site was of a high priority since a period of “best science” solar activity was then 

fast approaching. 

The $12 million, GRO Remote Terminal System (GRTS) project 

was started without delay on 1 September 1992. Scheduled for completion in 

13 months, the station was built leveraging maximum use of existing equipment. Essentially all of the TT&C equipment was transferred from existing 

resources at other Goddard facilities. Redundancy in design was exploited, 

to the extent feasible and practical, so as to attain good mission assurance. In 

addition, the TT&C equipment used was purposely identical to the existing 

equipment on the CDSCC Deep Space side so that any additional training, 

repair and logistics would be minimized. All of the remaining hardware, such 

as the 9-meter (30-foot) S-band and 5-meter (16.4-foot) Ku-band antennas, 

were bought using existing, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) designs. In 

fact, the overall design of the GRTS was based on that recently used to complete the STGT at the White Sands Complex. 

With the help of Raytheon Service Company as the procurement 

agent and Allied Signal Technical Services Corporation providing technical 

support, Goddard was able to complete the entire procurement process— 

specifications, solicitations, and negotiation—by January 1993. The Australian 

contribution was significant too, as all of the construction was done in four 

months. This included two antennas, two new S- and Ku-band transmitter 

buildings and a two-kilometer fiber optic cable-run to a remote calibration 

site—an amazing feat in that amount of time.83 

On 29 November 1993, White Sands sent a series of commands to 

begin drifting TDRS-1 from its location over the Phoenix Islands in the Pacific 

to the Indian Ocean. The trip took 73 days. A week later, the nearly completed 

GRTS at Tidbinbilla made first contact with the satellite. Then on 9 February 

1994, commands were sent to stabilize the spacecraft at its duty station 85° East 

longitude over the middle of the Indian Ocean. TDRS-1 was now perched atop 

the Eastern Hemisphere and NASA finally had a truly global SN. Data from 

the Compton was received by TDRS-1, downlinked to Tidbinbilla, relayed up 

to an Intelsat commercial satellite where it was downlinked to a commercial 

terminal on the West Coast and then routed to White Sands. From there, the 

data was distributed to scientists around the world. Control of TDRS-1 and the 

Tidbinbilla ground terminal remained at White Sands, marking the first time 

NASA controlled an out-of-view TDRS from that location. 

On 14 March 1994, the Agency officially announced the opening 

of the new, remote ground station in Tidbinbilla, Australia. “With activation 

of this ground facility, the TDRS System can, for the first time, provide global 

coverage,” said Charles Force in declaring the new TDRSS station operational. “While the new ground station is devoted to Compton at this time, it 

has the potential for use by other Earth-orbiting spacecraft.”84 
290 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Compton scientists were elated. Frank J. Stocklin, a mission manager 

at Goddard compared the added capability to the repair of the Hubble Space 

Telescope: 

We’re very pleased that this project came in on budget and 

on time and that we are able to collect additional, significant data 

from Compton in a cost-effective manner. It’s difficult to place a 

dollar value on the additional science data obtained in this effort, 

but the restoration of data recovery capability is similar to that 

done for the HST, and marks the second successful recovery of a 

major NASA observatory.85 

Almost immediately, Compton scientists saw a 30 percent jump in 

data returned from their observatory. As useful as the Tidbinbilla station at the 

CDSCC was, though, it still had its fair share of drawbacks. First, the location 

resulted in a lower than desirable elevation look angle to the TDRS in orbit. 

Another problem was related to the inability of TDRS-1 to point its Space 

Ground Link (SGL) antenna far enough south to Canberra to maximize the 

coverage duration for users besides just the Compton observatory. While not 

a serious problem, another location could be better. Then there was the cost 

factor. The ongoing grip of a fiscal mandate to reduce annual maintenance 

and operating costs required some form of ground station automation. And 

finally, there was the geopolitical factor. While the British Commonwealth is 

among the strongest of America’s allies—cooperation of Australia with NASA 

had been impeccable since the days of Minitrack—the United States wanted 

something as important as an overseas TDRSS ground terminal on American 

soil, if at all possible. TDRSS had become a national resource. Although not 

a military asset, the missions and programs it supported had national security 

implications. A “U.S. territory-based solution” was highly desirable. 

Guam, once again, stood out. In addition to being a longtime U.S. 

territory, there is the stability offered by virtue of having key DOD presence 

on the island. From its location in the Mariana Islands, Guam is closer to the 

Equator and longitude to a TDRS spacecraft over the Indian Ocean, allowing 

it to accommodate much higher antenna elevation angles than is possible from 

Australia. Besides, the Agency had only just left the island in 1989, finally 

closing down the Guam STDN station after 24 years as one of the most successful stations in the history of the Agency’s networks. Thomas A. Gitlin, 

Goddard’s former ground terminal Project Manager summarized it concisely: 

“NASA built the Guam ground station to significantly expand the quantity 

and quality of services we provide to all our customers.”86 

In 1995, NASA was ready to begin funding for a new Guam Remote 

Ground Terminal, or GRGT. With the acceptance of the second terminal at 

White Sands the previous year and the launch of TDRS-7 to complete the 
Single Access Antenna 

Multiple Access Antenna Space-to-Ground Link Antenna 

Omni Antenna 

On-Board Operational Enhancements 

Single Access Antenna 

Multiple Access 

Antenna 

• 32 receive 

antenna elements

• 15 transmit 

antenna elements

• S-band 

communications: 

- 2.1064 GHz 

(Forward)

- 2.2875 GHz 

(Return) 

• LHC polarization 

• ±13o conical 

Field-of-view

Single Access Antenna 

• Tri-frequency 

communications: 

- S-band: 2.025–2.120 

GHz (Forward), 

2.200–2.300 GHz 

(Return) 

- Ku-band: 13.775 GHz 

(Forward), 15.0034 GHz

(Return) 

- Ka-band: 22.55–23.55 

GHz (Forward), 

25.25–27.50 GHz 

(Return) 

• Circular polarization 

(LHC or RHC) 

• Field of View: 

- Primary: ±22o E-W, 

±28o N-S rectangular 

- Outboard: 76.8o E-W 

- Inboard: 24o E-W 

- Extended: ±30.5o N-S 

elliptical 

Space-Ground 

Link Antenna 

• 2.4m Ku-band 

antenna: 

- 14.6–15.25 GHz 

(uplink) 

- 13.4–14.05 GHz 

(downlink) 

• WSC/GRGT-TDRS 

uplink/downlink 

• Orthogonal, linear 

polarization 

• Modified 

frequency plan 

allows collocation 

lEnhancements

• On-board 

SA antenna 

control 

• Autonomous 

recovery from

anomalies 

• Improved 

monitoring 

Omni


Antenna


• S-band 

TT&C 

• LHC 

polarization 

the second generation tracking and Data relay Satellite. (tDrS-h, I, J). (adapted from 

Space Network User’s Guide, SNUG-450, revision 8, NaSa Goddard Space Flight Center) 

Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 291 
292 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

satellite constellation, $9 million of SN funds became available for this project. 

The remaining $12.4 million needed (for a total of $21.4 million) also came 

from within the SN program office, but in two parts—from phase-down of the 

Compton GRTS in Tidbinbilla and from an unexpected source: greater-thananticipated reimbursements by the Columbia Communications Corporation 

for revenues from their agreement with NASA for the lease of excess C-band 

services on the TDRSS. This last point could be called the “remnant” of the 

Western Union debacle, albeit a positive one. Under the original TDRSS contract, a reimbursable, long-term plan for using the commercial capability built 

into the original Western Union TDRS design was negotiated. Despite a long, 

drawn-out, legal process to recover the expected commercial reimbursement 

(involving the Small Business Administration and the courts), the nightmarish 

process did eventually return funds to the Agency and was a good use for a Cband system that was otherwise totally superfluous.87 

The GRGT was designed from the beginning to be a fully automated, remote station, identical in most respects to its White Sands counterpart in the United States. Situated on the secure grounds of the Computer 

and Telecommunications Area, Master Station Receiver Site of the U.S. Navy 

base, the station is distinguished by two large radomes which enclose the 5­

meter (16.4-foot) Ku-band and 9-meter (30-foot) S-band antennas, protecting 

them from the typhoons of the central Pacific. Equal in performance with the 

terminals in New Mexico, the Guam terminal provides relay services in the 

form of two S-band and two Ku-band forward and return links. High rate, 

forward service to customer satellites is done at 25 million bits-per-second 

(Mb/s) while the return service rate is double that, at 50 Mb/s. 

Three years after getting the go-ahead, the GRGT was officially opened in a ribbon-cutting ceremony held on 15 July 1998. Although 

Governor Guerrero was not present this time, the legacy he helped set in 

bringing NASA’s first tracking station to the island three decades earlier had, 

in a way, come full circle. With the Guam terminal operational, the SN’s 

Zone of Exclusion was closed and TDRSS could now provide 100 percent 

coverage regardless of where a satellite is in low-Earth orbit. With the project 

completed, the original Compton remote terminal in Tidbinbella was shut 

down as planned.88 

★ ★ ★

Even before the first TDRS was deployed by the crew of STS-6 

in April 1983, NASA was already planning for the day when the original 

TDRSS spacecraft would need to be replaced or replenished after their projected 10-year service life expired. The space agency (and space communications in general) could take advantage of an increase in capabilities brought on 

by a more advanced, second generation of TDRSS spacecraft. A big factor was 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 293 

that with TDRS-1 through 7, communication links for the Space Shuttle, the 

HST and its Great Observatory companions, and other Earth-orbiting space 

missions are limited to the S- and Ku-bands. 

In 1981 and 1982, the Office of Space Tracking and Data Systems 

(OSTDA) conducted a “Prephase A Advanced Study” to look at an advanced 

TDRS System in which communications would utilize the even more efficient 

Ka-band of the radio frequency spectrum.Even at that time,the increasing number of users in the S-band was starting to crowd that part of the RF spectrum. 

It was obvious that the congestion was only going to get worse as the number 

of satellite users increased in the coming years.With the second generation—or 

TDRS-II—spacecraft, users would be able to take advantage of Ka-band links to 

transmit at higher data rates.Along with the higher frequency, smaller antennas 

could be used than those required at Ku-band—just like smaller antennas are 

required for Ku-band compared to S-band (and VHF before that).89 

Following the cessation of all Shuttle flights that ensued after 

Challenger, a Phase A Preliminary Analysis for the TDRS-II was conducted, 

even as the initial satellite constellation was still being completed. A Phase 

B Definition Study followed in August of 1990. With this year-long study, 

specific requirements of a TDRS-II spacecraft were defined, along with specifications and a roadmap of the potential migration of services to the Kaband. Issues which would affect this migration of services to Ka-band were 

addressed, such as availability of commercial off-the-shelf space-qualified 

antennas and equipment with acceptable performance, weight, size, power 

consumption, and cost. On the user end, the study looked at the development 

and qualification of customer antennas which would be needed. 

The replenishment program would have three TDRS-II spacecraft—designated TDRS-H, I and J—that would support customer services 

currently provided by TDRS-1 through 7. The three new satellites would be 

functionally equivalent to the original spacecraft with the exception of the 

added Ka-band communications capability and an improved MA capability. 

But there was a major difference, one primarily philosophical. The original 

TDRS spacecraft—not including TDRS-7—hosted a Ku-band commercial 

payload which was to have been used by Western Union but was never activated, and a commercial C-band antenna and payload package, two of which 

are operated by a commercial service provider. To stay far away from the 

“shared system” approach this time, TDRS-H, I and J were dedicated from 

the beginning to NASA missions and did not include a commercial Ku or Cband payload. To minimize impact to the user community, the spacecraft was 

designed such that Ka-band used the same SGL design that the original Kuband used. In this way, transmissions at the new frequency were essentially 

transparent to the ground station.90 

Looking like a high-end version of the original spacecraft, the 

second generation TDRSS spacecraft was still dominated by two 4.5-meter 
294 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

(14.8-foot) diameter steerable SA antennas and a pair of wing-like, solar arrays 

spanning almost 21 meters (68 feet) from one end to the other. But with a 

fully-fueled launch weight of 3,175 kilograms (7,000 pounds), it was nearly 

900 kilograms (2,000 pounds) heavier than the original.91 Based on the then 

newly developed Hughes Spacecraft 601 bus structure, the electrical power, 

tDrS-h, I, and J could provide over two and a half times the data relay capability of 

its predecessors by using Ka-band and other new features. (photograph courtesy of 

NaSa, www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20021127tdrs_j.html, accessed October 2, 2005)
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 295 

attitude determination and control system, and the TT&C units were all 

mounted on the central bus structure, as were the solar arrays. 

While the original TDRS used hydrazine monopropellant, the 

new spacecraft now used the higher performing bi-propellant combination 

of monomethyl hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer for attitude 

control and main propulsion. This was a proven propellant combination that 

has been used in the Apollo spacecraft and the Space Shuttle. The RCS used 

this propulsion system to feed a 110-pound thrust (490-newton) liquid apogee kick motor (used for orbit insertion), along with four 2-pound thrusters 

(9-newton) and eight 5-pound thrusters (22-newton) mounted around the 

periphery of the main spacecraft bus to support on-orbit operations over its 

15-year service life.92 

In addition to the RCS jets, attitude control was passively maintained using a gimbaled momentum wheel for three-axis torquing and angular momentum “storage.” Continuously operating gyros—updated by Earth 

and Sun sensors on the spacecraft—provided highly accurate, three-axis attitude sensing to point the spacecraft and its antennas in the proper attitude 

Unlike the first generation of 

tracking and Data relay Satellites, 

tDrS-h, I and J were launched 

using expendable launch vehicles. 

here, tDrS-h rises from paD36a, 

Cape Canaveral air Force Station at 

8:56 a.m. eDt on 30 June 2000 atop 

an atlas IIa/Centaur launch vehicle. 

the new satellites augmented 

tDrSS’s existing S- and Ku-band 

capabilities by adding a Ka-band 

capability. (NaSa Image Number 

KSC-00pp-0825) 
TDRS Programs Managed by Goddard Spaceflight Center 

1970 1975 

Basic Program 

(1967–1974)

Phase A & B (1974–1976)

Definition Studies TDRS 

RFP/SEB 

(12/1976)

Contract


Award


1980 

(4/1979)

S/C CDR 

(10/1980)

S/C FDR 

1985 

(4/1983)

TDRS-1 

Launch 

STS-6 

(Challenger) 

(1986–1987)

Program


Planning


Phase


S/C & (7/1981)

Ground WSGT 

PDR Acceptance (1/1986)

TDRS-2 

Lost Aboard 

STS-51L 

(Challenger) 

Replacement Program 

(4/1977)

Advanced TDRS/TDRS-II Replenishment Program 

(1981–1982)

Pre-Phase A Advanced Study 

Tracking and Data Acquisition 

Satellite (TDAS) 

Acronyms:

CDR–Critical Design Review 

FDR–Final Design Review SEB–Source Evaluation Board 

GRGT–Guam Remote Ground Terminal STGT–Second TDRSS Ground Terminal 

NAR–Non-Advocate Review STS–Space Transportation System 

PDR–Preliminary Design Review TDRS–Tracking and Data Relay Satellite 

PER–Pre-Environmental Review TDRSS–Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System 

RFP–Request for Proposal WSGT–White Sands Ground Terminal 

296 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Chronology of the NaSa tracking and Data relay Satellite System (tDrSS), from concept to reality. (NaSa Goddard Space Flight Center) 
1990 1995 2000 2005 

(3/1989) (8/1991) (1/1993)

TDRS-4 TDRS-5 TDRS-6 

Launch Launch Launch 

STS-29 STS-43 STS-54 

(Discovery) (Atlantis) (Endeavour) 

(9/1988)

TDRS-3 

Launch 

STS-26 

(2/1996)

WSGT


Upgrade


Acceptance 

(6/1998)

GRGT


Acceptance


(Discovery) (4/1994)

STGT 

Acceptance 

(7/1995)

TDRS-7 Launch 


STS-70 (Discovery)


(7/1987)

Contract


Start


(7/1989)

CDR 

(7/1988) PER PDR 

(1987–1989) (4–12/1994) (1990–1991)

Phase A Phase B TDRS (2/1995)

Preliminary Definition (5/1992) H,I,J Contract 

Analysis Red/Blue RFP/ Award SEB Teams Review (7/1995)

Contract 

(12/1991) (6/1994) Start 

NAR Delta (10/1992) (7/1996)

Program NAR PDR 

Redirection 

(8/1993)

(6/1997)

CDR 

(11/1998)

PER 

(3/2002)

TDRS-I 

Launch 

(Atlas IIA) 

(6/2000)

TDRS-H (12/2002)

Launch TDRS-J 

(Atlas IIA) Launch 

(Atlas IIA) 

Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 297 
298 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

in the weightlessness of space. Since the nature of Ka-band transmissions 

required a narrower beam and thus tighter pointing accuracy than Ku or 

S-band, the rate gyros used on TDRSS-II were much more robust and had 

significantly fewer moving parts (that can wear out) than those on the first 

generation satellites.93 

Integrated into the main bus structure was a system of heat pipes, 

multi-layer insulation, radiators and thermostatic heater controls that provided 

thermal control to the spacecraft—a necessity in the harsh environment of 

geosynchronous orbit. Then there were the two wing-like power arrays covered with silicon solar cells designed to last 15 years. They provided approximately 2,300 watts of power, enough to light some 30 common household 

light bulbs. Besides providing electrical power to the spacecraft, they also 

charged four nickel-hydrogen battery packs which supplied power when the 

spacecraft was in darkness.94 

Just like the first generation TDRS, the most prominent part of 

spacecraft H, I, and J were the two, mechanically steerable SA antennas. Made 

of a flexible, graphite reinforced, epoxy mesh, the antennas were furled into a 

taco-like shape and stored for launch. Once deployed, they unfurled and with 

an innovative “spring-back” design, fine adjustments could be made to compensate for on-orbit changes in the dish contour from things like heating and 

cooling in the vacuum of space. The SA antennas used a tri-band electronic 

feed—the device at the focus of the antenna which receives and transmits 

signals—to accommodate frequencies in S-, Ku- and Ka-bands. With S-band, 

user satellites with lower gain (less sensitive) antennas, or MA users temporarily requiring an increased data rate, could be accommodated.95 

It was used, for instance, to support human missions, science data 

missions such as the HST, and satellite data dumps. With Ka-band, higher 

bandwidth items such as high-resolution digital television—including all 

Space Shuttle video—could be relayed. Also, more transmission traffic and 

higher volumes of data could be dumped to the ground. Finally, with the 

significant increase in transmission performance (so called “figure-of-merit” 

increase) afforded by Ka-band, transmission rates approaching the realm of a 

billion bits-per-second (1 Gbps) were possible. At the TDRS-II specification 

of 800 million bits-per-second, it was over two and half times faster than what 

was possible with the original TDRS operating at Ku-band.96 Again using the 

encyclopedia analogy, that was somewhat akin to downloading ten 20-volume 

encyclopedias each second. 

Requests for proposals to build the three next generation satellites 

were issued in April of 1994. After a six-month evaluation, the SEB consisting of members from GSFC and NASA Headquarters presented its recommendation to the Source Selection Official, Charles Force. Force and the SEB 

were convinced that Hughes Space and Communications of Los Angeles (now 

Boeing Satellite Systems after its acquisition in 2000) was the best contractor 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 299 

for the job. Not wanting a repeat of the whole Western Union affair, the 

agency this time went with a well-established satellite manufacturer and the 

producer of the commercially proven 601 spacecraft bus design. (Founded 

by billionaire aviator Howard R. Hughes, Jr., the company was in fact the 

world’s largest supplier of commercial satellites in 1995.) 

Work started in July, five months after the official announcement. 

This time, the progress was smooth. Over the next two years, the contractor worked with GSFC to move TDRS-II from a set of requirements onto 

the drawing table and finally into a design which would fly. After passing the 

Critical Design Review in June 1997, the pace picked up as manufacturing 

and testing on the first new satellite, TDRS-H, entered final production.97 

One major difference between the second generation TDRS spacecraft and their predecessors was in the way they went into space. The original 

TDRS were launched by the Space Shuttle exclusively. In a move that can still 

be traced back to the Challenger accident, TDRS-H, I, and J were launched 

by an intermediate class of expendable launch vehicles, the Lockheed Martin 

Atlas II-A. Developed to fulfill an expendable launch vehicle requirement to 

supplement United States launch capability following the accident, the Atlas 

II-A, along with its variants, was a two-and-a half stage liquid propellant 

rocket. (The Centaur upper-stage was a so-called “half stage” since it was 

used to position the payload into a separation orbit after booster burnout.) 

Following separation from the Atlas, the TDRS spacecraft was injected into 

its final orbit using its own apogee kick motor. 

Launch services using the Atlas II-A were finalized as early as 1997. 

Nearly three years later, the new TDRS-II spacecraft was ready. On 30 June 

2000, TDRS-H successfully lifted off from Launch Complex 36 at Cape 

Canaveral. Since the satellite was not launched by NASA, Boeing had the 

overall responsibility to make sure that it got onto orbit as advertised prior to 

the Agency taking control. It attained orbit without any problems. Its acceptance by NASA was delayed, though, due to lower than expected performance of the new MA phased array antenna. As a result, ground controllers 

discovered that 5 of the 18 communications services provided by TDRS-H 

performed at less than full capability. 

This degradation puzzled both Boeing and NASA since the spacecraft had checked out perfectly on the ground. After a month of troubleshooting, the culprit was found. Randy H. Brinkley, President of Boeing Satellite 

Systems explained at the time that the hidden problem was traced back to 

a material defect. “We identified the cause of the problem to be rooted in 

one specific material used in the assembly of the antenna and implemented 

straightforward corrective measures for TDRS-I and TDRS-J. We are certain 

that a repeat of this performance shortfall will not occur.”98 

Manufacturing changes were implemented and 18 months later, 

on 8 March 2002, the next spacecraft was launched. This time, it performed 
300 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

flawlessly. TDRS-I was followed into orbit 9 months later with the launch of 

the final satellite, TDRS-J, on 4 December 2002. 

The three satellites were initially launched into their on-orbit 

“storage locations” over the Phoenix Islands in the mid-Pacific; off the west 

coast of South America near Ecuador; and off the Brazilian coast over the 

Atlantic. There, the satellites stayed, almost in a “garaged” fashion, until they 

were needed. The advantage of having these spacecraft in orbit was that the 

Explorations, Operations, Communications and Navigation Systems Division 

of Goddard, who manages the SN, may change the geosynchronous location 

of any TDRS to any other geosynchronous location assigned to NASA. This 

allowed collocation of two spacecraft in one longitudinal setting. Two second 

generation spacecraft could be located together, if needed, or one first generation with one second generation. This was quite useful and allowed the use 

of two partially failed spacecraft to be collocated to conserve the limited slots 

available at geosynchronous altitude and to pool together their capabilities.99 

With TDRS-II available, the SN was much more flexible and more 

options could be exercised to optimize the TDRSS network for all users. 

A case in point was a high data rate user such as a remote sensing mission 

with large amounts of imaging data. This satellite, which could have onboard 

several bandwidth-intensive instruments, may generate up to three-terabits 

(3,000,000,000,000) per day of science data. On top of that was the required 

“overhead” information such as data for link protocols and error correction 

coding, adding another 16 percent or more to the raw science data.100 With 

the first generation TDRS, it would have taken over three hours each day just 

to transfer this data from the spacecraft to the ground. A Ka-band TDRS-II 

SA link at a rate of 800 Mb/s reduced this to about 72 minutes per day. NASA 

may schedule this data transfer in a number of ways. For instance, 5 minutes of 

TDRSS service for every orbit of a satellite or 10 minutes of service on every 

other orbit. If the data was time sensitive, Ka-band service allowed for near 

instantaneous availability of the data to its users, much more so than with the 

original system. While S- and Ku-band capabilities also provided near instantaneous services, they required significantly longer transfer times.101 

Now consider the case of a small, low-data rate user such as a single instrument satellite. It too wanted to use the TDRSS to get data to the 

ground. Although low-data rate users did not require the wide bandwidth 

channels available at Ka-band, they could still benefit from Ka-band services in 

terms of antenna requirements. Take a small low-Earth orbiting spacecraft 

that had only one or two low data rate instruments. It may generate only 20 

gigabits (20,000,000,000) of science data per day. Ka-band MA service at 4 

Mb/s could transfer all that data in less than 7 minutes on each orbit or 13 

minutes on every other orbit. In this case, the user only needed a very small 

10-centimeter (4-inch) diameter parabolic dish or a phased array antenna on 

his satellite. Although small, the parabolic dish would still require a tracking 
Chapter 7 \ A Network in Space 301 

mechanism to keep it pointed at the TDRS spacecraft. On the other hand, a 

phased array antenna would have been especially beneficial since the absence 

of a steearable antenna greatly simplified attitude control of the user satellite 

and minimized moving parts on the spacecraft.102 

NASA now had its long awaited TDRSS. With it, the expansive 

network of worldwide ground stations seemed to be a thing of the past. Gary 

A. Morse, former Network Director at Goddard’s Network Control Center, 

reflected on the change TDRSS brought to those who worked on NASA’s 

spaceflight tracking networks: 

The concept of the SN was culture shock. Here, instead of a 

worldwide net of ground stations, we had two satellites looking 

down and providing 85 percent orbit coverage, continuous command and telemetry. We were no longer confined to six-minute 

passes over stationary ground equipment.We had to learn an entirely 

new technology and apply it.With the old ground net, we had to 

rely on redundancy.This switch fails, the backup is activated by an 

operator reaching over and flipping another switch. The new SN 

was less real-time redundant than the GN had been.We had relied 

heavily on that redundancy to remain transparent.Any mission was 

about the spacecraft that was flying, not on what might be going on 

inside the tracking network. It’s our job to focus on the mission . . . 

The network was there to serve the user, to serve the guy that’s flying his spacecraft . . .We might be launching and flying fewer spacecraft now, but those in orbit and the ones planned for launch were 

more complex. Data rates were higher.The stakes were higher.103 

As passé as the ground network may have seemed at the time, the 

advent of TDRSS did not eliminate ground stations all together but merely 

transformed them into a different role. The GN was supposed to have been 

shut down with TDRSS and the SN was supposed to have taken on the load 

for near-Earth activities. But it did not quite happen that way. One reason was 

that a satellite with fairly high data demands still had to have a steerable dish in 

order to communicate with a TDRS. That was an expensive thing to put on 

a satellite, even today. To get around this, the satellite could instead downlink 

to a ground station using only a fixed, much cheaper antenna since a ground 

station was much closer—only some 1,000 kilometers or 600 miles away— 

rather than the TDRS orbiting 35,900 kilometers (22,300 miles) overhead. 

Users, including NASA itself, understood this. It was inherently 

less expensive for many cost-constrained, particularly Earth science missions, 
302 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

to build small ground stations dedicated specifically to support their own missions. Many of these places were either unattended or minimally attended stations (for safety) to further reduce cost. Since the TT&C service was the MA 

service and TDRSS could provide that at anytime and anywhere, an interesting synergy developed. Satellites quite often downlinked their high rate science data to their ground station but still used the TDRSS for the lower data, 

lower cost MA capability to monitor its health and status.104 

No longer would a STDN ground station be used to track a spacecraft orbiting around Earth or to talk to astronauts in space. Ground stations 

now had a new mission, and that mission could be summed up in one word: 

Science. With TDRSS operational, there was no longer the need for ground 

stations to assume the role of the traditional “tracking station.” Emphasis of a 

GN was now on data acquisition at remote outposts and rocket ranges to support range safety, Earth science and space research. This paradigm shift in the 

role of the ground stations soon made NASA a key player in what became the 

commercialization of space, taking the Agency to ever more remote regions 

of the globe, even to the North and South Pole. 
Chapter 8 

THE NEW LANDSCAPE 

An operational TDRSS did not mean that a GN was not needed. It 

still was, just not in the same way as before. Phase out from the STDN orga

nization did not put an end to NASA’s ground station activities. Many sites 

operated like they did before TDRSS came along, only now they did so for 

different reasons. No longer called the STDN, the GN played a different role 

to support a different mission. 

-

In the Pacific, the Kauai Station supported the University of Hawaii 

specifically, and the Earth science community at large, operating as the Kokee 

Park Geophysical Observatory (KPGO). As far back as 1981, operations at 

Kauai had reduced from 24/7 around-the-clock operations to a standard 

eight-hour, five-days-a-week schedule. Like many of the stations in the net

work, Hawaii had seen its fair share of “close calls” when it came to closing. 

Originally scheduled for complete phase out in April of 1984, it kept getting 

postponed while NASA awaited TDRSS to come online.1 

The original plan was to transfer the equipment and tracking 

responsibilities of the station to the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility 

(PMRF) on nearby Barking Sands. The memorandum of agreement for this 

transfer had in fact been signed-off by both NASA and the DOD when the 

Challenger accident happened in January 1986. After STS-26, the station was 

-
304 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

officially closed on 30 September 1989 after TDRS-4 was checked out and 

declared operational, and the transfer to PMRF took take place at that time. 

The Navy took possession of most of the equipment with the exception of one 

key asset which NASA retained, the 9-meter (30-foot) S-band antenna system 

used by KPGO. 

One of KPGO’s first assignment in its new Earth observation role 

was to support Goddard’s Crustal Dynamics Project. It joined several other 

observatories in the continental United States, Japan, Chile, and Australia 

to make ultra-precise position determination of the crust using the tracking 

measurement technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry, or VLBI. 

Kokee Park participated in these NASA and Naval Observatory sponsored 

experiments and because of its location in the mid-Pacific tectonic plate, was 

among the most active of the more than 30 observatories around the world.2 

In this application of VLBI, several radio telescopes (observatories) 

simultaneously received signals from extra-galactic quasar radio wave sources. 

Using lasers and the most precise clocks in the world, the difference in time of 

arrival of the signals due to the slightly different path lengths from the quasar to 

each VLBI observatory around the world could be determined to an accuracy of 

1x10-11 seconds (10-trillionth of a second) and their relative positions measured 

to better than 1 centimeter (0.4 inches).3 These ultra-precise position measurements, when made repeatedly over several years to decades, allowed scientists to 

plot the contemporary motion of the tectonic plates—the enormous pieces of 

Earth’s crust—as they moved slowly with respect to each other.The observatories 

were also able to monitor other geodynamic parameters such as the very complex 

variation of Earth’s spin rate with the minute wobble of the spin axis. 

All these gave insight, unavailable before this time, into global geophysics and the underlying forces that led to earthquakes, for example. VLBI 

measurements which have been made at KPGO since 1984 and which continue today, showed clearly that the Hawaiian Islands (located on the Pacific 

plate) move at a rate of some 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) a year with respect to 

the North American plate. 

In this new mission, Kokee Park was a principal ground station that 

diversified to support science application satellites from across several U.S. 

government agencies. One was the Department of Commerce’s PEACESAT 

(Pan-Pacific Education and Communication Experiments by Satellite) program, which provided medical, educational, and cultural satellite communications between Hawaii and the remote islands in the Pacific basin. It also 

supported GSFC’s Interplanetary Monitoring Platform-8 (IMP-8) that monitored Earth’s magnetic field and solar wind activities. In addition, KPGO 

supported the GOES (Geostationary Observational Environmental Satellite) 

program for the state of Hawaii. 

In South America, the station at Santiago—one of the original 

Minitrack sites established in 1957 and which had been mostly operated by 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 305 

the Chileans—was completely turned over in 1988 to the University of Chile, 

who operates it to this day. NASA, though, still has a stake in the station, but 

now strictly as a customer. Because of its optimal location in the Southern 

Hemisphere, the United States pays Chile about half a million dollars a year 

to support a finite number of satellite passes. The number averages out to 

about two or three passes a day depending on what missions need support. Bill 

Watson at Headquarters explained how the Agency uses the station today to 

meet its data pass requirements. 

Some days we take none, some days we take a lot depending 

on what’s going on. Sometimes Santiago is one of a few Southern 

Hemisphere stations that we have so when something is happening 

in the Southern Hemisphere and we need coverage, that is a convenient place. Sometimes there are planetary flybys, JPL satellites 

whizzing by the Earth.They are going so fast near the Earth that 

their big antennas can’t slew fast enough to track, so stations like 

Santiago will support it.4 

In effect, a station that the United States in cooperation with the 

government of Chile started nearly 50 years ago continues in its legacy today. 

The surest sign that the era of NASA’s world-wide network of 

spaceflight tracking stations have come and gone was when Bermuda was 

finally phased out in 1997. Since 1962, when it first gave John Glenn the “go 

for orbit” call, Bermuda had supported every human spaceflight that NASA 

had flown, making the critical go/no-go call on all of them—an impressive 

resume of 118 missions. On 19 November 1997, Columbia took to the air on 

the 88th flight of the Shuttle program. In a Space Shuttle first, the entire stack 

was rolled from its usual belly-up to a belly-down position in a 40-second 

Roll-To-Heads-Up (RTHU) maneuver six-minutes after liftoff. Prior to this 

flight, such a maneuver would have been used only if a Trans-Atlantic Abort 

emergency landing were declared by Mission Control due to a failed main 

engine or the loss of cabin pressure during the crew’s ascent into orbit.5 

The RTHU maneuver was added to eliminate the Shuttle’s large 

External Tank from obstructing the communication line-of-sight between the 

vehicle’s antennas and the TDRS-East spacecraft. By doing so, a smooth handover from Merritt Island to TDRSS could be made with only a momentary gap 

in coverage. Up until that mission, the Shuttle switched over to the space-based 

tracking satellites only after reaching orbit some eight and a half minutes after 

launch. The RTHU maneuver—used ever since on all low inclination, easterly 

launches—allowed the Orbiter to communicate with TDRS about two and 

a half minutes sooner. (Higher inclination launches towards the northeast for 

flights to the ISS did not have to perform the roll maneuver due to the availability of DOD tracking stations along the East Coast.) Although tricky, the roll 
306 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

maneuver did not unduly stress the vehicle since it was done well after the SRBs 

had jettisoned and the Shuttle itself had passed through the thickest part of the 

atmosphere so that aerodynamic stresses were not a problem.6 

Bermuda was needed no more. Ultimately though, the decision to 

close the site came down to cost. The closing saved NASA $5 million a year, 

which coincidently, was the same amount it cost to build the station in 1961.7 

With Bermuda closed, Merritt Island/Ponce de Leon (MILA/PDL) 

became the only source of tracking data for the first seven minutes of each 

Space Shuttle launch. Despite the phase out of all the original ground stations 

in the STDN, MILA still remains. In fact, it is as essential today after over 100 

Space Shuttle launches as it was for STS-1 back in 1981. 

Located adjacent to Launch Complex 39 at the KSC, MILA (acronym for “Merritt Island Launch Annex to Cape Canaveral,” the early name 

of the area that was eventually renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center) 

was greatly expanded in 1972 right after Apollo 17. The site was used to 

get Shuttle data to the Launch Control Center at Kennedy during prelaunch 

testing and terminal countdown. Once the vehicle cleared the tower, MILA 

transmitted data to Mission Control in Houston. The GSFC first established 

MILA in 1966 as a primary MSFN station to provide Earth orbit support for 

Apollo. The station received the first television signals using Unified S-Band 

during the Apollo Saturn 203 mission on 5 July 1966 on a flight first testing 

the performance of the liquid hydrogen fuel in the S-IVB third stage to verify 

its on-orbit restart capability. 

Shortly thereafter, GSFC worked with JSC and equipped the station 

with a complete set of flight control consoles in order to train Mission Control 

engineers during prelaunch testing of the CSM and LM. The consoles were 

used until the end of the program in December 1972. In the mid-1970s when 

S-band transmitters were added to NASA’s Delta and Atlas-Centaur expendable launch vehicles, MILA became really busy, supporting those programs as 

well as Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz. When the STADAN station at Fort Myers 

was shut down in 1972, its VHF telemetry and communication equipment 

were relocated to MILA, greatly enhancing the station’s capability to also support application satellites programs.8 With 13 antennas, including a 9-meter 

(30-foot) USB system, C-band radar, full TT&C capabilities and a UHF airto-ground voice link for backup, MILA was (and is) NASA’s primary launch 

area tracking station.9 

As development of the large SRBs of the Space Shuttle neared completion in the mid to late 1970s, GSFC, working with the MSFC, predicted a 

potential “plume attenuation” problem in which the high temperature, highly 

reflective plasma in the rockets’ exhaust interfered with MILA’s reception of 

signals from the Shuttle early in its ascent. The phenomenon would have been 

something akin to trying to follow the flight of a bird with a pair of binoculars 

while looking through a cloud. To solve this problem, a site with a different 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 307 

prior to StS-87, Shuttle flights 

on easterly trajectories went all 

the way into orbit on their backs. 

the Shuttle now performs a rollto-heads-Up (rthU) maneuver 

prior to main engine cutoff so that 

communication with tDrSS can 

be established some two and a 

half minutes sooner. this allowed 

the Bermuda Station to be closed 

down in 1997. (NaSa Image 

Number GpN-2000-000736) 

look-angle had to be found. What followed was the Ponce de Leon Station 

(PDL) “wing-site” that was set up in 1979. Located 64 kilometers (40 miles) 

north of MILA on 1.4 acres of U.S. Coast Guard property, it was just south 

of the Ponce de Leon Inlet at New Smyrna Beach. PDL provided a different 

viewing angle, putting it outside of the “plume shadow.” A 4.3-meter (14-

foot) USB system was setup specifically to circumvent this problem. 

Upon loss-of-signal at MILA, PDL took over as the primary station 

during a launch, communicating with the Shuttle during its second minute of 

flight. PDL, however, could not directly communicate with Mission Control 

at the JSC; MILA still had to do this. Therefore, a three-hop, microwave 

system with towers at Shiloh and North Wilson were built to relay data from 

the wing-site to the main location (again, not unlike relaying of cell phone 

calls). Strictly a supplement to Merritt Island, Ponce de Leon was normally not 

even staffed, with two or three technicians dispatched to the station to support 

flight readiness, countdown activities and the actual launch.10 

With PDL tagged to cover this 60-second gap, according to Shuttle 

flight rules, a backup to the site itself had to be identified. This dual-redundant 
308 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

requirement harbored back to the early days of NASA human flight operations 

where a back up was required for any system designated as primary. To this end, 

a search was conducted in the southern Florida area to find a location suitable 

to back up Ponce de Leon. Communication link analysis showed that the Air 

Force’s Jonathan Dickinson Missile Tracking Annex (JDMTA) some 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of the Cape near Jupiter, Florida, could back up PDL for 

S-band downlink. The DOD had constructed this facility in 1985 and 1986 on 

11 acres of land in the state park to provide launch support for their launches and 

missile testing activities. This allowed the Air Force to permanently shut down 

its more expensive Grand Bahama tracking station. (The latter had provided 

launch support for over three decades, from 1954 to 1987, first for the Air Force 

and then for NASA.) Jonathan Dickinson already had everything that Goddard 

engineers were looking for, including radar, telemetry, a microwave relay to the 

Cape, and a command destruct system that could be remotely activated from 

the Cape if it were ever necessary to protect life and property should a launch 

go awry. 

Since MILA was so crucial, the site continually evolved and was 

upgraded. The most dramatic change was its transition from a mostly humanoperated site to autonomous operation, which has, not surprisingly, significantly 

reduced costs. While not a switchover to purely unattended (or “lights-out”) 

operations, the change brought on by the ever increasing reliance on automation and computer processing has been beneficial, significantly reducing the 

station’s staffing requirements. During the height of Apollo and for STS-1, 

for instance, the station employed upwards of 140 workers. That number has 

dropped dramatically to where less than 40 people are now required.11 

Even as staffing was being reduced, modernization of technology 

increased. In 1995, the station went to an “all fiber” system, with fiber optics 

replacing all the communication lines between MILA, PDL and the control 

facilities at the KSC. A year later, a UHF voice system with a powerful, stateof-the-art quad-helix antenna was installed to support the Shuttle in the event 

of a Return to Launch Site (RTLS) abort. Today, Merritt Island has become a 

full-service spaceport communications facility, boasting a suite of 15 antennas 

that support all phases of a Shuttle flight—from prelaunch checkout to launch, 

on-orbit (via TDRSS) and landing. Leveraging each other’s assets has enabled 

the DOD and NASA (and more recently the commercial launch industry) 

to support a wide range of space launches from Florida. As former Station 

Director Tony Ippolito put it, “All of this has allowed us a more business oriented approach in the operation of MILA.”12 

With near-Earth space communications now well covered by the 

TDRSS and the SN (with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s DSN handling 

planetary work), the emphasis for NASA to support suborbital science missions 

has, in turn, made Goddard’s Wallops Flight Facility home to the GN’s most 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 309 

Merritt Island, MILa (top) and ponce de Leon, pDL (bottom) provided uninterrupted launch 

vehicle tracking out of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Shown are the MILa operations 

building along with the station’s two 9-meter (30-foot) Unified S-band (USB) antennas 

used for tracking, telemetry, command (tt&C), and voice. the less complex pDL “wing 

station” had a 4.3-meter (14.1-foot) antenna used to cover loss-of-signal at MILa from 

the exhaust of the Shuttle’s Solid rocket Boosters (SrB). (Un-numbered Kennedy Space 

Center images, science.ksc.nasa.gov/facilities/mila/milstor.html, science.ksc.nasa.gov/ 

facilities/mila/pdl.html, accessed 21 November 2005))
310 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

extensively equipped facility. Located on Wallops Island off the Delmarva 

Peninsula coast of Virginia, Wallops is NASA’s lead facility for implementing 

its suborbital and special low-orbit research projects. Established by NACA in 

1945, the 6,200-acre facility is today staffed by 1,000 full-time government 

personnel and contractors who support everything from sounding rocket and 

balloon launches to conducting unpiloted aerial vehicle research.13 

The beginnings of Wallops date back to the end of the Second 

World War. In 1945, NACA authorized the LRC to develop the small offshore island into an aeronautical range where rocket propelled models can be 

launched to conduct studies of the upper atmosphere. In this way, Wallops 

became the oldest civilian launch site in the United States. The facility 

allowed Langley scientists to have many more options in conducting their 

research, like overcoming the limited capabilities of the wind tunnels of the 

day, for example. With the establishment of NASA in 1958, the creation of the 

“manned-satellite” (Mercury) program and Wallops’s close association with 

Langley and its STG, much of the activities there quickly turned to developing the components needed for putting a human in space. This included 

designing capsule escape techniques, pressure testing of the early blunt-body 

aerodynamic designs and flight test support of heat shield development and 

ocean recovery techniques.14 

In addition to the emphasis put on Mercury, research in the aviation arena continued. The facility’s airport, for instance, was used to develop 

and test runway surface designs for aircraft noise reduction. And it was at 

Wallops that the Scout launch vehicle solidified its place in history as the 

premier rocket for launching small payloads for the scientific community, 

with a remarkable 100 percent success rate since 1976. It was here that the 

Scout became the first solid fuel rocket to place a satellite into orbit when, on 

16 February 1961, it successfully launched a 44-kilogram (96-pound) NASA 

atmospheric research payload into orbit.15 

On 19 October 1981, the Wallops Flight Center, as it was then 

called, was consolidated under GSFC management and redesignated the 

Suborbital Projects and Operations Directorate, otherwise known as the 

Wallops Flight Facility. Less than five years later, in April 1986, the tracking station that was part of the NTTF located on the grounds of GSFC, was 

transferred to Wallops. The flight facility now had the added responsibility for 

capturing small satellite telemetry, tracking, and command. Many of the first 

satellites supported from the facility would go on to become some of NASA’s 

most successful orbital science platforms. Among them were the IUE, the 

Inter-planetary Monitoring Platform (IMP-7), and the Cosmic Background 

Explorer (COBE). To better handle the additional workload, the facility soon 

underwent a one-year modification where existing hardware was supplemented with equipment from former STDN stations around the world that 

were then being phased out. A new communications system was added as part 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 311 

of the upgrade to transmit data from Wallops to the Project Control Centers 

located back at Goddard.16 

In the late 1990’s, the facility began developing ways to really 

expand its sphere of operations so as to more effectively support launches at 

locations away from Wallops Island and the immediate Virginia coast area. 

Mission operations at Wallops took on a new dimension when it began operating the Mobile Range Control System, or MRCS. Developed by the Center’s 

Electrical Systems Branch, the MRCS is a self-contained, transportable launch 

system that can be loaded into a military cargo aircraft such as the C-130 and 

flown around the world to conduct satellite launches at remote locations as 

needed. It in fact acts somewhat like a transportable range, equipped with 

an Uninterruptible Power Supply, a range safety display and redundant command destruct transmitters for flight termination along with all the necessary 

computers and communication equipment needed to support a launch in a 

“turnkey” fashion.17 

Before there was the MRCS, setting up a mobile range was much 

more cumbersome and logistically demanding, translating into higher cost. 

Equipment in several vans and trailers had to be transported either by air or by 

sea and put together upon arrival at the remote location. One former MRCS 

Project Manager noted the tremendous advantage this new system offered, 

saying “In comparison with the older collection of subsystems in separate 

trailers, the fully integrated MRCS can be completely tested prior to shipment. This helps reduce mission support and cost.”18 

True to its calling, the Wallops’s mobile range has been well traveled since 1997, supporting launches from the nearby Coquina Outer Banks 

of North Carolina, to the Canary Islands in the East Atlantic and even as far 

north as Kodiak Island, Alaska. To support the commercial launch market, 

the MRCS was granted a license in 1999 by the FAA’s Office of the Associate 

Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST), which 

allows private paying customers from the U.S. commercial launch industry to 

use the system to launch their payload into space.19 

All these developments have made Wallops Island (also known to the 

commercial launch sector as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport) America’s preeminent small rocket facility.As a controlled range,it has the authority to clear airspace and reroute planes in times of need. Since Wallops’s mission is so diverse, the 

ground station there is somewhat unique in that it has a combination of some very 

old antennas alongside state-of-the-art equipment.It still operates,for example,an 

original VHF antenna for ISS and Russian Soyuz voice support.A VHF Satellite 

Automatic Tracking Antenna/Satellite Command Antenna on Medium Pedestal— 

SATAN/SCAMP telemetry/command system—from the 1960s can also be 

found still operating there.Although rendered obsolete when stations began using 

microwaves to transmit data over long distances, this old system was kept to support the facility’s suborbital and short-range data needs.Also,there are the original 
312 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the remote barrier-island location of Wallops Island on Virginia’s eastern Shore makes 

it ideal for testing aircraft models and launching small rockets. as the space program 

evolved, it became one of the agency’s mainstays for launching sounding rockets carrying scientific experiments into the upper atmosphere. In the 1980s, however, a proposal 

emerged to close Wallops as a way of reducing NaSa’s operating costs. Instead, officials decided to incorporate the facility into the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) as 

it relied on the facility for satellite launch, tracking and data support. In this way, Wallops 

Island Station became the Wallops Flight Facility managed under the Suborbital projects 

and Operations Directorate at GSFC. (NaSa Image Number GpN-2000-001323) 

9-meter (30-foot) S-band antennas that tracked Apollo astronauts to the Moon 

and back.These “antiques” can be found still being used everyday alongside the 

station’s state-of-the-art 11-meter (36-foot) S-/X-band dual-feed antenna.As one 

NASA manager puts it,“They have practically one of every kind of antenna out 

there,”which,in some ways,makes Wallops the perfect setting as a nostalgic rocket 

range.20 It bridges the gap between an old fashioned test range nestled along the 

Atlantic coast and the modern twenty-first century spaceport. 

★ ★ ★

Satellites and spacecraft circling Earth today rely on both the SN 

and the GN in different ways. The GN of today is used primarily to support aeronautical and atmospheric research, range safety, and high inclination 

(high latitude) orbital communications. It is in this setting that the new era of 

NASA’s communications network is found, the hallmark of which are technology expansion and commercialization. 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 313 

First, the rapid expansion—indeed evolution—in digital telecommunications technology over the last quarter-century has made NASA’s space 

communications a truly global amalgamation that connects every corner of 

the world. This same technological evolution has also greatly improved the 

ability of today’s stations to perform TT&C functions compared to the previous STDN generation. Station autonomy has greatly reduced the requirements 

for human staffing. The objective is not to eliminate human-in-the-loop but 

let automation do what can be done in terms of scheduling, redundancy, and 

self-testing. Advancements in digital signaling and transmission techniques 

have allowed for the ever increasing demand for higher bandwidths (traffic) 

and lower bit-error-rates (accuracy) to be accommodated. 

The other trait which can be used to describe the Agency’s network operations is commercialization. This should not be surprising when one 

looks at the trend of space communication in which NASA has historically set 

the precedence but is now heavily influenced by the commercial sector. Just 

like the demand for better technology is always a driver, as space moves from 

the realm of government sponsorship to being a commercial commodity with 

increasing private industry participation, cost reduction,—and more importantly—profit in today’s world of real-time global communications is more 

important than ever. It is these fundamental paradigm shifts that have taken 

NASA’s STDN of the past to where it is today. This shift has enabled NASA in 

recent years to put ground stations in very remote regions of the globe where 

it was just simply not feasible a generation ago. 

Take Antarctica, for example. The manpower that would have 

been needed to make a continuously operating ground station cost effective 

from such a location would have, in the past, been difficult at best. On top of 

that would have been the technical challenge of how one would get the data 

received at the station in a timely manner to their users who may be scattered 

across many continents. 

In 1956, the U.S. Navy established McMurdo Station on the 

continent of Antarctica. At 77 ̊ 50' south latitude, McMurdo is well inside 

the Antarctic Circle and is the southern most harbor in the world. It is also 

Antarctica’s largest community and the continent’s center of activity. Built on 

the bare volcanic rock of Hut Point Peninsula on Ross Island, it is the farthest 

south solid ground that is accessible by ship. As early as 1901, McMurdo took 

on some sense of import when it became the staging point for the race to 

plant the first flag at the South Pole. Among the landmarks still preserved (by 

the New Zealand government) from that era is Hut Point, left behind by the 

doomed expedition of British Naval officer Robert F. Scott and his party in 

1910. That year, Scott—with his team of four companions—embarked on an 

expedition with the aim of becoming the first man to reach the South Pole. 

The 2,964-kilometer (1,842-mile) trip was the longest continuous sled journey ever attempted in the polar regions. On 18 January 1912, they reached the 
314 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

bottom of the world only to find the tent and flag of the Norwegian explorer 

Roald E. G. Amundsen, who had achieved the goal only five-weeks earlier. 

Demoralized and short on supplies, Scott and his men never made it back to 

McMurdo. The return journey ended in the loss of the entire party. Scott 

came to within 18 kilometers (11 miles) of a supply depot when he and his 

remaining two teammates perished of starvation and exposure. Their remains, 

along with diaries left by Scott in his tent, were found by a search party almost 

eight months later.21 

Since 1956, McMurdo has grown from an outpost of a few buildings to the largest community on the icy continent with more than 100 structures, an outlying airport (Williams Field) with landing strips on sea ice and 

shelf ice, and a helicopter pad. Despite its remote location, McMurdo is among 

the most ethnically diverse communities per capita anywhere to be found. 

During the summer months, the population can swell to over 1,000 people, 

attracting scientists, construction workers and polar explorers from all nations 

around the world. During the harsh winter months of March to October, the 

population usually drops down to below 250 people who, except for time of 

emergencies, find themselves pretty much isolated for the winter. 

Like a small town, there is a freshwater system, sewer, telephone, 

and power lines linking the buildings. Science equipment at McMurdo include 

diving equipment, recompression chambers for diving accident victims, cosmic ray monitors, and facilities to study magnetosphere and ionosphere phenomena. From the runways of Williams Field 16 kilometers (10 miles) away, 

flights span the continent and to airbases in and out of New Zealand. While 

skid-equipped planes can fly in and out of the frozen landing strips yearround, it was not until 1992 when a permanent, hard-ice runway on the Ross 

Ice Shelf was completed that larger transporters equipped with wheeled landing gears could come and go more frequently thereby greatly increasing the 

availability of supplies to the delight of the personnel stationed there.22 

It is in this unique part of the world that NASA teamed up with the 

National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish the southern most satellite data 

acquisition station in the world.23The McMurdo Ground Station (MGS) is today 

home to a 10-meter (32-foot) S- and X-dual band NASA antenna located atop 

the 152-meter (500-foot) Arrival Heights peak. From this vantage point, it has 

a fantastic view in all directions. Looking south, it can see satellites on the other 

side of the Pole. NASA’s original requirement there was to support a joint effort 

by the two Agencies (along with international partners) to radar map the entire 

Antarctic continent by satellite. 

Operational since 1996, MGS started out collecting X-band telemetry (frequencies in the 5- to 11-gigahertz range in the electromagnetic spectrum, higher than C-band but lower than Ku-band) on about 25 passes each 

day from ERS-1 and ERS-2, the European Earth Resource Satellites, and 

the Canadian synthetic aperture radar mapping satellite RADARSAT. The 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 315 

McMurdo, antarctica is the world’s southern-most port and home to numerous expeditions to the South pole since 1901. the McMurdo Ground Station is located on nearby 

arrival heights peak. (photograph courtesy of NaSa) 

station’s S-band capability was put to use not long after in August of 1997 

when a NASA Lewis land imaging satellite malfunctioned and began tumbling shortly after launch. Because MGS could see virtually every pass, it was 

a real asset in the rescue attempt. Unfortunately the spacecraft could not be 

stabilized and was consumed in a fiery reentry just 36 days after its launch. 

NASA today uses McMurdo as a data collection hub for satellites monitoring 

ice movements in the Southern Hemisphere. Such data is used immediately 

on site by scientists on the continent as well as by those planning re-supply 

shipping routes in and out of Antarctica.24 

Despite the fact that few other ground stations have the capability 

of MGS to collect the enormous volume of data that can only be done at the 

Poles, communications in and out of the continent is still not so good. The 

only way to get data out is through something called the McMurdo TDRSS 

Relay System, or MTRS, which consists of two antennas (4- and 7-meter 

[13- and 23-foot] dishes) that actually communicate with the TDRSS. NASA 

uses a nearby microwave tower to relay signals to the MTRS at a place called 

Black Island located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) closer to the Equator. Due 

to the curvature of Earth and the way a satellite travels in polar orbit, near the 

poles, even this relatively short distance can make a big difference to provide 
316 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

a much better view to relay satellites. The drawback for NASA, however, is 

that since the link is shared with the NSF, it is only used occasionally so as not 

to overwhelm the NSF’s ability to send data off the continent on the always 

busy TDRSS. 

Rounding out Antarctic communications is a small system located 

right at the South Pole. Although not really part of NASA’s GN, it allows 

polar scientists there to communicate with TDRS-1—the original satellite—on brief occasions when it pops above the horizon while performing 

its “figure-8” loop in the vicinity of the Equator. These ongoing efforts to 

build a good communications network on this most desolate of places has 

only recently culminated, allowing the inhabitants to join that most global of 

communities: the Internet. This accomplishment is not lost on those who run 

the space agency’s networks. The proclamation “We brought internet to the 

South Pole!” sums up the Agency’s legacy on Antarctica rather nicely.25 

★ ★ ★

Antarctica and the South Pole are not the only places to have been 

“tamed.” In this new era of ground stations, NASA has also been busy on the 

a team from the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) visit the Intelsat communications 

relay station on Black Island in 1999. Note the microwave tower link back to McMurdo. 

(photograph courtesy of NaSa) 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 317 

other end of the globe. While the mid-latitude location of the continental 

United States makes for a good setting for launching science payloads into 

orbit (Wallops, Cape Canaveral), it cannot however, provide routine, lowcost, launch access to investigate interesting activities that permeate the upper 

atmosphere in the polar regions, activities such as Aurora Borealis, or the 

northern lights. To do this, one must venture near the Arctic Circle, to a place 

called Poker Flat some 30 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. 

Owned and operated by the University of Alaska’s Geophysical 

Institute since 1968, Poker Flat Research Range has been primarily dedicated 

to the launch of sounding rockets for the purpose of middle to upper atmospheric research. The first rocket was launched there in 1954. The rather enticing name Poker Flat is believed to have been taken from American author and 

poet F. Bret Harte’s rags-to-riches short story, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, which 

in a way describes the inauspicious beginnings of the original ad hoc launch 

site that was constructed from begged and borrowed materials. But the range 

could have simply been named after nearby Poker Creek. In any case, Poker 

Flat is today the only nongovernment, university owned and operated range 

in the world. It is also the only high-latitude, polar region, rocket launching 

facility in the United States. 

Because of its importance, NASA has funded the operation of the 

range under a cooperative agreement with the University of Alaska’s Geophysical 

Institute since 1979, assuming funding responsibilities previously held by the 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Much bigger 

than the birthplace of America’s missile activities at White Sands, Poker Flat 

is in fact the world’s largest, land-based rocket range. It consists of a chain of 

downrange flight and observation sites spanning inland Alaska to Spitsbergen 

in the Arctic Ocean that are used to monitor and help recover payloads. Since 

it is an active rocket range, NASA and the university have to coordinate their 

activities with many U.S. government agencies. The FAA must approve and 

coordinate the air space during launches. Also, since the range is so large, 

permission to impact rockets and their payload on its 26 million acres of land 

has to be authorized by a whole host of government agencies, including: the 

Bureau of Land Management; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the State of 

Alaska Division of Lands; Doyon, Ltd. (the largest private landowner in the 

state of Alaska); and the Village Traditional Councils of Venetie and Arctic 

Village. Unlike bygone days at the dawn of the Space Age, environmental 

regulations mandate much of what can go on at these ranges today.26 

As with the oil pipelines a quarter-century before, Alaska today 

serves as the great northern frontier. But this time, instead of energy, the commodity is information. More specifically, the information age revolution and 

commercialization of space. In fact, AGS, the Alaska Ground Station at Poker 

Flat, is not really even a NASA owned station at all. Rather, it is part of a 

commercial network of ground stations called DataLynx, which is owned and 
318 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

operated by Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc. With U.S. and international partners such as Universal Space Network, the Australian CSIRO, and 

the Japanese Institute for Aerospace Technology (JAXA), just to name a few, 

DataLynx has today expanded to over 20 ground stations on six continents. 

Mirroring in many ways NASA’s STDN of the previous generation, 

DataLynx stations today operate in a latitude band spanning 78° north at Svalbard, 

Norway, down to 33° south at the Santiago Station operated by the University 

of Chile. In fact, locations of many of the stations harbor back to the STDN 

days (and even earlier), with places like Hartebeesthoek, South Africa; Perth, 

Australia; and as mentioned, Santiago. Other places such as Beijing, China—a 

location which would have been impossible to imagine during the Cold War— 

have become part of this new age in commercial networking designed to serve 

satellite-using customers from around the world.With profit openly the bottom 

line, DataLynx, which depends highly on automation and “lights-out” operations, advertises itself as a “ rapid, proven, reliable, cost effective mission-critical 

. . . distributed partner network,” one that offers 24/7 command, control, and 

communications for “broad and flexible solutions, reducing cost and risk to our 

clients so that they can focus their resources on their core businesses.”27 

One of these clients is none other than NASA, the one who subsidizes Poker Flat, the very range that the Alaska Ground Station sits on. With 

$5 to $6 million a year, the Agency literally buys a minimum number of passes 

each day using the station’s 11-meter (36-foot) antenna. (AGS also supplements 

this system with a smaller 5-meter (16.4-foot) S-band system called the Low 

Earth Orbit Terminal as well as a somewhat larger 8-meter (26.24-foot) transportable S-band antenna called the Transportable Orbital Tracking System.) 

Assuming 36 passes a day, this averages out to approximately $400 per pass, 

a figure that is much more economical to NASA than what it would cost to 

otherwise engineer, build, operate, and maintain a station of its own. It is 

therefore a truly joint government/industry arrangement that in the end benefits both NASA and the DatyLynx stakeholders. 

Program Executive Bill Watson explained the arrangement which 

in a way captures the business-end of how ground stations in the twenty-first 

century works:“In this case, Honeywell not only owns DataLynx but they also 

won the current contract for operating the GNs. So they consolidated the deal 

and said we will treat the government assets and commercial assets as a pooled 

resource.You give us a guaranteed annual amount of revenue and we will guarantee you a minimum number of passes per day, and then if we [NASA] go over 

that, we pay by the pass. So it’s a quasi-government commercial activity.”28 

While the Alaska station at Poker Flat is located just outside of the 

Arctic Circle, there is yet another ground station which continues this joint, 

government-to-private enterprise theme but is situated a mere 965 kilometers 

(600 miles) from the North Pole itself. It is here on the Norwegian archipel-
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 319 

ago of Svalbard that the world’s northern-most, permanent, satellite ground 

station can be found at 81° latitude near the top of the world. 

The earliest written records documenting the existence of these 

frozen polar islands date back to the late twelfth century by the Vikings as they 

sojourned about the Arctic Ocean. For the next 400 years, though, Svalbard— 

which means “cold edge” or “cold coast”—was largely forgotten. Then in 

1596, the islands were accidentally rediscovered by an expedition led by the 

great Dutch seaman Willem Barents while searching for a Northeast trade 

passage to Asia. This was followed by the English explorer Henry Hudson, 

who mapped the area and reported good whaling there. This spurred a bitter 

quarrel between English and Dutch whalers over the territory. In 1618, a compromise was reached, with the Dutch limiting their operations to the northern 

part, leaving the rest to the English, the French and the Hanseatic League 

(an alliance of trading cities that maintained a trade monopoly over northern 

Europe between the 13th and 17th centuries). The Danes also claimed the 

archipelagos as part of Greenland. 

Over the next 300 years, various countries such as Norway, Russia, 

and Sweden laid claim to the islands, this especially after coal—the great source 

of energy that could empower the new steam engines—was discovered there in 

the late nineteenth century. Norway finally took formal possession of Svalbard 

in 1925 after a treaty was signed in Paris after the First World War. (Russia, 

who did not sign the accords, was to dispute Norway’s stance on the islands 

well into the latter part of the century.) The islands again came to the forefront 

when, during the Second World War, it was the scene of some very intense 

naval battles between Germany and the Allies due to its rich deposit of coal. 

Although Svalbard’s claim to fame for years had been its geographical setting serving as the staging point for North Pole explorers, it was not 

until 1990 that Norway officially opened up the region to general tourism, 

greatly expanding its economic base and spurring on the development of new 

industries. In 1997, the Norwegian Space Center (NSC), along with the private space conglomerate Konnesberg Satellite Services (KSAT), began putting 

together the Svalbard Satellite Ground Station at Platåberget, near the town 

of Longyearbyen. SvalSat, or SGS, is today a truly general purpose facility, 

providing customers with tracking, telemetry, and data returns from a host of 

polar orbiting satellites.29 

While NASA knew that the Alaska Ground Station was in a fairly 

good location at 65° latitude, it could, nevertheless, only observe about 14 out 

of every 16 passes that were actually available each 24 hours. With SGS being 

less than 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole, it could literally see every single polar orbit pass. Therefore, when Norway approached NASA to join their 

operations, it was a rather easy decision. The Agency first put up a trailer (often 

covered by a tent to keep the snow off) and an antenna in 1997. The site has 

steadily grown since then into sort of a “space park” of the Arctic. NASA now 
320 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

With its extreme northern location on the Svalbard archipelago (78o13’ latitude), SGS 

is the only ground station in the world able to provide all-orbit support of polar orbiting 

satellites. Six multi-mission antenna systems, along with several minor antenna systems, 

are used for tt&C and operations. One of the systems is dedicated to the NaSa Ground 

Network (in shared operations with eUMetSat) and is operated locally by SvalSat. the 

remaining antennas are remotely controlled and operated from tromsø at the tromsø 

Network Operations Center 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to the south on the Norwegian 

mainland. (KSat photograph, https://www.spacecommunications.nasa.gov/spacecomm, 

accessed 22 august 2007) 

operates an 11-meter (36-foot) S/X-band antenna there. Here, the Americans 

join the Norwegian Space Center and Kongsberg, as well as EUMETSAT 

(the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), 

to make up the world’s northern-most tracking station. 

Surrounded by “the King of the Arctic” polar bears—personnel are 

required to carry a weapon when working outside—the space park continues to 

grow.One of its hallmarks is the ability to get large amounts of data quickly off the 

island with the use of fiber optics.NASA arranged in 2004 to have the NSC install 

redundant fiber optics all the way back to the United States, much to the delight 

of data users on the North American continent.With this capability,NASA’s communications to Norway today are actually much more robust than those to Alaska. 

Taking the Agency’s domestic, government-industry relationship in Alaska to an 

international level, the operation in Svalbard serves as a model for the way space is 

being treated openly as an international commercial commodity. 

Unlike days bygone, the United States and the (former) Soviet 

Union are by no means the only torch bearers. Watson explained: 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 321 

The Norwegians made us a deal. They said you’re [NASA] 

paying $6 million a year now for commercial relay satellite services 

to haul data out of Norway. For $5 million for five years, we will 

install the fiber and then give you the next 15 years for free. How 

could we turn that deal down! And what they did was they made 

a similar offer to NOAA and so between NASA and NOAA, they 

got a revenue stream of about $10 million a year.They went off to 

a commercial financier and got the money, . . . basically borrowed it 

against a promissory.The implication was that NASA and NOAA 

would commit to pay for five-years. . . . They brought two ships in 

and laid redundant fiber, two different paths so if one gets cut, we 

still have the other. It was a remarkable plan.30 

Svalbard has proven to be a win-win situation for both NASA and 

the Norwegians. What began as a joint venture to gather a few more satellite passes has basically turned this faraway mining town into what is one of 

the best wired and well connected places anywhere in the world. In a way, 

NASA’s operations at Svalbard bring the GN of the twenty-first century full 

circle to how it all began nearly half a century ago. Back then, the emphasis 

was on hiring local people and training them to “nationalize the station.” This 

worked well at many places, from Chile to Ecuador to Guam. With Norway, 

this is very much a continuation of that legacy, except NASA no longer has 

to provide all the technology and set all the precedence. At Svalbard, the 

Norwegians did not need that “leg up” to turn their concept into a reality. 

In a sense, while America was winning the space race, the rest of 

the world caught up. 

★ ★ ★

Throughout the 1990s, the phrase “Faster, Better, Cheaper” became 

somewhat of a choreographed aphorism that drove much of the way business 

was conducted in the high technology world, both in the private sector and 

in the government. This approach impacted the space program in ways ranging from economics to performance and, some would argue, safety. For critics, 

“Faster, Better, Cheaper” was usually followed by “Two out of three aren’t bad!” 

In this era of commercialization, the approach as to how ground stations were to be built and how they were to be used began to change. “Lights 

out” operations and station autonomy entered the scene. Companies like USN 

and DataLynx entered the playing field. These multimission network terminals offered users the advantage of low cost services based on the philosophy 

of “pay only for what you use.” Like Santiago, they provided services on a 

retainer basis with added “per-pass” cost on actual usage, targeting not only 

commercial users of satellite services but also government users like NASA. 
322 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

It was in this renewed atmosphere of cost awareness and infrastructure reduction that NASA tried implementing an across-the-board 

streamlining of its organizations. This included, in particular, its tracking and 

space communications operations. The goal was actually rather sweeping but 

straight to the point: back the government out of day-to-day operations. To 

do this, all management of space operations was consolidated under a single 

office at the JSC in Houston. The office was named the Space Operations 

Management Office. Known as SOMO, the name would seemingly take on 

a life of its own in the coming years, the mere mention of which, even today, 

conjures up strong feelings on the part of those who were involved. 

The decision to establish SOMO was prompted by an Agency-wide 

examination of space operations requirements as part of a so-called Zero Base 

Review, completed in 1995. In this review, representatives from NASA Field 

Centers evaluated opportunities for consolidation, privatization, and commercialization of existing government functions across NASA. The review 

team recommended several initiatives to achieve cost savings while ensuring a 

continued, high quality of operations services. It was decided that a single but 

consolidated, management structure could be implemented that would best 

accommodate these goals. SOMO would be that management organization. 

Theoretically, it could be a centralized office that could quickly respond to 

service requirements as identified by specific NASA programs and projects, 

and even to external (non-Agency) customer requests for similar services—as 

long as NASA operations were not interfered with. Whether this was a good 

idea or not, at least on paper it seemed like it could work.31 

Under Administrator Daniel S. Goldin’s direction, the SOMO was 

established the following year. Its central objective was to ensure that existing NASA assets were used as efficiently as possible and that duplication was 

avoided. This objective unavoidably resulted in shuffling of responsibilities 

(and power) between various organizations within NASA. Not only that, it 

would also go one step farther by eliminating certain offices.32 

SOMO was purposely designed to be small, with key positions 

held by about three-dozen individuals from NASA Field Centers who, for all 

intents and purposes, made the decisions in carrying out all the Agency’s space 

operations. Specifically, the Data Services Manager was from the JPL; the 

Missions Services Manager was from Goddard; and the Commercialization 

and NISN Manager was represented by the MSFC.33 

Thus from JSC, the office soon ended up basically managing all 

of NASA’s space operations, including its vital communication networks and 

tracking systems. The TDRSS Space Network became a part of it as well as 

the GN, the NISN and JPL’s DSN. In other words, management of the networks suddenly—and for those involved, unbelievably—now came under the 

auspices of the JSC. This gave JSC an inordinate amount of power. While 

the move did not take away the GSFC’s day-to-day responsibility of operat-
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 323 

ing the network (nor JPL for its Deep Space activities), it did significantly 

erode the role that Headquarters had in Washington. The Office of Space 

Communications (OSC, organizational designation “Code O”) responded 

unreservedly to the sweeping mandate to, in effect, do more with less. Staffing 

at OSC was first reduced by 35 percent, then by 60 percent, and finally, 85 percent. This included elimination of 16 senior level GS-15 and higher positions. 

With its role greatly reduced, the job of Headquarters was relegated to conducting external interface, determining program requirements and strategic 

planning.34 In short, Code O was one of those, which for all intents and purposes, eliminated. The numbers back this up. Prior to consolidation, Code O 

had in excess of 50 people at Headquarters working the Agency’s tracking and 

communications needs. After the reorganization, scarcely eight remained.35 

To put it bluntly, space communications—at Headquarters as well 

as Goddard—was being gutted. 

The idea of consolidation was radical but seemed noble enough 

at the time. NASA established the SOMO (Code M) to oversee its space 

operations activities and to implement a single Consolidated Space Operations 

Contract (CSOC) as the initial step to reduce the cost of operations. In this 

“integrated operations architecture”, many of the trends which were permeating space communications in general—trends such as the aforementioned 

automation and privatization—could take effect. The thinking was that a 

single, large contract would naturally be more efficient than a plethora of 

smaller ones. On 25 September 1998, NASA awarded the enormous $3.4 billion operations contract—five year base with an option for an additional five 

years—to a team led by Lockheed Martin. It was one of the most valuable 

outsourcing programs ever undertaken by a civilian agency. Under CSOC, 

five contracts which had up until then operated independently were consolidated on the first day that the contract took effect. (Ten more separate contracts transitioned to CSOC from 1999 to 2004.)36 

Even NASA was fully aware, however, that the envisioned cost 

reduction could not take place overnight. While some reduction could be 

gained initially, the contractor work force supporting space operations at five 

NASA Centers would have to be reduced gradually over the 10-year period at 

a rate of slightly less than 100 jobs per year on the average. The idea was that, 

by implementing the reductions over a decade, essentially all of the attrition 

could be absorbed through planned retirement, personal job changes and reassignment of contractor employees to other programs. 

Even as CSOC was being awarded to industry in 1998, SOMO 

began exploring several additional commercialization initiatives with the aim 

of realizing some further, longer term cost savings. For example, services with 

USN were established. Another component was to provide, using the CSOC 

contract-vehicle with private industry, opportunities to offset some of NASA’s 

operating cost by marketing unused capacity on the TDRSS. One such ini-
324 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

tiative—originally conceived by Code O—was to provide “TDRSS time” 

to commercial oil exploration vessels at sea, as there was virtually no commercially available communication satellite that could support the transfer 

of the large amounts of data for such application. Through these and other 

initiatives, SOMO at the JSC projected that a $1.4 billion cost saving could 

potentially be realized over the next 10 years.37 

As optimistic as JSC was on the outside, however, it could simply 

not shed a barrier that soon (and clearly) manifested itself as a growing cancer 

in the whole SOMO idea. When the office was formed in 1996, program 

responsibilities moved from Washington to Houston. This had huge repercussions. While the various Field Centers still had their programs to work, 

this shift in responsibility to Houston naturally did not sit well with them. 

According to Robert Spearing, who witnessed the whole thing and was one 

of those actually recruited back from private industry by NASA to help fix 

the problem, it was putting in charge “an organization that they [the Field 

Centers] felt was ill-equipped to deal with their issues.” Said Spearing, 

What was not understood well was what happens to the work 

that has to go on at Headquarters is very difficult for a Field Center 

to perform because they don’t have the skills for that.A lot of our 

work here at Headquarters relates to working with the other agencies of the federal government, both civilian and military, and also 

working with the Congress to advocate our programs. So you 

ended up having a very limited capability to perform that function 

here at Headquarters.38 

Essentially, SOMO had grossly underestimated the importance of 

having a team in Washington to take care of business with the rest of the federal government (and international partners). Said Spearing: 

You have to have the right talent here in town for our relationships internationally. . . . When you work with international 

organizations like the European Space Agency or the Italian Space 

Agency or the Japanese Space Agencies, all of these organizations 

look to NASA Headquarters.When someone from a Field Center 

goes and represents NASA to these organizations, they see that as 

somewhat of a mismatch. So there were some lessons learned.39 

By 1998, just two years after SOMO was set up, it was already 

clear to most that in the process of trying to work issues between the JSC, 

Headquarters, and the other Field Centers like Goddard, Marshall, and JPL, 

that it just was not working. Space Communications had been relegated to an 

office under Code M. There were open and often ugly struggles over who was 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 325 

NaSa’s management of its tracking and space communications activities began at 

headquarters with the establishment of the Office of tracking and Data acquisition 

(OtDa) on 1 November 1961. this photograph shows its staff in the early 1980s. OtDa 

was reorganized into the Office of Space tracking and Data acquisition (OStDa) in 1983 

and then into the Office of Space Operations (OSO) in 1987. It became the Office of 

Space Communications (OSC) in 1992. edmond C. Buckley was OtDa’s first associate 

administrator (1961–1968). he was succeeded in that position by Gerald M. truszynski 

(1968–1978), William C. Schneider (1978–1980), robert e. Smylie (1980–1983), robert 

O. aller (1983–1989), Charles t. Force (1989–1996), Wilson t. Lundy (interim Deputy aa 

1996), David W. harris (interim Deputy aa 1997–1998), robert e. Spearing (1998–present). 

(photograph courtesy of Charles Force) 

in charge and who had control. Beset by quagmire, something had to be done. 

The SOMO in Houston eventually came around to this realization. A rather 

laborious process followed in which the OSC was slowly restored. First, the 

position of Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Communications under 

Code M was abolished. It was then placed under the Office of the Deputy 

Associate Administrator for the Space Shuttle. Later in the year, it was again 

transferred, this time under the Director for Resources Management. By 2001, 

Stan C. Newberry, who by then was heading up the SOMO, was holding talks 

about the future of the office with top agency officials at Headquarters. Not 

soon thereafter, and with little fanfare, Administrator Dan Goldin dissolved 

the controversial office and restored program management of space operations 

back to Washington where they remain today. With the restoration of Code O, 

management for tracking, data acquisition, and space communications at NASA 
326 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

were reconsolidated. Ten years after the controversial reorganization began, the 

OSC was finally restored to the structure Buckley had setup 45 years earlier. 

In April 2004, at the end of the five-year base period, the CSOC 

industry contract to the Lockheed-Martin team was terminated and not exercised into the option period.40 OSC at Headquarters not only survived the 

SOMO fiasco, it broke apart CSOC. The separate set of five contracts (now 

collectively called Space Mission Communications and Data Services) divided 

CSOC’s functions fairly equally across three NASA centers—Goddard, 

Kennedy, and Marshall. The new contracts were collectively worth about 

$400 million a year, roughly equal to the annual average of the old CSOC. 

But now Headquarters intended to award, manage and determine the specifics 

of each contract separately.41 

Regarding the whole affair, James Costrell of the OSC said, “It was 

a new concept to NASA. The theory was that spacecom (space communications) is spacecom, that it’s all the same. So NASA charged ahead with the idea 

that a consolidated contract would result in efficiencies.”42 

Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way. With the contract 

managed by SOMO from Houston, other Field Centers found that LockheedMartin and its subcontractors could not respond to their needs very effectively. 

The contract had other weaknesses too. Among the worst was that NASA had 

to renegotiate prices with the contractors whenever conditions changed. For 

instance, if the Agency ended a mission, closed a tracking station or took any 

action that altered the work needed from the industry team, Agency and company managers had to agree on cost revisions. Through the lessons of SOMO 

and consolidation, NASA learned (the hard way) that one size does not always 

fit; divide and conquer sometimes works better. “What the agency finally 

came to grips with was that there are some fundamental differences between 

the various communications activities,” Costrell said.43 

Although the controversy and subsequent fallout of what is now 

simply referred to as “consolidation” inside NASA may have in many ways been 

a failed experiment and a bitter pill to swallow (many were reassigned from 

GSFC and Headquarters or left the Agency), the ensuing years have shown the 

resiliency of America’s space agency as an organization to overcome and move 

forward from its setbacks.44 The revolutionary, new kind of network ushered 

in by TDRSS and the new mission of today’s network of ground stations have 

helped set the stage for the coming decade. On 14 January 2004, President 

George W. Bush announced his “New Vision for Space Exploration” to return 

astronauts to the Moon by the year 2020, to be followed by mankind’s first 

journeys to a neighboring planet. 

Space communications have indeed come a long way since engineers first tried to keep track on a little sphere called Sputnik as it beeped its 

way around the globe. Today, that same technology—which allowed the world 
Chapter 8 \ The New Landscape 327 

to watch live broadcasts of the 1964 Tokyo Games to the “space handshake” 

of Apollo-Soyuz and webcasting of telemedicine from Antarctica—continues 

to provide people around the world with sharing of everyday technologies 

not possible before. Such is the diversity that has allowed live communications from virtually anywhere in the world. Families who have not seen each 

other in years can stay in touch using cellular telephone networks and video 

networking on their personal computers. Brilliant HDTV via satellite can be 

enjoyed, for example, by the outdoorsman on a camping excursion hundreds 

of kilometers from the nearest city. 

As NASA prepares to send humans back to the Moon and launch 

evermore ambitious space missions into Earth orbit and beyond,the tracking and 

communications network which Jack Mengel, Ozzie Covington, Ed Buckley 

and so many others began not so long ago will be there to meet the challenge. 

Chapter 9 

A LEGACY 

NASA’s STDN supported every U.S. space mission since 1958. Its 

desire was to stay inconspicuous, the more invisible the better. Much like an 

offensive lineman in the game of football or a player in an orchestra, they did 

not want their name called because it usually meant there was a penalty or a 

wrong note. Yet, the team could not win without the lineman nor could the 

orchestra music make without every member playing the right note. 

How will space communications progress in the decades ahead and 

how will it best be able to build on the accomplishments of the past? 

This is the question the NASA finds itself asking at the dawn of the 

twenty-first century. But this is not new. 

Man has made remarkable strides in penetrating the atmo

sphere surrounding his planet and even venturing into space. 

Scores of objects have been launched into space, many to roam 

the solar system forever. We stand now on the threshold of a new 

era of discovery.1 

-

This was not the reflection of a modern day philosopher, but rather, 

something that Ed Buckley said in 1966 even before man had first left the 
330 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

confines of Earth. Bill Wood echoed this sentiment when he was asked in 

1983 even before the first TDRS was launched just what the future holds for 

spaceflight tracking and communications. 

Today, the problems are hardly any different: how to handle 

reliably and economically a data flow now grown to 50 million 

bits-per-second and how to make the best use of these data in 

our search for new knowledge for the benefit of all mankind. 

We may have new and more advanced technology, but the challenge remains. . . . Our motto was a rather basic one: ‘Close is good 

enough when you are playing horseshoes, but that is not good 

enough for manned spaceflight!’ 2 

The challenge remains. Instead of megabytes (millions of bytes of 

digital data), today space communications work in gigabytes and terabytes 

(billions of bytes and higher). Just like it took the pioneers of aviation nearly 

half a century to go from 10 miles per hour to the speed of sound, the last 50 

years of the twentieth century have seen tracking and space communications 

go from the picket line of Minitrack to the near-instantaneous, on-demand 

services offered by an invisible network that sees an entire hemisphere of 

Earth from 36,000 kilometers away. 

In an age when global weather forecasts, spectacular images of 

celestial objects never before seen from space, and live images of astronauts 

living and working in space are taken for granted, it is difficult to imagine 

a time when America was struggling to put satellites into space. Engineers 

were not even sure whether or not they could be reliably tracked let alone 

prove useful on an everyday basis. From optical and radar tracking to radio 

interferometry, and from the large, automatic tracking antennas of the 1960s 

to the SN of today, advancement in communications technology has undergone many evolutions during this time. In fact, entirely new industries have 

been spawned. Though it may sound a bit trite, the continuing legacy of the 

spaceflight networks through its many incarnations has not only produced 

America’s success in space but has, in its own way, contributed to such spinoffs as calculators, personal computers, digital watches, cellular telephones, 

and internet links to remote corners of the world. From VHF and UHF to 

S-band and Ka-band, the exploitation of higher and higher frequencies across 

the radio spectrum has enabled the spaceflight networks to meet and plan for 

the ever-increasing demand for higher bandwidths that are needed both today 

and for visions on the horizon. 

But more than the technology itself, the history of America’s STDN 

is a testament to the people behind the scenes who made it work, both as an 

organization and as a technological marvel. Leading the way has been the 

organization at NASA’s GSFC, the Agency’s focal point for all near-Earth 
Chapter 9 \ A Legacy 331 

communications and scientific satellite work, a role which it continues to 

enjoy today. Henry Clements, who was the first Network Controller during 

Project Mercury, reflected on the role of this Center. 

As for the support provided by the Goddard tracking and communications team, it was outstanding—though it has been largely 

unrecognized even within NASA’s own family. Management, outside the JSC, all too often failed to recognize the very important 

contributions made by these men and women, engineers and computer experts who were stationed around the world.We could not 

have done it without them.They got the data to us.3 

Vern Stelter, who ran the Center’s Communications Division from 

1962 to 1973, summarized what he and his people were all about. “We were 

there, but determined to be invisible. Ours was a service on which the programs could depend. We were there when needed.”4 

This unpretentious mindset that the spaceflight tracking network 

be an “invisible network”—or as former Associate Administrator Charles 

Force put it like a light switch, always there when you turn it on—was something that Ozzie Covington always stood by. Said Covington unpretentiously 

years ago: 

I must confess, I had never been able to actually pinpoint what 

my contributions were. Granted, we pushed the state of the art 

in the areas of tracking, communications, and computer applications. Maybe it was the assembling of a first rate team of men 

and women—both in NASA and private industry—who in fact 

deserve the credit.We were only in the background, providing the 

links between the astronauts and the Earth.5 

This first rate team was in fact a testimony to what can be accomplished when industry and the government develop a high level of trust. From 

Bendix field technicians like Gary Schulz to Senior Managers like Glenn 

Smith and Cliff Benson or Program Manager Larry Jochen, working the networks became a way of life. Like the early days of Mercury when the Agency 

had “Go Fever”, many had “Island Fever”. Some ended up spending their 

entire careers with the contractor teams, hopping from one locale to another. 

Some brought their families, others found new ones. As one former supervisor 

put it, “We didn’t make a lot of money, but we had a lot of fun!”6 

Murray Weingarten, President and Chairman of the Board for 

Bendix from 1973 to 1989 and who was perhaps the one most influential in 

establishing this esprit de corps of contractors, once summarized this legacy: 
332 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

During the peak of the U.S.space program,some 2,300 Bendix 

people were committed to this effort. It was a good marriage, based 

on professional relationships and a dedication that would be difficult for some to understand. It was a productive partnership for 

both the government and private industry.There is no doubt that 

it has been effective, and we take great pride that the Congress of 

the United States referred to these people—both government and 

industry—as the ‘unsung heroes of the space program.’7 

Author Alfred Rosenthal in 1982 interviewed Gerald M. Truszynski, 

NASA’s top official for Tracking and Data Acquisition from 1968 to 1978, 

and asked him to describe how the Agency (in particular, the importance of 

Headquarters charting the course and delegating the responsibilities to the 

Field Centers) and its contractors were able to meet the unique challenges of 

the time. The fabric of Truszynski’s remark is as true today as when he first 

spoke compellingly of it 25 years ago: 

One of the major reasons for the outstanding success of the 

NASA tracking and data acquisition networks lies in the organizational and management approach taken by NASA in this vital 

area of flight program support.While the variety of these programs 

was quite broad—ranging from research sounding rockets through 

scientific satellites, manned missions of great complexity and far 

ranging planetary missions—all needed the very necessary common denominator of reliable, and in most cases, worldwide tracking and data acquisition support for their accomplishment. 

In the beginning days of the space program, there was a tendency to look upon tracking and data support as an associated part 

of major flight program functions, or as a necessary part of launch 

vehicle operations. However, early in the 1960s, we were successful 

in making the point to NASA management that there was a need 

to organize the tracking and data acquisition and communications 

function as a single, centralized entity, responsible for the development, implementation and operation of these facilities for support 

of all of NASA’s flight programs.This resulted in a highly efficient 

structure and gave us the necessary resident technical expertise—in 

one office—to plan, develop, budget and defend before Congress 

the requirements for this key activity in an integrated fashion. 

The office was able to become an integral part of the overall program planning function at NASA Headquarters and was 

involved, early on, in the evolution of every major program and 

thus able to translate mission requirements into network requirements in a timely manner.We now could plan our own destiny.We 
Chapter 9 \ A Legacy 333 

were given control over our own financial resources along with 

the technical expertise in the NASA Field Centers—primarily the 

Goddard Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory— 

where major elements of these centers were directly associated 

with the tracking and data acquisition function. 

The dedication of the people at these Centers was a major 

factor in the success of our program, and deserving of particular 

mention.We involved them directly in our planning and, with the 

splendid cooperation of the Center Directors, had the ability to 

deal quite directly with the appropriate technical groups to handle 

our problems with a minimum of administrative delay. Over the 

years, we evolved a network capability which was extremely reliable by requiring that systems committed for implementation into 

the network were within the state of the art and had the necessary developmental and test lead times to assure their operational 

integrity. This, despite the fact that we were working under too 

stringent, fixed time constraints. Because of this record, we were 

able to earn the confidence of the flight programs, the support of 

our management, and the Congress, which gave us the financial 

resources to get the job done. 

Another important element in the success of our operations 

was the good international cooperation we enjoyed where we were 

required to establish tracking stations in foreign countries.We,at the 

outset, always approached each country involved as partners, never 

attempting to or even suggesting that we establish ‘

Little Americas.’ 

We encouraged the active participation of the host country in the 

planning, construction, and subsequent operation of the tracking 

stations. As a result, we were never refused permission to establish 

our facilities. Zanzibar [and Havana] was the only facility we had to 

vacate on short notice when a coup toppled the government. 

In the final analysis, the success of any activity usually can be 

traced to the individual efforts of the personnel who were highly 

skilled and dedicated in their efforts to provide the highest quality 

and roost reliable support possible to the space flight programs.The 

late Congressman Olin Teague referred to these individuals as ‘the 

unsung heroes of the space program.’ I certainly share his sentiments and thank each one for a job well done.8 

As the space agency builds on these accomplishments moving into 

the future, some challenges remain the same. But some are quite different. 

Take the ISS and the Space Shuttle—which NASA plans to retire in 2010 after 

completion of the ISS. To support a Shuttle launch, it is not just the Agency’s 

Space and Ground Networks that are involved. It is a collaborative effort 
334 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Official crew portrait of StS-107 which broke apart during reentry on 1 February 2003. From 

left to right are David M. Brown, rick D. husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael p. 

anderson, William C. McCool, Ilan ramon. (NaSa Image Number KSC-01pp-1639) 

between NASA and the DOD, with international partners also having a stake. 

In a sense, NASA integrates a network from different organizations in order 

to meet a particular mission need. And when that mission is over, the network 

is broken up to allow the different stakeholders to return to their primary 

functions. This kind of “virtual network” allows the Agency the flexibility it 

needs to accommodate many different types of missions. 

A case in point is the new communications requirement stipulated for the Space Shuttle after Columbia broke apart on reentry during the 

final minutes of STS-107 on 1 February 2003. Foam and ice debris from 

the Shuttle’s giant External Tank during launch punched a hole in the leading edge of the left wing which led to thermal protection breakdown in the 

1,650°C (3,000°F) searing heat of reentry, killing the crew of seven. (The 

crew members on that fateful day were Commander Rick D. Husband; Pilot 

William C. McCool; Mission Specialists Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown 
Chapter 9 \ A Legacy 335 

and Laurel Clark; Payload Commander Michael P. Anderson; and Payload 

Specialist Ilan Ramon of the Israeli Air Force.) 

Flight rules now require continuous, live, high-resolution video 

of the External Tank during the Shuttle’s ascent into orbit. To this end, 

Enhanced Launch Vehicle Imaging System, or ELVIS, cameras are mounted 

on the Orbiter, SRB and the tank itself. The goal is to provide the ground 

with engineering and visual data to assess the vehicle condition and tracking of debris during launch and ascent. To meet this flight-critical (“Crit 1”) 

safety requirement, the integrated network stations of Merritt Island/Ponce 

de Leon, Wallops Island and the Jonathan Dickinson Annex provide the necessary and seamless link needed for ELVIS to work.9 

With respect to communications with the ISS, several upgrades have 

been implemented in recent years or will be in the near future. One such modification goes by the catchy acronym of IDEA: ISS Downlink Enhancement 

Architecture. IDEA is in essence a modified ground system infrastructure that 

provides the space station with the ability to increase its science data return 

rate three-fold, from 50 megabits-per-second to 150 over the station’s Ku-band 

downlink. A fiber optic ground network began in 2004 enabling JSC and 

MSFC to receive this high-rate data. It became operational in 2005.10 

For TDRSS and the SN, GSFC and JSC have been working with 

the ESA since 1998 to make the system compatible and ready to support the 

latter’s much anticipated Automated Transfer Vehicle, or ATV. ESA’s ATV 

will be an automated, resupply ship designed to dock to the ISS and provide the crew with dry cargo, oxygen, water, and propellant. After cargo is 

unloaded, it will be reloaded with waste products, undocked, and set on a 

course for destructive reentry. 

The first craft—to be named Jules Verne after the nineteenth century French science fiction writer—is considered by ESA as the most sophisticated space vehicle ever to be built in Europe. To support these partner objectives, Goddard completed a series of communications compatibility tests in 

Bremen, Germany in 2004.11 Parallel with this effort, NASA SN engineers are 

working with the Japanese Space Agency NASDA to develop a tracking and 

communication solution for their H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), the Japanese 

version of Europe’s ATV. Coding, data rate, and modulation upgrades to the 

TDRSS are anticipated to be complete no later than 2007.12 

Finally, there is the familiar matter of television. What started 

humbly on Apollo 7 has come full circle, with HDTV. Just like consumer 

demands for better and better pictures from sporting events to big-screen 

IMAX pictures, images from space are no different. Starting with STS-114 

(the first flight after the Columbia disaster), real-time HDTV was downlinked. 

Future HDTV sponsors include the Japanese along with the American cable 

television’s Discovery Channel. Using customer-furnished hardware, HDTV 
336 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Backdropped against water and clouds, the International Space Station (ISS) was photographed by the crew of StS-102 on 1 March 2001 as they headed home in the Space 

Shuttle Discovery. In the foreground is a russian Soyuz still docked to the station. Major 

construction of the ISS is scheduled for completion in 2010, at which time, NaSa will 

transition american human space transportation from the Space Shuttle to the Crew 

exploration Vehicle. (NaSa Image Number MSFC-0102549) 

signals will be downlinked from the ISS via TDRSS and distributed to users 

at the NASA Field Centers and to domestic and foreign customers. 

The trend is clear. Space communications will remain an international activity, just like it was when it all started back in the 1950s. As it did 

then, NASA Headquarters will play a leading role to establish partnerships 

with the international space community. In the late 1980s, the Space Networks 

Interoperability Panel (SNIP) was informally created at an international conference under the direction of then Associate Administrator Robert Aller. At 

that time, differing space data relay systems were in various stages of planning 

and development by NASA, ESA, and NASDA. It was the first forum specifi-
Chapter 9 \ A Legacy 337 

cally designed to discuss, anticipate and try to resolve differences in the design 

and operation of the different systems with their stakeholders. The routine 

meetings among the agencies identified, for example, frequency differences, 

on-orbit locations, user operation limitations, and even emergency backup 

support scenarios in the event of total space communication system failures.13 

This panel was followed in the June of 1999 by the formal establishment of the Interagency Operations Advisory Group, or IOAG. Here, 

top officials from NASA, Italy’s Agenzia Spatiale Italiana (ASI), the French 

Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Germany’s Deutsches Zentrum 

für Luftund Raumfahrt (DLR), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the 

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), meet annually (at rotating host 

countries) to coordinate space communications policies, procedures, technical interfaces, and many other matters related to interoperability. The group 

itself does not do—for the most part—the technical work. It relies primarily 

on technical work already completed by other organizations, for example, that 

develop standards for space systems. However, when a deficiency or inconsistency is discovered, the IOAG may recommend to such organizations that 

they address the missing areas in their work. By doing so, a common framework is laid that enables synergy and cooperative efforts among all the international partners.14 

In the same vein, in 1995 and 1996, NASA was an active participant 

in the National Facilities Study—a joint effort by the DOD, NOAA, NASA, 

and other U.S. government participants—the basic premise of which was to 

reduce duplication and identify areas of national need. One of the sub-panels 

was devoted to aerospace tracking and communications capabilities. It was in 

this panel that issues regarding frequency usage, allocation, and station locations were addressed. There was also extensive discussion regarding synergies 

between NASA and NOAA in places like Alaska for mutual cost savings and 

improved coverage. Like the IOAG and its predecessor the SNIP, the National 

Facilities Study addressed and tried to resolve the spectrum differences and 

expedite cooperative operations amongst the agencies.15 

With respect to ground station operations, since Earth is round and 

the United States obviously does not own territory everywhere, it has been 

and always will be an international activity. In other words, if NASA has a 

requirement on foreign soil, it has no choice but to go to the other country. 

This actually has inherent advantages. Said Bill Watson: 

I think the really neat thing about the early ground network 

was that many of these countries welcomed us in because they 

wanted to join the space program. But they also welcomed us in 

on the condition that we train their people, hire them to become 

technically literate and competent.We did a lot of that.We had a 

NTTF at Greenbelt that ran classes for years and put thousands 
338 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

of people through and trained them up in receivers and recorders 

and computers and how to solder and all kinds of techniques.They 

then took that back home and became technically competent in 

the countries that they came from. I think we still see that desire to 

engage, even with our peers today.16 

While Earth science will always be there serving to anchor nearEarth space activities, the future for NASA—as it was in the past—is exploration. Here, synergies exist between science and sending astronauts back to 

the Moon and onto Mars, neither of which can be done without defining the 

space communication requirements. NASA Headquarters has set up, for this 

purpose, a Communication and Navigation Architecture Working Group to 

define and lay the foundation for its communication and navigation infrastructure for the next 25 years. One concept is a plan for an Integrated NearEarth Network (INEN). 

Although only a proposal, the elegance of an INEN is attractive 

since it would involve building a network one mission at a time. One of the first 

ingredients is Goddard’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a geosynchronous mission that will monitor solar storms and send back information which 

will be a benefit to astronauts in space in case of storms. It will do this, plus 

provide warnings of commercial communications disruptions here on Earth. 

In conjunction with development of the SDO is the LRO, or Lunar 

Reconnaissance Orbiter. To support these projects, NASA’s next expansion 

in ground stations may again be at White Sands, New Mexico where three 

60-foot Ka-band antennas could be built to support these missions. Both 

the SDO and LRO will utilize the Ka-band frequency for communications 

where ever higher bandwidths and data rates can be accommodated. (Today 

most of NASA’s communications are at X-band which is fine for data rates 

of around 150 megabits-per-second.) With the advancement to Ka-band, 

though, data rates can be increased by over a factor of three, to 500 megabitsper-second.17 

With Ka-band capability, the kernel—or seeds—for an exploration 

network at White Sands could be established. The idea is that once SDO and 

LRO are over, this resource could then become part of a Ka-band network for 

lunar exploration. As the need arises, S-band commercial sites—for instance, 

in Australia and South Africa—can be used to supplement White Sands. As 

it does today, NASA can buy these lower rate services commercially. As the 

Exploration Program matures and as the need for high rate data requirements 

expands, the Agency might then consider putting additional Ka-band dishes 

in places like South Africa, Australia, or Madrid to complete its mid-latitude, 

high data rate network for exploration.18 

The idea is that although the DSN has traditionally been responsible for planetary communications, it will help support near-Earth work as 
Chapter 9 \ A Legacy 339 

pictured is the chosen artist’s rendering of NaSa’s next generation space telescope. 

a successor to the hubble Space telescope (hSt), the futuristic James Webb Space 

telescope (JWSt) is named in honor of NaSa’s second administrator, James e. Webb. 

to further our understanding of the way our universe formed, NaSa is developing the 

JWSt to observe the first stars and galaxies in the universe. the new telescope will 

carry a near-infrared camera, a multi-object spectrometer and a mid-infrared cameraspectrometer. the JWSt is scheduled for launch in 2010 aboard an expendable launch 

vehicle. It will take the spacecraft three months to reach its destination, an orbit of 

1,513,000 kilometers (940,000 miles) in space. the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) 

is supporting Goddard in developing the JWSt by creating an ultra-lightweight mirror for 

the telescope at Marshall’s Space Optics Manufacturing technology Center. the program has a number of industry, academic, and government partners, as well as participation from the european Space agency and the Canadian Space agency. (NaSa Image 

Number MSFC-0202886) 
340 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

well since GSFC has closed down its large tracking antennas in places like 

Rosman and Fairbanks. Since the TDRSS coverage zone stops at around 

12,000 kilometers (7,400 miles)—the point at which TDRSS can no longer 

provide continuous communications with a spacecraft—new 18-meter (60-

foot) Ka-band systems will be added to cover the gap between near-Earth and 

deep space. It in effect pushes the boundary of the NEN out to somewhere 

around two million kilometers (1,240,000 miles), which is where near-Earth 

transitions to deep space from a spaceflight point of view.19 

Of particular interest in recent years are spacecraft that can be 

located at five distinct points in space where the gravitational pull of Earth, 

Sun, and Moon all balance out. A craft positioned at one of these “Lagrange 

Points” (named after Italian-French mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange) 

can “hover” there in a so-called lissajou orbit—somewhat akin to the “figure-8” loop that a geosynchronous satellite does over Earth except the orbit 

would not be stable. One point in particular, called “L2,” is approximately 1.5 

million kilometers (932,000 miles) away from Earth beyond the Moon. In the 

coming decade, NASA plans to put several astronomical observatories there, 

including the much anticipated James Webb Space Telescope—the follow up 

to the HST. Space will be a busy place.20 

Under the envisioned Integrated Near-Earth Network, the Agency 

could use a combination of 18-meter Ka-band antennas plus the TDRSS to 

provide seamless coverage on a space mission. Take a Mars exploration mission for instance. As it is launched out of the KSC, it would be supported from 

a Merritt Island/Ponce de Leon-like station, but equipped with Ka-band. Just 

like the Shuttle, it would then transition to TDRSS soon after launch. But 

as the vehicle leaves Earth’s orbit and out of TDRSS coverage, the new Kaband antennas at mid-latitude locations such as New Mexico, South Africa, or 

Madrid and Australia would pick up its signals much like the Apollo stations 

did with their Unified S-Band antennas in the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, as it 

goes beyond two million kilometers towards Mars, coverage will transition 

over to the DSN.21 

NASA’s tracking and data network will have then come full-circle, 

albeit this time with much faster data rates, much higher bandwidths and 

much more autonomy than before. This is really but a reflection of the cyclical nature of space exploration. The first satellites went into orbit to explore 

Earth. This was followed by space probes to the Moon and the planets. After 

America sent 12 astronauts to the Moon and won the space race, the Agency 

once again concentrated on Earth science, both un-crewed and with human 

presence (the ISS). In the coming decades, this cycle will likely shift once 

again to emphasize human exploration, not only of the Moon but this time 

out to Mars and beyond. 

To this end, NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate plans 

to start flying the Crew Exploration Vehicle soon after the three Space Shuttle 
Chapter 9 \ A Legacy 341 

Orbiters are retired in 2010. To ensure continuity, the TDRSS will have to 

deploy new satellites in the 2012 to 2015 time frame. As astronauts return to 

the Moon, the Agency will likely need some type of lunar relay system to be 

able to communicate with the spacecraft when it is on the back side of the 

Moon. Much has happened in the three-decades since Apollo last went to the 

Moon. Tragedy, unfortunately, has played a major role. To enter lunar orbit, 

the Apollo Service Module had to fire its engine on the backside of the Moon 

out of communication with Mission Control. After Challenger and Columbia, 

the Agency will likely not want to fire another rocket without having a communication link and knowing what happened. Thus, there is expectation at 

NASA that a TDRSS-like system on the backside of the Moon may have to 

be built before returning astronauts there. 

The challenges don’t stop there. Farther down the road, as mankind places our first steps on Mars, high-definition television will have already 

been a fixture for many years. The world is going to want to see pictures a 

lot clearer than what it saw with Armstrong and Aldrin. To do this, an optimal array of antennas and frequencies will be needed. The magnitude of the 

challenge should not be understated. For example, architectural studies have 

shown that in order to receive 100-megabits of low bit-error data from Mars, 

100 to 300 12-meter (40-foot) antennas will need to be arrayed together in 

one location!22 Not impossible but clearly a challenge. Then there is the issue 

of relay and perhaps more importantly, delay. It takes light and radio signals 

anywhere from 3 to 18 minutes to reach Earth from Mars—the exact time 

depending on where the two planets are with respect to each other. One 

might ask, does the information we receive have to be real-time or is it good 

enough to just have the information tell what happened? 

Delay-tolerant networking is even today a major issue for NASA (and 

for information technology at large). A simple example would be the case of a 

person using wireless internet access on a bus or a train. As he travels through 

a tunnel and loses his session, he would not want to have to start all over again 

when he resumes the session on the other end. The issue is how to get internet 

standards to evolve to the point where they can reliably cope with delays. 

NASA will be busy. 

With President Bush recommitting America to human space exploration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been offered 

an opportunity that was not really all that well formed prior to 2004. With 

that vision comes the opportunity for NASA to take a new look at where it is 

going as the nation’s space agency, and in particular, where it is going from a 

space communications point of view. The two are inextricably tied together. 

In sort of a twist on the popular American Express advertising slogan, those 

who work the networks at the Agency have adopted as their unofficial tagline 

“Space Communications: Don’t Leave Earth Without It” when describing 
342 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

the indispensable role that the tracking and communications networks have 

played over the years.23 

Because space communications are not easy, those who build the 

network are really building an enabling capability for the future. Just as the 

MSFN enabled the United States to safely go to the Moon and back, today the 

TDRSS enables the ISS and other data-rich spacecraft to return the amount of 

data that they were designed for. In many ways, as the previous generation did 

for today, those who now work the Space and Ground Networks are setting 

up for what is to come for the next generation. 

The story of America’s global spaceflight tracking network is ultimately the story of the men and women who made space communications 

a reality before it became the neat thing that it is today, something that we 

cannot live without. When Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969, 56-kilobit 

connections to ground stations were a big deal. Today, the space agency hauls 

4.5-terabytes (that is, 4.5-trillion bytes of digital data) a day back to Earth at an 

average rate of 100-megabits (100,000,000) per second.24 

As one walks the hallways of NASA, whether it be the GSFC, the 

JSC or Headquarters, there are televisions all around showing videos of astronauts working in the ISS, spectacular images of celestial bodies from across the 

galaxy taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, or live pictures of storm patterns 

developing on the other side of the planet. As Bob Spearing, NASA’s former 

top official for space communications, put it: 

None of that—none of it—would be there without space communications. So when I walk by and somebody is looking at the 

television screen, I ask ‘Do you know how that picture got here?’ 

Most of them say no. Most people don’t have any idea. I’ll then go 

through a little talk about how the picture got here—and there is 

a real appreciation then. From a legacy point of view, there are a 

couple of things. One thing is that communications is ubiquitous 

and it is a capability that we all assume and just move on.We don’t 

give it a second thought until it doesn’t happen. If you look back 

over time, I believe you’ll be hard pressed to find a mission that was 

compromised in any way by lack of communications. So our legacy 

is we deliver the goods and we always have. Every mission requires 

it and we have always delivered. . . . We made it work!25 

As the NASA enters the second half of its first century, a new generation of space probes and human explorers will lead the way back to the Moon, 

eventually venturing to Mars and beyond. As they make these journeys, men 

and women here on Earth will track them across that vast ocean of space. 

After all, someone will have to stock the ships for the new Columbus 

and the new Magellan! 
ENDNotEs 

Preface 

1 Much of the above description on the DSN was adapted from JPL Publication 400-326 “Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex.” 

Foreword 

1 NASA Management Instruction NMI 1162.1W 

2 “Review of the Space Communications Program of NASA’s Space 

Operations Mission Directorate” by the National Research Council of 

The National Academies, The National Academies Press, 2007. 

Introduction 

1 Robert Godwin, Friendship 7: The First Flight of John Glenn. The 

NASA Mission Reports, (Apogee Books, Ontario, Canada, 1999), 

Appendix B: Air-Ground Communications of the MA-6 Flight. 

2 Alfred Rosenthal, Vital Links (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 

1983), p. 196. 

3 Ibid, p. 60. 
344 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

4 Schneider interview from Vital Links. 

5 Mengel interview from Vital Links. 

6 Kraft interview from Vital Links. 

7 Carolynne White, Goddard Space Flight Center News Release 89-2, 13 

January 1989,Folder Number 8813,NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

8 See Note 6. 

9 Force interview. 

10 Prior to the Early Bird, satellites like Echo I and Echo II were passive, 

giant, shiny and highly reflective balloons that could only bounce, but 

not control, signals from one point on Earth to another. 

11 See Note 6. 

12 Ibid. 

13 Force interview.

Chapter 1 

1	 The Oxford English Dictionary references the first use of the term “missile gap” from The Economist article dated 13 June 1959: “The Air Force 

gets an additional $170 million to help close the ‘missile gap.’” John F. 

Kennedy is particularly connected with the phrase as he used it frequently 

during the 1960 presidential election campaign to attack the Republicans 

for their supposed complacency on the subject of Soviet Intercontinental 

Ballistic Missiles. Warnings and calls to address imbalances between the 

armed capabilities of the two countries were not new. A “bomber gap” 

had exercised political concerns a few years previously. What was different about the missile gap was the fear that a distant country could now 

strike without warning from far away. History has shown that this socalled missile gap was in fact very real. Within three years after the death 

of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union would announce that it had an effective 

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile force capable of striking North America 

and the United States. At that time, the U.S. could only field the Army’s 

Redstone rocket, a tactical system with a range of 200 miles. 

2	 Mengel interview from Vital Links. 

3	 David West Reynolds, “Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon” (Tehabi 

Books, Inc., 2002), pp. 24–25. 

4	 Origin of the term “WAC” is somewhat unclear and may have stood for 

“Without Attitude Control,”referring to the fact that the simple rocket was 

purely ballistic, with no stabilization and guidance system. The label was 

probably not associated with the more well-known Women’s Army Corps. 

5	 The first monkey launched by the United States was Albert, a rhesus monkey, who on 11 June 1948 flew to nearly 40 miles altitude on a V-2 rocket 
Chapter 1 Endnotes 345 

at White Sands. However, Albert died of suffocation during the flight. It 

was followed by Albert II who survived the V-2 flight but died on impact 

on 14 June 1949. However,Albert II became the first monkey in space as 

his flight exceeded 400,000 feet,the theoretical boundary of the detectable 

atmosphere.Albert III died at 35,000 feet in an explosion of his V-2 during 

launch on 16 September 1949. On the last V-2 monkey flight, Albert IV 

died on impact on 8 December 8 1949.Albert II and Albert IV were rhesus 

monkeys while Albert III was a cynomolgus monkey. 

6	 Dave Harris email, 17 April 2006. 

7	 K. G. Henize, “The Baker-Nunn Satellite Tracking Camera,” Sky and 

Telescope, 16, 1957: pp. 108–111. 

8	 A 16th magnitude object is 25 times dimmer than the faintest star visible 

to the naked eye. Baker-Nunn cameras were able to observe the 6-inch 

diameter Vanguard satellite out to an altitude of 2,400 miles. 

9	 Kathleen M. Mogan and Frank P. Mintz, Keeping Track (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1992), p. 9. 

10	 Alfred Rosenthal, Vital Links (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 

1983), pp. 22–24. 

11	 Cristine Russell, “Watch Ends for Sputnik Spotters,” Washington Star, 

A3, 26 June 1975. 

12	 Optical systems suffered from limitations imposed by weather and lighting conditions. Nevertheless, they proved very useful for tracking satellites with expired or failed beacons. Also, by obtaining highly accurate 

readings of satellite positions, the optical sites could provide information 

on changing global elevations caused by alterations in Earth’s crust. In 

fact, one of the final functions of the SAO network was to serve as a progenitor to the NASA/Goddard Laser Crustal Dynamics program. 

13	 Perhaps Whites Sands biggest claim to fame in the early days of the range 

was the detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb at Trinity Site, 16 

July 1945, on the north part of the range. 

14	 “1947 History,” White Sands Missile Range Fact Sheet, http://www.wsmr. 

army.mil/pao/FactSheets/1947his.htm (accessed 16 November 2005). 

15	 Barnes interview from Vital Links. 

16	 Covington interview from Vital Links. 

17	 “SingleObject Tracking Radars,” http://www.wsmr.army.mil/capabilities/nr/ 

testing/range_inst/radar/sinobj.html (accessed 30 August 2005). 

18	 Constance McLaughlin Green and Milton Lomask, Vanguard: A History 

(NASA SP-4202, 1970). 

19	 Rosenthal, pp. 17–18. 

20	 Ibid. 

21	 Mengel interview from Vital Links. 

22	 Ibid. 
346	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

23	 Zale, “Fast Summary: Minitrack System,” 1958, Folder Number 8800, 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

24	 Looney interview from Vital Links. 

25	 Rosenthal, pp. 19-20. 

26	 John T. Mengel and Paul Herget, “Tracking Satellites by Radio,” Scientific 

American, January 1958, 198, no.1, Folder Number 8800, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

27	 MOTS cameras were all implemented with a solenoid assembly that 

would very briefly move its 8x10 inch photographic plate against a spring 

load. The station timing system would pulse the solenoid in a time-coded 

fashion, thus allowing the satellite to be displaced against the stellar background, enabling a position versus time solution. (Dave Harris email, 

4/17/06) 

28	 See Note 26 and Ibid. In addition to performing system calibrations, 

MOTS was eventually used as an optical tracking system for satellites in 

low-Earth orbit. When NASA prepared to launch the passive Echo 1 into 

orbit on 12 August 1960, it needed to modify the MOTS cameras so that 

they could successfully photograph it and define the orbit. While inflation of the Echo balloon took place over South Africa, the first tracking images were taken by the San Diego Minitrack station. A couple 

of years later, on 31 October 1962, ANNA 1B was launched. The first 

orbital spacecraft designed to support the combined geodetic surveying 

requirements of the Air Force, NASA, Navy and Army, it carried a flashing light triggered by a time code. Photographing the satellite’s flashes 

against the stellar background allowed for long distance baselines to be 

measured with great precision. For this effort, the Goddard Space Flight 

Center worked with domestic and international universities to establish a 

ground network of cameras in addition to those at the existing Minitrack 

stations. Stations were established in Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Edinburg, 

Texas (at Pan American University of Texas) and Sudbury, Ontario (at 

Laurentian University). In addition, Kodak developed a new emulsion to 

effectively increase film speed for the MOTS cameras. 

29	 Ibid. 

30	 See Note 21. 

31	 Rosenthal, p. 21. 

32	 Rosenthal, p. 22. 

33	 See Note 24. 

34	 The San Diego station was actually located on Brown Field Naval 

Auxiliary Air Station in nearby Chula Vista. When Brown Field closed in 

1960, the station was moved to Mojave (soon known as Goldstone). 

35	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 6–8. 
Chapter 1 Endnotes 347 

36	 McKeehan interview from Vital Links. 

37	 Ibid. 

38	 Ibid. 

39	 Rosenthal, p. 29. 

40	 Constance McLaughlin Green and Milton Lomask, Vanguard: A History 

(National Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication4202, 1969). 

41	 Throughout most of Project Vanguard, another high-speed computer 

was used. An IBM 709 was installed at Patrick Air Force Base near Cape 

Canaveral. During launch and ascent, the vehicle was tracked using 

radar. After third stage burnout, the radar track data was processed by 

the IBM 709 and sent via teletype to the NRL Computing Center in 

Washington, DC. This preliminary data provided a best estimate of position and velocity at booster burnout from which the preliminary orbit 

determination was sent by teletype to the Minitrack stations enabling 

them to initialize their observation of the satellite passes. 

42	 See Note 26. 

43	 See Note 24. 

44	 Ibid. 

45	 Organization for Civil Space Programs, Memorandum for the President, 

5 March 1958, Executive Office of the President, President’s Advisory 

Committee on Government Organization, Eisenhower Library. 

46	 The NACA Director was selected by its 17-member governing 

committee. 

47	 See Note 45. 

48	 Ibid. 

49	 Ibid. 

50	 “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration: U.S. Centennial 

of Flight Commission,” http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_ 

of_Technology/NASA/Tech2.htm (accessed 01 September 2005).

Chapter 2 

1	 JPL was transferred to NASA in 1958. It was staffed and operated by the 

California Institute of Technology under contract to NASA, an arrangement that continues to this day. 

2	 Jane Van Nimmen, Leonard C. Bruno and Robert L. Rosholt, NASA 

Historical Data Book Volume I: NASA Resources 1958-1968 (National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication-4012, 1988), 

pp. 4–5. 

3	 Weingarten interview from Vital Links. 

4	 Ibid. 
348 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

5 Bodin interview from Keeping Track. 

6 Nimmen, Bruno and Rosholt, pp. 309–311. 

7 Dave Harris email, 16 March 2006. 

8 Mengel interview from Vital Links. 

9 Spearing interview. 

10 Dunseith interview Vital Links. 

11 At 59 missions, the Explorer series of satellites would go on to become the 

most successful series of science satellites ever, finally ending with Explorer 

59 (the Solar Mesosphere Explorer) launched on 6 October 1981. 

12 Looney interview from Vital Links. 

13 Ibid. 

14 Dave Harris email. 

15 STADAN performed one other major function not covered by the 

acronym: satellite command, where vehicle control instructions were 

uplinked to the satellite from the ground. 

16 Kathleen M. Mogan and Frank P. Mintz, Keeping Track (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1992), p. 15. 

17 Alfred Rosenthal, Vital Links (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 

1983), p. 54. 

18 “Carnarvon Tracking Station,” Technical Secretariat Group, Weapons 

Research Establishment, Department of Supply, 1963, p. 6. 

19 Kronmiller interview from Keeping Track. 

20 See Note 18. 

21 Rosenthal, p. 55. 

22 William M. Hocking, “The Evolution of the STDN,” International 

Telemetering Conference, 16, 80-01-03. 

23 Nimmen, Bruno and Rosholt, pp. 57–59. 

24 Edmond C. Buckley “Requirement for Establishment and Operation of 

40-foot Parabolic Antenna at the Existing Minitrack Station in Santiago, 

Chile,” Memorandum for the Office of International Programs, Folder 

Number 8799, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

25 See Note 5. 

26 Chet Matthes was later the Station Director at Fort Myers, Florida. He 

passed away in 1988. 

27 Clotaire Wood, “Morning Report to the Administrator,” 2 January 1959, 

Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

28 “Fort Stewart History,” http://www.stewart.army.mil/ima/sites/about/history. 

asp (accessed 5 September 2005). 

29 Mogan and Mintz, p. 21. 

30 The STADAN station at Fairbanks actually consisted of sites at nearby 

College and Gilmore Creek. 
Chapter 2 Endnotes 349 

31	 “Budget Estimates: FY 1969,” IV, AO 2-34, National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration. 

32	 Gerald M. Truszynski, “Fatal Accident at NASA’s Alaska Tracking 

Station,” Memorandum to the Administrator, 7 May 1969, Folder 

Number 8805, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

33	 Glen Nagle interview. 

34	 See Note 18, p. 1. 

35	 Robert A. Leslie to The Minister of Science, “An Annual Contribution 

by Australia to the Cost of the U.S. NASA Tracking Stations in Australia,” 

74/2967, 4 February 1976, Historical Records Box 18, NASA Canberra 

Office, Yarralumla, Australian Capital Territory. 

36	 “STADAN Facility, Orroral Valley, ACT: Information Brochure,” The 

Department of Supply, Melbourne, Victoria, p. 1. 

37	 Ibid. 

38	 Ibid. 

39	 R. C. Davey to The Secretary of the Department of Science, “Australian 

Contribution to NASA Activities in Australia,” 70/703, 17 October 

1974, Historical Records Box 18, NASA Canberra Office, Yarralumla, 

Australian Capital Territory. 

40	 NASA News Release 63-240, 24 October 1963. Folder 8820, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA Headquarters, Washington, 

DC. Goddard’s Applications Technology Satellite (ATS) project would 

become one of the most scientifically productive satellite programs ever 

devised by NASA. For example, using the Hawaii Station, the University 

of Hawaii utilized ATS-3 to communicate with South Pacific islands. 

Medical data and problems were relayed to the hospital at the university 

from these remote islands and in return, the university transmitted back 

the remedies. 

41	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 18–19. 

42	 The $5 million tag broke down as follows: Site development and utilities $477K; Facility construction $1.1M; Tracking and data equipment 

$3.1M; Design and engineering services $337K. (“Satellite Tracking and 

Data Acquisition Facilities Fiscal Year 1962 Construction and Facilities 

Estimates, Rosman Data Acquisition Facility, Project No. 3379,” 14 

Feb 1962, Folder 8820, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.) 

43	 “Data Acquisition Facility, Rosman, NC,” NASA Goddard Space Flight 

Center Brochure, Folder Number 8820, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

44	 Ibid. 

45	 Ibid. 
350	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

46	 NASA News Release 63-279, Folder Number 8815, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

47	 McKeehan interview from Vital Links. 

48	 Transportable equipment was also used in Brasilia, Brazil to obtain telemetry data on the Van Allen Radiation Belt on Explorer 15 in 1962. Much 

of this equipment was also sent to Majunga in early 1964. 

49	 Letter from the Director, Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition to 

the Office of International Programs, “Establishment of a Station in 

South Africa to Provide Supplementary Coverage to a Station Located 

in Zanzibar,” 03 March 1964, Folder Number 8815, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

50	 See Note 47. 

51	 In addition to an Assistant Station Director at some sites, another 

Civil Servant was occasionally assigned to a station, such as a Training 

Supervisor or a NASCOM Switching Center Supervisor. (Charles Force 

email 21 March 2006 and review notes 14 September 2006) 

52	 These were not the same aerospace primes that Goddard contracted to 

design, develop, and fabricate the satellites themselves. This list included 

aerospace giants such as Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation 

on the Orbiting Astronomical Observatories (OAO), Hughes Aircraft 

Company for the Applications Technology Satellites (ATS) and General 

Electric for the Nimbus spacecraft. 

53	 The other six companies ahead of Bendix were all prime contractors 

working directly on the Apollo spacecraft or its Saturn V launch vehicle: 

North American Rockwell, Grumman, Boeing, McDonnell, General 

Electric, and IBM. 

54	 Nimmen, Bruno and Rosholt, pp. 203–226. 

55	 Hunsicker interview from Keeping Track. 

56	 Blossom Point operated as part of STADAN until September 1966, when 

NASA ceased joint operations with the Navy. The site is still used today 

by the NRL as a primary Navy satellite control facility. [“Blossom Point,” 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/blossom-point.htm (accessed 02 

September 2005)] 

57	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 22–23, 42–43. 

58	 Stelter interview from Vital Links. 

59	 Rosenthal, pp. 181–182. 

60	 For example, Orroral Valley used the switching center located at Deakin, 

in the Canberra suburbs. In fact, NASA was Telstra’s (Australian telephone company) biggest customer in the 1960s and 1970s. (Mike Dinn 

email, 16 March 2006) 

61	 See note 58. 
Chapter 2 Endnotes 351 

62 Rosenthal, pp. 182–183.


63 Ibid., p. 59.


64 Ibid.


65 Ibid., pp. 185–186.


66 Ibid., pp. 187–188.


Chapter 3 

1 This includes 302 paid employees stationed at Wallops. 

2 Orbiting Solar Observatory Satellite OSO-1 (National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration Special Publication-57, 1965). 

3 Gagarin was promoted to the rank of Flight Major immediately upon his 

return. 

4 Kenneth Gatland, “Manned Spacecraft,” (Macmillan Publishing 

Company, Inc., New York, 1976), pp. 104–111. 

5 From the minutes, Panel for Manned Space Flight, September 24, 30 

and October 1, 1958, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

6 William R. Corliss, History of the Goddard Networks (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1969), pp. 92–101. 

7 Bill Wood interview from Vital Links. 

8 Kathleen M. Mogan and Frank P. Mintz, Keeping Track (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1992), p. 29. 

9 Alfred Rosenthal, Vital Links (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 

1983), pp. 69–70. 

10 See Note 7. 

11 Although planned, live television from the spacecraft never became a 

reality on Mercury. It had to wait until Apollo 7. 

12 See Note 7. 

13 Rosenthal, p. 75. 

14 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 30–31. 

15 “The Manned Space Flight Tracking Network (MSFTN),” description 

brochure, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 1965. 

16 Rosenthal, p. 83. 

17 Bill Wood email, 25 April 2006. 

18 Bill Wood thinks the Super Constellation operated by NASA may in fact have 

been none other than President Eisenhower’s old airplane, the Columbine. 

19 John Saxon, who coordinated operations at the Honeysuckle Creek sta

tion, tells of how reports of UFO sightings would rise whenever testing 

with the Super Constellation, with all its blinking lights, was done. 

­

20 Dave Harris email, 21 March 2006. 

21 See Note 15. 
352	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

22	 Covington interview from Vital Links. 

23	 Henry Thompson and his wife tragically perished when Air New Zealand 

Flight 901 crashed into Mount Erebus in Antarctica on 28 November 

1979 killing all 257 onboard. (Charles T. Force interview) 

24	 See Note 22. 

25	 Bill Wood email. 

26	 See Note 22. 

27	 Ibid. Former Goddard Center Director Harry Goett called Ozzie 

Covington “Mr. Manned Net” and some of his colleagues called him “Mr. 

Radar.” They all credit him with a unique understanding of the technical 

and management requirements that made the network succeed. 

28	 Prior to the formation of the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition, there 

was considerable debate at NASA about the most effective way to organize Headquarters management. Some preferred a functional management 

structure (propulsion, space research, etc.) while others wanted project type 

management with special offices for human spaceflight, scientific satellites, 

and so on.The final decision favored a project management structure. 

29	 Western Electric, Inc., “Final Project Report to NASA: Project Mercury,” 

NAS1-430, pp. 42–45, June 1961. 

30	 Ibid. 

31	 See Note 7. 

32	 Lynn Dunseith interview from Vital Links. 

33	 The first two human Mercury flights (Alan B. Shepard and Virgil I. 

“Gus” Grissom) were suborbital, using the Army’s Redstone rocket as 

launch vehicles. Because of their short range, Bermuda was not needed. 

It was not until beginning with the next flight when John Glenn was 

launched atop an Air Force Atlas ICBM for an attempt at orbital flight 

did the Bermuda Station come into play. 

34	 The Royal Gazette, 11 April 1961, p. 1, Folder Number 8808, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

35	 Robert E. Spearing interview. 

36	 See Note 34. 

37	 See Note 29. 

38	 E. J. Kerrigan, Memorandum of Record, undated. Folder Number 8810, 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

39	 “The History of Bendix,” http://www.bfec.us/bfectxt6.htm (accessed 18 June 

2005). 

40	 Virg True email to Charles Force, 24 April 2006. 

41	 Ibid. 

42	 Ibid. 

43	 Ibid. 
Chapter 3 Endnotes 353 

44	 Ibid. 

45	 Russell Howe, The Washington Post, 03 December 1961, Folder Number 

8819, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, 

NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

46	 Henry Tanner, “Nigeria Tracking Station Set Up in Desolate Area Near 

Aged City,” The New York Times, 21 February 1962, Folder Number 

8819, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, 

NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

47	 Hugh L. Dryden to Keith Glennan, “Mercury Tracking Station in 

Mexico,” 17 September 1959, Folder Number 8817, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

48	 Ibid. 

49	 Edmond C. Buckley to Director, Office of Space Flight Programs,“Review 

of Some of the Inter-governmental Agreements for the Mexican Station,”23 

April 1961, Folder Number 8817, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

50	 Ibid. 

51	 Ibid. 

52	 Ibid. 

53	 Ray W. Hooker, Assistant Chief, Engineering Service Division, 

“Tracking and Ground Instrumentation Systems for Project Mercury, 

Special Report on African Sites,” Memorandum for File, 20 October 

1959, Folder Number 8819, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

54	 Ibid. 

55	 Ibid. 

56	 Henry Clements interview from Vital Links. 

57	 Swenson, Grimwood, Alexander, This New Ocean: A History of Project 

Mercury (National Aeronautics and Space Administration Special 

Publication-4201, 1998), pp. 213–220, 647–648. 

58	 N. Pozinsky to Ruech, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, “Grand 

Canary Island: Replacement Housing for Permanent and Migrant Farm 

Workers,” Folder Number 8809, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

59	 Ibid. 

60	 Corliss, pp. 150–155. 

61	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 35–36. 

62	 Ibid. 

63	 It is well known within NASA circles that Donald K. “Deke” Slayton, 

who for many years ran Flight Crew Operations in Houston, would assign 

members of the Astronaut Office to “nice locations” such as Australia or 

Hawaii as reward (rest & recreation) for his people. 
354	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

64	 “Carnarvon Tracking Station,” Technical Secretariat Group, Weapons 

Research Establishment, Department of Supply, 1963, p. 7. 

65	 See Note 15. 

66	 Rosenthal, pp. 89–91. 

67	 Mogan and Mintz, p. 35. 

68	 Rosenthal, pp. 83–84. 

Chapter 4 

1	 William R. Corliss, History of the Goddard Networks (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1969), pp. 156–157. 

2	 David West Reynolds, “Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon” (Tehabi 

Books, Inc., 2002), p. 41. 

3	 Memorandum for the Vice President, John F. Kennedy, 20 April 1961 

and Robert C. Seamans, Jr., Project Apollo: The Tough Decisions (National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication-2005-4537, 

2005), p. 13. 

4	 Robert C. Seamans, Jr., Project Apollo: The Tough Decisions (Monographs 

in Aerospace History No. 37, SP-2005-4537), pp. 11–21. 

5	 Alfred Rosenthal, Vital Links (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 

1983), pp. 111–113. 

6	 Barton C. Hacker and James M. Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans 

(National Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication-4203, 

1977). 

7	 See Note 1. 

8	 James R. Hansen, “First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong,” p. 236, 

Simon and Shuster, 2005. 

9	 Lyn Dunseith interview from Vital Links. 

10	 George Gray, “The UNIVAC 418 Computer,” Unisys History Newsletter, 

4:2, August 2000. 

11	 Hacker and Grimwood, p. 592. 

12	 “Carnarvon Tracking Station,” Technical Secretariat Group, Weapons 

Research Establishment, Department of Supply, 1963, p. 4. 

13	 Rosenthal, pp. 114–116. 

14	 “The Manned Space Flight Tracking Network (MSFTN),” description 

brochure, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 1965. 

15	 Bill Schneider interview from Vital Links. 

16	 In November 1963, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara reorganized the DOD national ranges, transferring much of the Pacific Missile 

Range from the Navy to the Air Force. McNamara also entrusted the 

latter with the overall management of all DOD ground tracking facilities. Following those actions, the Air Force renamed the Atlantic Missile 
Chapter 4 Endnotes 355 

Range and the Pacific Missile Range to Eastern Test Range (ETR) and 

Western Test Range (WTR), respectively. 

17	 Hacker and Grimwood, pp. 590–592. 

18	 R. Owen,“Evolution of Telemetry, Command and Voice on the MSFN,” 

memorandum to OWU, Goddard Space Flight Center, 29 January 1991. 

19	 Pan American World Airways, Inc., Aerospace Services Division, Public 

Relations MU517, Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division , NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

20	 Robert C. Seamans, Jr., Harold Brown, “Memorandum of Agreement on 

Operation and Support of NASA Instrumentation Facilities on Antigua 

and Ascension,” 22 May 1965, Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

21	 Ibid. 

22	 Proceedings of the Apollo Unified S-Band Technical Conference, 

NASA-SP-87, 1965. 

23	 “Tracking and Data Acquisition Facility Ascension Island,” 25 June 1965, 

Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

24	 Benson interview. 

25	 See Note 22. 

26	 Gerald M. Truszynski, “Construction of Apollo Unified S-Band Facilities 

on Antigua B.W.I. and Grand Bahama Island,” 16 June 1965, Folder 

Number 8806, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

27	 Norman Pozinsky, “Memorandum of Communication: Agreement to 

Establish the Apollo Station on Antigua, BWI,” 20 July 1966, Folder 

Number 8806, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

28	 H. R. Brockett to Carl Jones “Antigua Apollo Station,” 28 July 1966, 

Folder Number 8806, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

29	 Ref: Edmond C. Buckley to Dr. Harry J. Goett, Technical Note, 22 

July 1964, Folder Number 8810, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

30	 “Interagency Meeting to Discuss U.S. Requirements for Canton Island,” 

Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition, Memorandum for File, 05 August 

1964, Folder Number 8810, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

31	 Bendix was also the contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration. 

The FAA was still providing onsite support on Canton Island to the 

Department of Defense even though its own requirement there had 

ceased nearly a year ago. 
356	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

32	 E. C. Buckley, “ Ascension Island Power Plant,” Technical Note Director 

of the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition to AFETR, Patrick 

Air Force Base, 18 June 1965, Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

33	 James C. Bavely, “Ascension Island Operations,” Technical Note to H. 

R. Brockett, 26 April 1967, Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

34	 Letter from NASA Headquarters to Dr. H. J. Goett, “Zanzibar Station,” 23 

May 1963, Folder Number 8824, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

35	 Letter from L. F. Griffin to Edmond C. Buckley, Bendix Field Engineering 

Corporation, 11 March 1964, Folder Number 8824, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

36	 Administrator’s Briefing Memorandum, 22 January 1964, Folder Number 

8824, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, 

NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

37	 Letter from NASA Administrator to the Secretary of State, 19 March 

1964, Folder Number 8824, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

38	 N. R. Brockett, “Status of Zanzibar,” Memorandum for Mr. Buckley, 13 

April 1964, Folder Number 8824, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

39	 Howard Simons, “LBJ Orders Space Station Out of Zanzibar,” The 

Washington Post, 08 April 1964, Folder Number 8824, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

40	 NASA News Release 63-279, Folder Number 8815, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

41	 Letter from the Director, Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition to 

the Office of International Programs, “Establishment of a Station in 

South Africa to Provide Supplementary Coverage to a Station Located 

in Zanzibar,” 03 March 1964, Folder Number 8815, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

42	 James C. Bavely,“Staffing at Malagasy for Satellite and Gemini Programs,” 13 

October 1964,Folder Number 8815,NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 
Chapter 4 Endnotes 357 

43	 Former Deputy Associate Administrator David Harris recalls that land 

on Guam became an issue later on when the landlord decided to significantly increase the leasing cost. 

44	 Edmund C. Buckley to Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, “Visit of Governor Manuel 

F. L. Guerrero Territory of Guam,” 10 June 1964, Folder Number 8813, 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

45	 Force interview. 

46	 The section of the Operations Building labeled Diner was a cafeteria 

added after the station was operational. The only eating facility initially 

provided was a small kitchen, sized and equipped as one in an average 

home—and totally inadequate for the station staff. There were no restaurants within reasonable driving distance. During operations, personnel 

had to remain on-site anyway. Station Director Force requested vending 

machines to remedy this deficiency. But Goddard denied his request, 

explaining that since the station had no on-site cafeteria (as most stations had), it clearly lacked the expertise to stock food vending machines! 

(Charles T. Force email 14 September 2006.) 

47	 See Note 45. 

48 	 See Note 45. 

49	 “New Bermuda Radar Selected for Apollo Moon Mission Support,” 

GSFC News Release No. G-9-65, 08 April 1965, Folder Number 8808, 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

50	 Director, Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition, “Unified S-Band 

Facility Bermuda; Project 9831 Revised,” Administrator’s Briefing 

Memorandum, 10 March 1965, Folder Number 8808, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

51	 Lorne M. Robinson to T. V. Lucas, “Chronology of Requirements for 

Unified S-band Systems at Grand Bahama Island (GBI) and Grand Turk 

Island (GTI),” 09 February 1966, Folder Number 8811, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

52	 Ibid. 

53	 “Mexico, U.S. Extend Agreement for Operation of Guaymas Tracking 

Station,” NASA News Release 65-76, 4 March 1965, Folder Number 

8817, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, 

NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

54	 N. Pozinsky, Chief, Facilities and Station Implementation to Director, 

Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition, “Guaymas Station Land 

Requirements for Apollo USB,” 10 May 1965, Folder Number 8817, 
358 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

55	 Edmond C. Buckley to Morton Berndt, “Guaymas Station Importance,” 

6 August 1965, Folder Number 8817, NASA Historical Reference 

Collection, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

56	 Former Associate Administrator for Tracking and Data Systems, Bill 

Schneider, would call Gemini 8 as the network’s finest moment during 

the Gemini program. He explained why. “During Gemini 8 as astronauts 

Armstrong and Scott docked with their Agena target vehicle, just as they 

left the line of sight of the Madrid Madagascar tracking station and before 

they were acquired by Australia, a technical problem with the Agena 

caused them to spin wildly. So, after they were reacquired, the decision 

was made to end the flight prematurely and arrange for recovery at an 

alternate location in the Pacific. This was the first and the only time that 

NASA had to use a contingency landing site. With the help of the very 

excellent tracking network, we landed the spacecraft safely near a U.S. 

destroyer in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was a real test of our ability to communicate and to locate a spacecraft in a far away, strange and 

unexpected environment.” (Schneider interview from Keeping Track.) 

57	 Kenneth Gatland, Manned Spacecraft (Macmillan Publishing Company, 

Inc., New York, 1976), pp. 185, 275–276. 

Chapter 5 

1	 Kathleen M. Mogan and Frank P. Mintz, Keeping Track (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1992), p. 44. 

2	 Ibid. 

3	 Alfred Rosenthal, Vital Links (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 

1983), p. 136. Three locations spaced approximately 120° apart in longitude were required to provide seamless coverage of a lunar spacecraft 

over 24 hours. 

4	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 48-49. 

5	 R. Owen, “Evolution of Telemetry, Command and Voice on the MSFN,” 

memorandum to OWU, Goddard Space Flight Center, 29 January 1991. 

6	 Ibid. 

7	 Linda Neuman Ezell, NASA Historical Data Book, Volume III: Programs 

and Projects 1969-1978 (National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Special Publication-4012, 1994), Table 6-32. 

8	 “The Worldwide Deep Space Network” (NASA Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory JPL 400-326, May 1989). 

9	 William R. Corliss, History of the Goddard Networks (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1969), p. 131. 
Chapter 5 Endnotes 359 

10	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 49–51. 

11	 Gerald M. Truszynski to Donald Crabill, “The Need for Apollo Ships,” 

05 March 1964 Folder Number 8792, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

12	 In the letter, Truszynski referred to these stations as Pretoria and Mauritus 

(Mauritius), respectively. 

13	 See Note 11. 

14	 Ibid. 

15	 Ibid. 

16	 There was originally concern by NASA regarding the reliability of communications with the tracking ships. Because of this, NASA installed 

flight control consoles in them—a move that was distinctively counter to 

the MSFN trend toward centralizing all control functions at the Mission 

Control Center in Houston. Though installed, these control consoles 

were never actually used on a real mission. 

17	 A particular concern of Apollo engineers was reentry tracking, that is, 

locating the position of the Command Module during the communication 

blackout while the spacecraft was surrounded by a layer of super-heated 

plasma during reentry. Because the transponders were also blacked out 

during this period, the C-band radars lost this tracking aid. Reentry tracking of the CM returning from the Moon was more difficult than for vehicles returning just from Earth orbit since reentry could occur over a larger 

corridor at a much higher velocity. In addition, the Command Module 

had a center-of-gravity offset allowing the capsule to fly a lifting trajectory 

using roll maneuvers. In this manner, the trajectory could be controlled. 

For energy management, the capsule first plunged into the atmosphere and 

then briefly skipped out of the atmosphere before making its final descent 

towards the recovery area. During the early 1960s, the acquisition problem was considered potentially serious. A radio interferometer was even 

proposed by Mengel’s group as a solution. In the end, a skin-tracking radar 

was designed and installed on the recovery ship Huntsville. 

18	 Apollo Instrumentation Ships Technical and Management Problems, 12 

June 1967, Folder 8792, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

19	 Ibid. 

20	 Ibid. 

21	 Letter from T. O. Paine to Senator Clinton P. Anderson, 28 October 

1969, NASA Office of the Administrator, Folder Number 8792, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

22	 Ibid. 

23	 Ibid. 

24	 Ibid. 
360	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

25	 Ibid. 

26	 Edmond C. Buckley to Harry J. Goett, Requirements for Instrumentation 

Aircraft for Support of Apollo, 8 January 1966, Folder Number 8798, 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

27	 Ibid. 

28	 Letter from H. R. Brockett to Robert C. Seamans, Jr., 29 May 1967,ARIA 

Aircraft, Folder Number 8798, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

29	 “Fact Sheet:Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft,”Office of Information, United States Air Force Systems Command, November 1976. 

30	 W. L. Folsom, Action Item (OTDA) Clarification of NASA Requirements 

for ARIA, 02 May 1966, Folder Number 8798, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

31	 As part of an Air Force consolidation of large test and evaluation aircraft, basing for the ARIA was transferred from the Eastern Test Range 

at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida to the 4950th Test Wing at Wright 

Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in December 1975. In 1994, 

the ARIA fleet was relocated to Edwards Air Force Base, California, as 

part of the 452nd Flight Test Squadron in the 412th Test Wing. The final 

flight of ARIA took place on 24 August 2001. 

32	 Edmond C. Buckley was the NASA Vice Chairman of the panel. 

Christopher C. Kraft represented the Manned Spacecraft Center and 

Ozro M. Covington the Goddard Space Flight Center. The Air Force 

Eastern Test Range at the time had a critical need for the ARIA in order 

to support testing activities for development of the Navy’s Poseidon submarine launched ballistic missile. 

33	 Edmond C. Buckley, NASA/DOD ARIA Management Agreement, 26 

January 1965,Folder Number 8798,NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

34	 George E. Mueller to Buckley, Instrumentation Aircraft Support, 11 May 

1964, Folder Number 8798, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

35	 Letter from H. R. Brockett to Robert C. Seamans, Jr., 29 May 1967,A/Ria 

Aircraft, Folder Number 8798, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

36	 See Note 7. 

37	 “ARIA 328 Memorial,” http://www.flyaria.com/memorial/1999/personal. 

htm (accessed 27 December 2005). 

38	 “Intelsat,” Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mission and Spacecraft Library, 

http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/Programs/intelsat.html (accessed 12 October 2005). 
Chapter 5 Endnotes 361 

39 At the speed of light, it takes approximately 1.3 seconds for radio signals 

to travel from Earth to the Moon. 

40 They were: Antigua, Ascension, Bermuda, Canary Island, Canberra, Cape 

Canaveral, Carnarvon, Corpus Christi, Goldstone, Guam, Guaymas, 

Hawaii, Grand Bahama, Madrid. 

41 Corliss, pp. 244–249. 

42 Ibid. 

43 Force email. 

44 Letter from James Webb to E. S. Terlaje, 7 April 1967, Folder Number 

8813, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, 

NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

45 Brooks, Grimwood, Swenson, Chariots for Apollo (National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration Special Publication-4205, 1979), Chapter 9. 

46 Phillips to Administrator, “Apollo 5 Mission (SA-204/LM-1) Post Launch 

Report #1,” 12 February 1968. 

47 See Note 45. 

48 Ibid. 

49 Ibid. 

50 The first use of television on a human flight by NASA was actually on 

Mercury Atlas 9, where a camera was trained on astronaut L. Gordon 

Cooper mainly to monitor his movements and behavior during the 

34-hour mission. Three Mercury ground stations were set up to receive 

the slow-scan television pictures. However, they could not be broadcast 

live to an audience. 

51 Henry P. Yschek, MSC, to North American, Contract Change Authori

zation 95, 24 Sept. 1963; William A. Lee to Mgr., ASPO, “The case for 

television transmission during LEM descent and ascent,” 27 April 1964. 

­

52 Phillips to Manager, ASPO, “Apollo On-board TV,” 10 April 1968. 

53 Walter Cunningham, The All-American Boys (Simon & Shuster, Inc., 

2004), p. 155. 

54 “The Fresnedillas (Madrid, Spain) MSFN Station,” http://www.honeysucklecreek. 

net/other_stations/fresnedillas/intro.html (accessed 02 November 2005). 

55 Apollo 8 Mission Commentary, 24 December 1968, tapes 242-3, 277-1. 

56 Robert Zimmerman, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 (Random House, 

Inc., 1998), pp. 210–211, 240–249. 

57 “American Experience: Race to the Moon,” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ 

amex/moon/peopleevents/e_telecasts.html (accessed 07 November 2005). 

58 Brooks, Grimwood, Swenson, Chapter 12. 

59 “Apollo 15 Camera Equipment,”http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apollo15/ 

A15_Photography_cameras.html#COLORTV (accessed 07 November 2005). 

60 Bill Wood email. 
362	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

61	 Kerrie Dougherty, John Sarkissian, “Dishing Up the Data: The Role 

of Australian Space Tracking and Radio Astronomy Facilities in the 

Exploration of the Solar System,” IAC-02-IAA.2.3.01, 2002.Also see John 

Sarkissian,“On Eagles Wings:The Parkes Observatory Support of Apollo 

11 Mission,”Astronomical Society of Australia,Volume 18, 2001. 

62	 Ibid. 

63	 Ibid. 

64	 Ibid. 

65	 Glen Nagle interview. 

66	 See Note 61 and Nagle interview. 

67	 See Note 65. 

68	 See Note 61. 

69	 Ozzie Covington interview from Vital Links. 

70	 Bill Wood interview from Vital Links. 

71	 Dinn interview. 

72	 Ibid. 

73	 Robert Owen interview from Vital Links. 

74	 “Apollo and the Dish Down Under,” CSIRO Media Release 2000/266, 

12 October 2000. 

75	 See Note 61. 

76	 Tom Reid was the colorful Station Director at Honeysuckle Creek during the Apollo missions. He had a long and distinguished association 

with NASA and was one of the longest serving Station Directors. He first 

became involved with NASA while working with the Weapons Research 

Establishment at Woomera in the 1958-1962 time period. He became 

the first Station Director at Orroral Valley in 1964, and in 1967 was 

appointed Director at Honeysuckle Creek, where he provided inspiration 

and leadership during the lunar landings. In 1970, he began an 18-year 

assignment as Director of the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Communications 

Complex. Reid was awarded the Member of the Order of the British 

Empire (MBE) in January 1970 in recognition of his contribution to 

Australia meeting its commitments to the Manned Space program. It was 

actually bestowed upon him by Her Majesty the Queen when she was in 

Australia during the Apollo 13 mission. She happened to ask him how 

the mission was going when she presented it. (Charles T. Force review 

comments, 14 September 2006.) 

77	 Lyn Dunseith interview from Vital Links. 

78	 Chris Kraft interview from Vital Links. 

79	 “Experiment Operations During Apollo EVAs,” ARES Publications, 

http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/HumanExplore/Exploration/EXLibrary/docs/ 

ApolloCat/Part1/ALSEP.htm (accessed 8 November 2005). 

80	 Although the Lunar Roving Vehicle had a total range capability of 91 kilometers (57 miles), the astronauts would not have the time nor safety margin 
Chapter 5 Endnotes 363 

to fully use this capacity. On Apollo 15, the LRV was driven a total of 27.7 

kilometers (17.2 miles) with a maximum range from the Lunar Module 

being 5 kilometers (3.1 miles). On Apollo 16, the total was 26.7 kilometers 

(16.6 miles) and reached a distance of 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) from the 

LM.The Apollo 17 LRV accumulated 35.9 kilometers (22.3 miles) with a 

maximum distance of 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) from the LM. 

81	 Mogan and Mintz, p. 55. 

82	 Robert Barnes interview from Vital Links. 

83	 See Note 77. 

84	 Helen T. Wells, Susan H. Whiteley, Carrie Keregeannes, Origins of 

NASA Names (National Aeronautics and Space Administration Special 

Publication-4402, 1976), p. 109. The name ‘Skylab,’ a contraction connoting ‘laboratory in the sky,’ was suggested in 1968 by Lt. Colonel 

Donald L. Steelman of the United States Air Force while assigned to 

NASA. He later received a token award for his suggestion. 

85	 W. David Compton, Charles D. Benson, Living and Working in Space: A 

History of Skylab (National Aeronautics and Space Administration Special 

Publication-4208, 1983), Chapter 14. 

86	 Mogan and Mintz, p. 61. 

87	 Russell P. Patera, William H. Ailor, “The Realities of Reentry Disposal,” 

The Aerospace Corporation, p. 6, 2001. 

88	 Carolynne White, GSFC News Release 89-2, 13 January 1989, Folder 

Number 8818, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

89	 Ibid. 

90	 “Chronology: Beginnings of ASTP,” NASA History Division, http://history. 

nasa.gov/astp/chrono.html (accessed 09 November 2005). 

91	 Edward Clinton Ezell and Linda Newell Ezell, The Partnership (National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication-4209, 1978). 

92	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 63–64. 

93	 Bill Wood email. 

94	 Donald H. Martin, “Communication Satellites, Fourth Edition,” (The 

Aerospace Corporation Press, 2000), Chapter 1. 

95	 On Apollo-Soyuz, a transportable station with a 40-foot automatic tracking antenna was set up near Madrid to supplement the 100-foot antenna 

located at Buitrago, serving as the primary ground relay point between 

the ATS-6 satellite and the rest of the network. 

96	 See Note 94. 

97	 “U.S. Tracking Soyuz 16,” JSC News Release No. 74-272, 03 December 

1974, Folder Number 8781, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

98	 Watson interview. 
364	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

99	 Rosenthal, pp. 189–190. 

100 Ibid. 

101 Kenneth Gatland, Manned Spacecraft (Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 

New York, 1976), pp. 249–252. 

102 In what could have turned the first international space mission from an 

unparalleled success into tragedy, a series of events during reentry led to 

the three American astronauts accidentally inhaling noxious fumes from 

the Command Module’s Reaction Control System.This led to an unanticipated two week hospital stay for the crew in Honolulu. For Deke Slayton, 

it also meant the discovery of a small lesion on his left lung.An exploratory 

operation indicated it was a nonmalignant tumor. After a short convalescence, Slayton joined the four other ASTP crew members for two celebratory tours, one in the Soviet Union and the other in the United States. 

103 See Note 78. 

104 Report by the Subcommittee on Aeronautics and Space Technology of the 

Committee on Space Sciences and Astronautics, United States House of 

Representatives Ninety-Third Congress Second Session, September 1974. 

105 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 56. 

Chapter 6 

1	 Jane Van Nimmen, Leonard C. Bruno and Robert L. Rosholt, NASA 

Historical Data Book Volume I: NASA Resources 1958–1968 (National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication-4012, 1988), 

pp. 129. 

2	 Ihor Gawdiak with Helen Fedor, NASA Historical Data Book, Volume IV: 

NASA Resources 1969–1978 (National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Special Publication-4012, 1994). Contrary to the popular notion that 

NASA’s budget peaked in 1969 and started to decrease only after the first 

lunar landing was achieved in July of that year, the Agency’s funding actually peaked four years earlier when the FY 1965 NASA appropriation was 

$5,249,700,000.This had dropped to $3,994,993,000 by FY 1969. FY 1974 

funding was $3,039,700,000 after which the NASA budget again began 

to increase so that by FY 1978, it reached $4,063,701,000. 

3	 Watson interview. 

4	 Ibid. 

5	 Gawdiak and Fedor, p. 68 and Judy A. Rumerman, NASA Historical 

Data Book Volume VI 1979–1988 (National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration Special Publication-4012, 2000), p. 468. 

6	 Tracking and Data Acquisition Program, Subcommittee Report on 

Aeronautics and Space Technology, Ninety-Third Congress, Second 

Session, September 1974, Folder Number 8781, NASA Historical 
Chapter 6 Endnotes 365 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

7	 Bill Wood interview from Vital Links. 

8	 Kathleen M. Mogan and Frank P. Mintz, Keeping Track (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1992), p. 68. 

9	 Ibid., pp. 56–58. 

10	 Washington Evening Star, Tuesday, 23 June 1970. 

11	 “Antigua Tracking Station Closing,” 22 June 1970, NASA Press Release 

Number 70-101, Folder Number 8806, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

12	 Gerald M. Truszynski to Assistant Administrator for International 

Affairs, “Closing of Antigua Tracking Station,” 20 February 1970, Folder 

Number 8806, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

13	 Gerald M. Truszynski to George M. Low, “Summary Status of Activities 

at Guaymas Station,” Memorandum for File, 30 September 1970, Folder 

Number 8817, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

14	 “Guaymas Tracking Station,” NASA News Release 70-198, 13 November 

1970, Folder Number 8817, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

15	 Charles A. Taylor to Carl Mautner,” Extension of Intergovernmental 

Agreement with Spain for the Operation of the Canary Island Station,” 6 

July 1973, Folder Number 8809, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

16	 Gerald M.Truszynski to Colonel Daniel Oliver Osana,Technical Note, 22 

January 1975,Folder Number 8809,NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

17	 T. O. Paine, Letter to the Honorable Robert P. Mayo, Director, Bureau 

of the Budget, 20 February 1970, Folder Number 8813, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

18	 Ibid. 

19	 Ibid. 

20	 Douglas J. Mudgway, Big Dish (University Press of Florida, 2005), pp. 

29–31. 

21	 South Africa first became involved in space research in 1957 during the 

International Geophysical Year. When the United States announced its 

intention to launch an artificial Earth satellite, South Africa, who was 

actively pursuing radio research, readily agreed to cooperate with the 

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to establish and operate an optical tracking station (this at a time when no one was as yet fully convinced 

that artificial satellites could even get off the ground, not to mention be 
366	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

seen or photographed from the ground once it was in orbit.) Thus when 

the State Department officially approached South Africa to operate a 

Minitrack station on behalf of the Naval Research Laboratory, it was 

received with great enthusiasm. South Africa knew that such a station 

on its soil would be the first to observe a satellite launched from Cape 

Canaveral after it had crossed the Atlantic. 

22	 South African Panorama, April 1986: 30-31, Folder Number 8849, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

23	 R. D. Trishman, “South African Situation,” Memorandum for Assistant 

Director, Space Flight Operations, 04 April 1960, Folder Number 8849, 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

24	 Edmond C. Buckley to the Office of International Programs, “Republic 

of South Africa,” 9 November 1962, Folder Number 8849, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

25	 New York Times, 28 June 1965, Folder Number 8849, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

26	 Ibid. 

27	 South African Sunday Times, 22 April 1962, p. 1, Folder Number 8849, 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

28	 Defense/Space Daily, 22 March 1974. 

29	 “South Africa: NASA Inches Out of a Segregated Tracking Station,” 

Science, 27 July 1973: 331-332, 380, Folder Number 8849, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC 

30	 “NASA to Phase Out African Stations,” Defense Space Daily, 11 July 1973: 

47, Folder Number 8849, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

31	 See Note 29. 

32	 Letter from James C. Fletcher to Dr. C. v.d.m. Brink, President of the 

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, 21 October 1975, Folder 

Number 8849, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

33	 Letter from James C. Bavely, Chief of Network Operations Branch, Office 

of Tracking and Data Acquisition to the Director of Supply Division, 

Office of the NASA Comptroller, 19 September 1974, Folder Number 

8849, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, 

NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 
Chapter 6 Endnotes 367 

34	 Letter from R. H. Curtin, Director of Facilities to GSFC Director of 

Administration and Management, 12 December 1975, Folder Number 

8849, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, 

NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

35	 See Note 28. 

36	 Gerald M. Truszynski, “Summary of Discussions with CSIR Regarding 

South African Station,”Memorandum for the Record, 20 September 

1973, Folder Number 8849, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

37	 Ibid. 

38	 “Pay Up or Lose Station Madagascar Tells NASA,” Washington Star, 12 

July 1975, Folder Number 8815, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

39	 NASA Daily Activities Report, 8 April 1980, Folder Number 8815, 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

40	 George Low to James C. Fletcher, Memorandum for Record, 23 July 

1973, Folder Number 8815, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

41	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 56–57, 68. 

42	 Force interview. 

43	 Ibid. 

44	 Jane Van Nimmen, Leonard C. Bruno and Robert L. Rosholt, NASA 

Historical Data Book Volume I: NASA Resources 1958–1968 (National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication-4012, 1988), 

pp. 57–59. 

45 Force interview.


46 Ibid.


47 Linda Newman Ezell, NASA Historical Data Book, Volume III: Programs 


and Projects, 1969-1978 (National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Special Publication-4012, 1988) pp. 405–406. 

48	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 56–57, 68. 

49	 “NASA Selects Tracking Contractor,” NASA News Release 75-315, 17 

December 1975, Folder Number 8781, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

50	 The second satellite, LAGEOS 2, was deployed from Shuttle flight STS52 on 22 October 1992. It was a joint program between NASA and the 

Italian space agency ASI, which built the satellite using LAGEOS 1 drawings and specifications as provided by NASA. LAGEOS 2’s orbit was 

selected to provide more coverage of seismically active areas, such as the 

Mediterranean Basin and California, designed to help scientists understand 

irregularities noted in the motion of LAGEOS 1. Tracking stations were 

located in many countries, including the U.S., Mexico, France, Germany, 
368	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Poland, Australia, Egypt, China, Peru, Italy, and Japan. Data from these 

stations were made available worldwide to investigators studying crustal 

dynamics. LAGEOS 1 also contained a special message plaque addressed 

to humans in the far distant future, showing maps of the surface of Earth 

from three different eras: postulated appearance from 268 million years 

ago, present day and what the appearance might be at 8 million years in 

the future—the satellite’s estimated decay date. (See Note 51.) 

51	 “LAGEOS 1, 2 Quicklook,” Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mission and Spacecraft Library, http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/QuickLooks/lageosQL.html (accessed 03 

January 2006). 

52	 Mogan and Mintz, pp. 59. 

53	 Rosenthal, p. 198. Goddard Space Flight Center had 1,400 people working the network. The tracking stations had 1,110 people of whom some 

500 were foreign nationals. 

54	 Rosenthal, p. 196. 

55	 Wes Bodin interview from Keeping Track. 

56	 Harry McKeehan interview from Vital Links. 

57	 The popular American TV program 60 Minutes aired a program about 

1989 called “Isle of Spies” about the Seychelles, in which CBS alleged 

NASA had a station in the Seychelles. The Seychelles was an important 

location since it was in the right place to view orbit adjustment maneuvers for polar launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Office of Space 

Communications Associate Administrator Bob Aller, through NASA’s 

Public Affairs Office, subsequently advised 60 Minutes that although 

NASA used the Air Force station on the Seychelles as appropriate, NASA 

did not and had never actually had a station there. The Agency never 

felt apologetic about using Air Force resources. In planning to rerun the 

story the following summer, 60 Minutes contacted the new Associate 

Administrator Charles Force to verify Aller’s information. For whatever 

reason, when the rerun aired, 60 Minutes seemed to go out of their way 

in the lead-in to again call it a NASA station! NASA never felt defensive, 

nor did anyone seem to care. (Charles Force email, 24 September 2005.) 

58	 Judy A. Rumerman, NASA Historical Data Book Volume VI 1979-1988 

(National Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication-4012, 

2000), pp. 342–349. 

59	 www.wstf.nasa.gov/WSSH/ (accessed 05 January 2006). In addition to 

the dry lakebeds of Edwards Air Force Base and the 15,000-foot runway at the Kennedy Space Center, a secondary backup landing site is 

located at the White Sands Space Harbor in southern New Mexico. Two 

35,000-foot hard-packed, gypsum landing strips provide what the Space 

Shuttle needs in an emergency: long, forgiving runways. The Tula Peak 

Station served the communication needs in the event of a White Sands 

landing. TULA was closed-out following STS-2 but reopened briefly to 
Chapter 6 Endnotes 369 

provide just such a capability when STS-3 landed at White Sands on 30 

March 1982 (the only Shuttle landing there to date). 

60	 Mogan and Mintz, p. 68. 

61	 Joseph P. Allen, Assistant Administrator for Legislative Affairs to The 

Honorable Roy A. Taylor, 24 May 1976, Folder Number 8820, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

62	 NASA Daily Activities Report, 23 February 1981, Folder 8820, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

63	 Rumerman, pp. 342–349. 

64	 James M. Beggs, Letter to the Subcommittee on Space Science and 

Applications, Committee on Science and Technology, 04 January 1985, 

Folder Number 8805, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

65	 Ibid. 

66	 “Quito Tracking Station Shuts Down,” Goddard News, 15 December 

1981: 4, Folder Number 8801, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

67 	 “Quito NASA Satellite Tracking And Data Acquisition Facility: A Story 

of Excellence,” Ecuadorian Services Company, 2006. 

68	 Benson interview and Force email (24 September 2006). 

69	 See Note 67. 

70	 See Note 66. 

71	 R. E. Smylie to the Administrator, “Closure of the Quito STDN Station,” 

1 September 1981, Folder Number 8801, NASA Historical Reference 

Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

72	 The landing of STS-3 on 30 March 1982 is, to date, the only Shuttle 

landing ever at the White Sands Space Harbor. 

73	 Rumerman, pp. 342-349. [Pioneer (DSS 11), the original Goldstone station, was deactivated in 1981 and has been designated a National Historic 

Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior.] 

74	 “The Fresnedillas MSFN Station,” www.honeysucklecreek.net/other_stations/ 

fresnedillas/main.html (accessed 10 January 2006) and “Madrid Space 

Station,” NASA Publication P72-223JPL, 31 August 1972. 

75	 Kerrie Dougherty email to Glen J. Nagle, 7 March 2006. 

76	 Saxon interview. 

77	 Hamish Lindsay, “Tracking Apollo to the Moon” (Springer, 2001). 

78	 Letter from Joseph F. Ada to James Fletcher, 21 December 1988, Folder 

Number 8813, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

79	 Henry Iuliano, “NASA Phases Down Guam Tracking Station,” Goddard 

News, September 1989, Folder Number 8813, NASA Historical Reference 
370	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, 

DC. 

80	 See Note 55. 

81	 Carolynne White, GSFC News Release 89-2, 13 January 1989, Folder 

Number 8818, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

82	 Ascension and Guam were both quite remote. A large power converter 

once failed at a station and analysis revealed a mechanical design flaw. A 

modification was quickly designed and teams were dispatched to all stations around the world to install the modification—to all stations, that 

is, except Ascension and Guam. These two stations received in the mail 

a small bag of parts with some instructions! (Charles Force email, 24 

September 2006) 

83	 John F. Murphy, Letter to Senator Pete V. Domenici, 07 July 1982, Folder 

Number 8807, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

84	 Jeffrey M. Lenorovitz, “ESA Seeks U.S. Tracking Agreement, New 

Downrange Station for Ariane,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, 7 

January 1985: 117. 

85	 Ibid. 

86	 Thomas L. Matlick, “Ascension Closure,” TN-88-310, 29 December 

1988, Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

87	 David Harris email. 

88	 Thomas L. Matlick, “Closure of the Ascension Island Tracking Station,” 

TN-89-023, 30 January 1989, Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

89	 Thomas L. Matlick, “Ascension Island Tracking Station,” TN-89-055, 21 

February 1989, Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

90	 See Note 68. 

91 	 “Questions and Answers on the STDN,” NASA News Release Number 

89-6, 1 February 1989, Folder Number 8781, NASA Historical Reference 

Collection, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. (The personnel 

breakdown of contractors by location in 1989 were as follows: Ascension 

43, Bermuda 77, Dakar 16, Guam 102, GSFC 227, Hawaii 67, MILA/ 

PDL 129, Santiago 75, Wallops 4, White Sands 375; for a total of 1,115.) 

92	 Judy A. Rumerman, NASA Historical Data Book Volume VI 1979-1988 

(National Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication-4012, 

2000), pp. 342–349. 
Chapter 6 Endnotes 371 

Chapter 7 

1	 Arthur C. Clarke, “Extra Terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give 

Worldwide Radio Coverage?” Wireless World, October 1945: 305–308. 

2 	 David J. Whalen, “Communications Satellites: Making the Global 

Village Possible,” unpublished article. The geosynchronous or geostationary orbit is known in some circles as the Clarke Orbit in honor of 

Arthur C. Clarke. However, it is not exactly clear that his article was 

actually the inspiration for modern telecommunications satellites. Pierce 

has stated that the idea was “in the air” at the time and certain to be 

developed regardless of Clarke’s publication. 

3	 Ibid. 

4	 Glen E. Cameron, “Ground Station Design and Operation,” pp. 7–13, 

14, Applied Technology Institute, Clarksville, Maryland, 1998. 

5	 The first major three-axis stabilized geosynchronous satellite project was 

the DOD’s classified Advent communications satellite. It was large and 

heavy. At over 500 pounds, at the time it could only be launched by the 

Air Force’s Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle. The Advent never flew, primarily because the Centaur upper stage was not fully reliable until 1968. 

When the program was canceled, it was seen by many as the death knell 

for the three-axis, stable-platform, geosynchronous satellite. This was a 

premature prognosis, as many characteristics of the Advent would end up 

becoming commonplace in satellites less than 10 years later. 

6	 See Note 2. 

7	 There has often been confusion with respect to the acronym “TDRS,” 

which refers to the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite itself, versus 

“TDRSS,” which refers to the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, 

including the ground terminals. Both are pronounced the same (“tiddres”). 

8	 Ken Atchison, “NASA to Change Tracking and Data Acquisition 

Operations,” News Release Number 89-172, 7 December 1989, NASA 

Headquarters. 

9	 Kathleen M. Mogan and Frank P. Mintz, Keeping Track (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1992), p. 74. 

10	 A ground terminal situated outside of United States territory could have 

offset the coverage loss, but NASA at the time deliberately sacrificed 

technical performance for the benefit of security, locating the crucial 

ground terminal well within continental United States soil. 

11	 Ken Atchison, “NASA to Change Tracking and Data Acquisition 

Operations,” News Release Number 79-172, 7 December 1979, NASA 

Headquarters. 
372	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

12	 Carolynne White, GSFC News Release 89-2, 13 January 1989, Folder 

Number 8818, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

13	 William C. Schneider, Statement Before the Subcommittee on Science, 

Technology and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science and 

Transportation of the U.S. Senate, 28 February 1979, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

14	 Linda Neuman Ezell, NASA Historical Data Book, Volume III: Programs 

and Projects, 1969–1978, p. 424 (NASA SP-4012, Washington, DC, 

1988), p. 424. 

15	 Edmond C. Buckley to George E. Mueller et al., “Data Relay Satellite 

System Requirements and Interface Panel,” 1 September 1967; and Gerald 

M. Truszynski to John F. Clark, “Data Relay Satellite System Studies,” 3 

December 1968. 

16 Richard L. Stock to record, “Senate Space Committee Inquiry Re: 

TDRSS,” 07 September 1973. 

17	 James C. Fletcher to Roy L. Ash, 28 September 1973; and Thomas V. 

Lucas to Robert Lottmann, “TDRSS Economic Benefit/Cost Analysis,” 

5 April 1974. 

18	 Neuman Ezell, p. 425. 

19	 Gerald M. Truszynski, Statement Before the Subcommittee on Science, 

Technology and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science and 

Transportation of the U.S. Senate, 16 September 1977, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

20	 Truszynski to record, “TDRSS Possible Bidders,” 27 February 1975; and 

Fletcher to record, “Selection of Contractor for Tracking and Data Relay 

Satellite System Services (TDRSS),” February 1977. 

21	 “Harris Antennas and Hardware for White Sands,” Harris Fact Sheet #1, 

Harris Corporation, Melbourne, Florida, Folder 8781, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

22	 Judy A. Rumerman, NASA Historical Data Book Volume VI 1979-1988 

(National Aeronautics and Space Administration Special Publication-4012, 

2000), p. 314. 

23	 Robert Spearing interview. 

24	 Donald H. Martin, “Communications Satellites 1958–1992,” The 

Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, California, 1991, pp. 186–189. In 

July 1983, Fairchild Industries, Incorporated of Germantown, Maryland 

and the Atlanta, Georgia based Continental Telecom, Incorporated, 

announced that they had become owners of Space Communications by 

completing their purchase of Western Union’s half-interest in Spacecom. 
Chapter 7 Endnotes 373 

Western Union’s share for liquidating its 50 percent interest amounted to 

$29 million. Prior to the transaction, Fairchild and Continental Telecom 

each owned 25 percent of Spacecom. The agreement followed a change in 

the contract giving NASA total use of TDRSS. Originally, a portion of 

the satellite network capacity was to have been reserved, available for commercial use by Western Union. The three members of the former partnership received $35 million from NASA under the terms of the buyout. 

25	 Aller, Robert O., “TDRSS Lessons Learned. Presentation to NASA 

Management, Office of Management and Budget, and Congress,” 

Annapolis, August 18019, 1989. 

26	 See Note 23. 

27 	 Although he thought there must have been a better word, Charles Force, 

then Deputy Project Manager for TDRSS, first used the term “segment” 

to describe both the space and ground components of TDRSS, realizing 

neither the spacecraft nor the ground station people would ever accept 

the term “sub-system” to describe those parts of the system. As used here 

to describe space and ground components of satellite systems, “segment” 

is a term that has since come into common use. 

28	 See Note 9. 

29	 See Note 23. 

30	 Harold G. Kimball to Marvin Skeeth, Electromagnetic Compatibility 

Analysis Center, Technical Note 2077, 15 July 1978, Folder 8781, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA Headquarters, Washington, 

DC. Electromagnetic compatibility (or more precisely, interference) was 

a serious issue. In 1991, for instance, TDRS-3 interfered with two major 

U.S. commercial, communication satellites, the result of which was disruption of cable television services across the country. On October 22, 

as Goddard was repositioning TDRS-3, it came near the Hughes Galaxy 

1 communications satellite disturbing half of its C-band transponders. 

The next day, users of GE Americom’s Satcom 1R experienced similar trouble. The result was hours of intermittent noise, snow and ghost 

images for those watching CNN, ESPN, TNT and several movie channels. Hughes official said NASA had not told industry that it was moving 

the TDRS spacecraft and the company had to call the North American 

Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to find out what caused the 

snafu. Associate Administrator Charles T. Force said at the time that 

Goddard engineers suspected a hardware problem on the TDRS which 

resulted in errant transmissions. (Aviation Week and Space Technology, 

4 November 1991, p. 19.) 

31	 Joe McRoberts, Western Union TDRSS Contract Modified, NASA 

News Release 79-19, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 
374	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

32	 This explains why there are no photographs showing any of the actual 

satellites fully deployed, only drawings or computer generated graphics. 

Photographs that do show a TDRS fully deployed on Earth are actually 

showing a scaled mockup. 

33	 NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, NASA Press Release 

82-186, December 1982, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

34	 “Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Description: Electrical Power System,” 

http://msp.gsfc.nasa.gov/tdrss/eps.html (accessed 25 January 2006). 

35	 Ibid. 

36	 “Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Description:Attitude Control System,” 

http://msp.gsfc.nasa.gov/tdrss/attitude.html (accessed 25 January 2006). 

37	 “Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Description: Propulsion System,” 

http://msp.gsfc.nasa.gov/tdrss/prop.html (accessed 25 January 2006). 

38	 “Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Description:Thermal Control System,” 

http://msp.gsfc.nasa.gov/tdrss/tcntrl.html (accessed 25 January 2006). 

39	 Space Network User’s Guide (SNUG), 450-SNUG, Revision 8, NASA 

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, June 2002. 

40	 See Note 33. 

41	 Ibid. 

42	 Ibid. 

43	 “Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Description: Tracking, Telemetry 

& Command System,” http://msp.gsfc.nasa.gov/tdrss/ttc.html (accessed 25 

January 2006). As somewhat of a footnote, there is actually one other 

communication system. TDRS 1 through 6 actually hosted a Ku-band 

commercial payload which was never activated, and a commercial C-band 

antenna and payload package which was then operated by Western Union 

dedicated to their Westar satellite program. 

44	 Dennis R. Jenkins, “Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space 

Transportation System” (Ian Allan Publishing, Ltd., 2001), p. 270. 

45	 A Ku-band system provides a much higher gain, stronger RF signal with 

a smaller antenna than is possible with a S-band system. 

46	 National Space Transportation System Reference Manual (NASA Kennedy 

Space Center, 1988). 

47	 Alfred Rosenthal, Vital Links (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 

1983), p. 210. 

48	 See Note 46. 

49	 “Pioneer NASA Spacecraft Celebrates 20 Years of Service,” NASA New 

Release 03-130, 03 April 2003, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/

apr/HP_news_03130.html (accessed 10 March 2006). 

50	 Ibid. 

51	 Transcript from the Operational Recorder recovered from onboard 

the vehicle showed that at least some of the crew was aware something 
Chapter 7 Endnotes 375 

was wrong immediately before the vehicle broke up. Pilot Mike Smith 

uttered an ominous “Uh oh,” the last thing recorded just before loss of 

all data. Wreckage eventually retrieved from the bottom of the Atlantic 

also showed evidence that the crew (at least some) may have survived the 

initial breakup of Challenger as some switches activating each crew member’s emergency personal oxygen kit had been manually toggled. Today, 

the remains of the Shuttle Challenger are permanently entombed inside 

a sealed Minuteman missile silo at Complex 31 on Cape Canaveral Air 

Force Station. 

52	 William P. Rogers, Chairman, “Presidential Commission on the Space 

Shuttle Challenger Accident, Final Report,” 6 June 1986. 

53	 Jenkins, pp. 291–296. 

54	 After the loss of Challenger, the issue of crew escape systems was reexamined. A telescoping slide-pole concept was selected. The method, useful 

only below velocities of 370 kilometers (230 miles) per hour and altitudes 

below 9,150 meters (30,000 feet) during a controlled glide, had a 3 meter 

(9.8 foot) long curved aluminum pole which could be extended from the 

Orbiter’s side hatch. During an evacuation, crew members would attach 

themselves with special parachute harnesses and slide down the pole, 

directing them underneath the Shuttle’s left wing. A crew of seven could 

theoretically evacuate the Orbiter in 90 seconds. This would be the last 

resort prior to ditching the vehicle in a catastrophic emergency. 

55	 SNUG, p. 2–6. 

56	 Force interview. 

57	 Ibid. There was also some concern for earthquake damage and storage mishaps if the spacecraft were stored on the ground as opposed to in orbit. 

58	 “Space Network Online Information Center,” http://scp.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 

tdrss/ (accessed 10 March 2006). 

59	 Joseph P. Allen to the Honorable Harold Runnels, Letter C:lgh:N237410f, 

25 August 1975, Folder 8781, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

60	 Rumerman, p. 315. 

61	 See Note 22. 

62	 Ground Network Users Guide (GNUG). 

63	 NASA Daily Activities Report, 6 December 1977, Folder 8818, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

64	 Robert E. Smylie, Speech at the Whites Sands TDRSS Ground Terminal 

Acceptance Ceremony, 17 August 1981, Folder 8818, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

65	 Ibid. 
376	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

66	 Michael Braukus, “New NASA Ground Station Keeps Pace with 

Spacecraft Technology,” Goddard News, Volume 33:9, September 1987, 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Folder 8781, NASA Historical 

Reference Collection, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. and 

Carolynne White, GSFC News Release 89-2, 13 January 1989, Folder 

Number 8818, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

67	 Wes Bodin interview from Keeping Track. 

68	 “NASA Dedicates Communications Terminal in White Sands, New 

Mexico,” Goddard New, February 1990, p. 6, Goddard Space Flight Center, 

Greenbelt, Maryland, Folder 8818, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

69	 Ibid. 

70	 Jim Elliot, “Dignitaries Participate in Event,” Goddard News, Volume 

33:9, September 1987, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Folder 8781, 

NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

71	 David Batcho, “Excavation for Second Ground Terminal Opens Window 

Into Past,” Goddard News, Volume 33:9, September 1987, NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, Folder 8781, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

72	 Ibid. 

73	 See Note 68. 

74	 Dwayne C. Brown, “NASA Ground Terminals Receive Native American 

Names,” NASA News Release 93-83, NASA Headquarters, Washington, 

DC, 13 May 1993, Folder 8818, NASA Historical Reference Collection, 

NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

75	 Ibid. 

76	 Ibid. 

77	 Launched on 25 August 2003, the Spitzer observatory was the only one 

of the four not launched by the Space Shuttle. It was originally intended 

to, but after the Challenger accident, the Centaur liquid-oxygen/liquid-hydrogen upper stage that would have been used to push it into its 

intended high-Earth orbit was banned from Shuttle use. 

78	 “The CGRO Mission (1991–2000),” http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/cgro/ 

index.html (accessed 06 February 2006). 

79	 Earth is surrounded by a close-to-spherical magnetic field, the magnetosphere.According to what we know today, it is being generated by actions 

deep in Earth’s interior where conducting liquid metals are kept in motion 

by the forces of convection, Coriolis (centrifugal), and gravitation. Just as 

the charged windings in the coil of a generator puts out a magnetic field, 

these masses create Earth’s magnetic field. This field protects the planet 

from space radiation by deflecting high energy particles from deep space 
Chapter 7 Endnotes 377 

or by capturing them in the Van Allen Belts. Of these belts, discovered by 

the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1 in 1958, there are two, one closer and 

the other farther away. Both surround Earth like a doughnut. However, 

at a certain location over the South Atlantic Ocean between Brazil and 

Africa, the shielding effect of the magnetosphere is not quite spherical 

but shows a “pothole” or a dip, which scientists explain as a result of the 

offset of the center of the magnetic field from the geographical center of 

Earth (by some 450 kilometers or 280 miles), as well as the displacement 

between the magnetic and geographic poles of Earth.For low-Earth orbiting satellites inclined between 35 and 60° with respect to the Equator, 

this oddity, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, becomes important since 

spacecraft in those orbits periodically pass through that zone of reduced 

natural shielding and thus spend a few minutes during each orbit exposed 

to much higher cosmic particle flux.Thus, vehicles in such orbits require 

higher shielding for the crew. It is also of concern in the design of spacehardened electronics which are degraded faster by higher particle fluxes. 

The design of the International Space Station, for instance, takes this effect 

into account. 

80	 Frank Stocklin, “GRTS: An Experience of a Lifetime,” NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. 

81	 The actual amount of coverage provided by TDRSS varied depending 

on the attitude of the Compton observatory at any one time. Its attitude 

was science dependent on the mission. This sometimes led to the blockage of the high-gain antenna and line-of-sight to TDRSS. 

82 See Note 80.


83 Ibid.


84 Ibid, and NASA Opens Ground Station for Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, 


undated Goddard Space Flight Center New Release, Greenbelt, Maryland. 

85	 Ibid. 

86	 New NASA Facility Will Complete Worldwide Communications Coverage, 

Goddard Space Flight Center Press Release 98-122, 13 July 1998, Folder 

Number 8818, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

87	 “Summary of Resources Requirements,” Mission Support: Fiscal Year 1998 

Estimates Budget Summary, Office of Spaceflight, Space Communications Services (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codeb/budget/PDF/spacecom. 

pdf ), accessed 10 February 2006. 

88	 “Guam Remote Ground Terminal,” http://msp.gsfc.nasa.gov/tdrss/guam. 

html (accessed 10 February 2006). 

89	 A. B. Comberiate et al., “Global, High Data Rate Ka-Band Satellite 

Communications: NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System,” 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, TDRSS Project Office. 

90	 Ibid. 
378 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

91	 “Tracking and Data Relay Satellite H, I, J: The Next Generation,” http://

msp.gsfc.nasa.gov/tdrss/tdrshij.html (accessed 15 February 2006). 

92	 Ibid. 

93	 Ibid. 

94	 Ibid. 

95	 Ibid. 

96	 Ibid. 

97	 Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System: Chronology of Events, NASA 

Goddard Space Flight Center brochure. 

98	 “NASA to Take Control of TDRS-H Satellite,” Boeing News Release, 

10 August 2001, El Segundo, California. 

99	 See Note 39. 

100 See Note 89. 

101 Ibid. 

102 Ibid. 

103 Kathleen M. Mogan and Frank P. Mintz, Keeping Track (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1992), p. 66. 

104 Watson interview. 

Chapter 8 

1	 “The Hawaii Story,” Bendix Field Engineering Corporation, Folder 

Number 8814, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History 

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

2	 “Kokee Park Geophysical Observatory,” Goddard Press Release, undated, 

Folder Number 8807, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

3	 Ibid. 

4	 Watson interview. 

5	 Dennis R. Jenkins, “Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space 

Transportation System” (Ian Allan Publishing, Ltd., 2001), p. 315. 

6	 “Bad Weather Could Delay Shuttle Launch,” Cable News Network, Inc., 

18 November 1997. 

7	 Ibid. 

8	 A deep space capability was also added at Merritt Island when the Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory Deep Space Network Compatibility Station 

(DSS-71) at Cape Canaveral was closed in 1974 and its systems relocated to MILA. This facility was renamed MIL-71 and provided support 

to planetary and deep space missions conducted by JPL. The first mission supported by MIL-71 was the Helios 1 Sun probe launched on 10 

December 1974. 
Chapter 8 Endnotes	 379 

9	 “The MILA Story,” science.ksc.nasa.gov/facilities/mila/milstor.html (accessed 

11 January 2006), and Bill Watson interview. 

10	 Ibid. 

11	 “MILA Station Tracks Space Shuttle,” Spaceport News, p. 13, 27 October 

2000, NASA Kennedy Space Center. 

12	 Ibid. 

13	 “Wallops Flight Facility,” http://www.wff.nasa.gov/about/ (accessed 17 

February 2006). See “Wallops Station and the Creation of the American 

Space Program” (NASA SP-4311, 1997) by Harold D. Wallace, Jr. for a 

short history of the Wallops Flight Facility. 

14	 Rumerman, pp. 402–403. 

15	 Ibid. and “Scout,” http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/launch/scout.htm 

(accessed 17 February 2006). 

16	 “Wallops Orbital Tracking Station Becomes Operational,” NASA News 

Release Number 86-12, 03 April 1986, NASA Goddard Space Flight 

Center, Folder 8823, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. 

17	 “Wallops Mobile Range Control System Provides Remote Support,”Inside 

Wallops: XIX-99:16, NASA Wallops Flight Facility,Wallops Island,Virginia, 

26 April 1999,Folder 8823,NASA Historical Reference Collection,NASA 

History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC. 

18	 Ibid. 

19	 FAA/AST is the governing body for all U.S. commercial launch activities. It promotes, sets guidelines, regulates and grants licenses for all nongovernment launches by U.S. companies. 

20 	 Watson interview. 

21	 “Antarctic Connection: Robert F. Scott (1868–1912),” http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/history/scott.shtml (accessed 21 February 2006). 

22	 “Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica,” http://astro.uchicago. 

edu/cara/vtour/mcmurdo/ (accessed 20 February 2006). 

23	 All U.S. science activities in Antarctica are sponsored by the National 

Science Foundation. 

24	 “The McMurdo Ground Station (MGS),” http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/MGS/ 

history.html (accessed 20 February 2006), and Watson interview. 

25	 Watson interview. 

26	 “Poker Flat Research Range General Information,” http://www.pfrr. 

alaska.edu/pfrr/index.html (accessed 21 February 2006).

27 “DataLynx,” http://www.honeywell-tsi.com/datalynx/aboutus.shtml (accessed 

27 February 2006). 

28	 Watson interview. 

29 	 “Welcome to Svalbard and SvalSat,” Konnesberg Satellite Services information brochure, 2003. 
380	 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

30	 Watson interview. Many companies, including DataLynx, have agreements for support from Svalbard, operated by the Konnesburg Satellite 

Corp., or KSAT. NASA contracts with HTSI under the NENS contract 

for service from Svalbard. 

31	 Joseph H. Rothenberg, Testimony before the House Subcommittee on 

Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, 11 March 1999. 

32	 Force interview. 

33	 Other centers represented on the SOMO were the Ames Research 

Center, Dryden Flight Research Center, Kennedy Space Center and 

Lewis Research Center. 

34	 See Note 31. 

35	 Spearing interview. 

36	 See Note 31. 

37	 Ibid. 

38	 Spearing interview. 

39	 Ibid. 

40	 Costrell interview. 

41	 The five contracts that made up the Space Mission Communications 

and Data Services were: 1) GSFC: Mission Operation and Mission 

Support—mission operations support for Goddard; 2) GSFC: Near 

Earth Networks Services—Goddard’s tracking and data acquisition for 

near-Earth missions; 3) KSC: Kennedy Integrated Communications 

Services—communication services to support the Space Shuttle and other 

space operations; 4) MSFC: Unified NASA Information Technology 

Services—development, implementation and management of information technology services; and 5) MSFC: Huntsville Operations Support 

Center—voice, video and data services in support of simulations, near 

real-time and real-time flight mission support. There were other pieces 

of CSOC that were combined into a contract at JSC and separately 

competed through the JPL that were not included in the Space Mission 

Communications and Data Services procurement action. These assumed 

a substantial amount of the value of the old contract. 

42	 Michael Hardy, “NASA Alters IT Outsourcing Strategy,” Federal Computer 

Week, 21 April 2003. 

43	 Ibid. 

44	 Force interview. 
Chapter 8 Endnotes 381 

Chapter 9 

1 Kathleen M. Mogan and Frank P. Mintz, Keeping Track (NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center, 1992), p. 77. 

2 Bill Wood interview from Vital Links. 

3 Henry Clements interview from Vital Links. 

4 Vern Stelter interview from Vital Links. 

5 Ozzie Covington interview from Vital Links. 

6 Cliff Benson interview. 

7 Murray Weingarten interview from Vital Links. 

8 Gerald Truszynski interview from Vital Links. 

9 Jon Z.Walker,“Space Shuttle Return-to-Flight and International Space Station Status,” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Code 450, 10 June 2004. 

10 Ibid. 

11 Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) - European Space Agency (ESA), 

http://hsf.honeywell-tsi.com/atv.html (accessed 4 March 2006). 

12 See Note 9. 

13 David Harris email, 11 May 2006. 

14 James Costrell, “IOAG Charter,” 7 December 2004. 

15 David Harris email. 

16 Bill Watson interview. 

17 Ibid. 

18 Phil Liebrecht and Roger Clason, “GSFC Vision for Future Space 

Communications,” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, September 2005. 

19 There is of course no physical boundary between what is called nearEarth and Deep Space. There is, however, a logical breakpoint based on 

radio frequency allocations. According to the Federal Communications 

Commission, the Deep Space Network allocation for Ka-band is 32 

gigahertz, whereas communications below two million kilometers, the 

FCC thinks of it as near-Earth operations at 25 to 27 gigahertz. (Watson 

interview.) 

20 “Integrated Near-Earth Network,” NASA Headquarters Briefing, 2005. 

The term “L2” refers to an unstable equilibrium point on the other side 

of either body from a line segment joining two bodies (Earth-Moon, 

Earth-Sun). The term “L1” refers to the unstable equilibrium point on 

the line segment between two bodies. The L2 point for the Sun-Earth 

pair is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, on the side opposite from the 

Sun. The L1 point for Sun-Earth is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, in 

the direction of the Sun. The L1, L2 concept is hard to grasp, but for the 

Earth-Moon system, it is associated with high ocean tides—both on the 

side of Earth facing the Moon and on the opposite side of Earth. Thus, a 

high tide occurs every 12 hours. 

21 See Note 11. 
382 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

22 See Note 16. 

23 Bob Spearing interview. 

24 See Note 16. 

25 See Note 23. 
BiBliography 

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Apollo Instrumentation Ships Technical and Management Problems, 12 June 

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Bavely, James C. “Staffing at Malagasy for Satellite and Gemini Programs,” 13 

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NASA Comptroller, 19 September 1974, Folder 8849 

Beggs, James M., Letter to the Subcommittee on Space Science and 

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384 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Brockett, N. R. to Mr. Buckley “Status of Zanzibar,” 13 April 1964, Folder 

8824 

Brockett, N. R. to Carl Jones “Antigua Apollo Station,” 28 July 1966, Folder 

8806 

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APPENDIX 1 

Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Glossary 

AA Associate Administrator 

AAA Active Acquisition Aid 

AAP Apollo Applications Program 

ACS attitude control system 

ACN Ascension 

ACU antenna control unit 

AES Apollo Extension System 

AFSC Air Force Systems Command 

AFSCN Air Force Satellite Control Network 

AGO Santiago 

AIS Apollo Instrumentation Ship 

ALT Approach and Landing Test 

CDR Critical Design Review 

CDSCC Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex 

CSIR Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 

CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization 

CSM Command and Service Module 

CSOC Consolidated Space Operations Contract 

DAF Data Acquisition Facility 

dB decibels 

DDMS Department of Defense Manager for Manned Spaceflight 
404 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

DF direction finding 

DJS Dzhusaly, Razakhgtan 

DLR Germany’s Deutsches Zentrum für Luftund Raumfahrt 

DOD Department of Defense 

DOI Department of the Interior 

DOS Department of Supply 

DRSS Data Relay Satellite System 

DSN Deep Space Network 

DSS Deep Space Station 

EGO Eccentric Geophysical Observatory 

EGR Eglin Gulf Test Range 

ELVIS Enhanced Launch Vehicle Imaging System 

ERS Earth Resource Satellite 

ERTS Earth Resource Technology Satellite 

ESA European Space Agency 

ESD Air Force Electronic Systems Division 

ESMC Air Force Eastern Space and Missile Center 

EUMETSAT European Organization for the Exploitation of 

Meteorological Satellites 

ETR Eastern Test Range 

EVA extravehicular activity 

EUT Eupatona, Ukraine 

FAA Federal Aviation Administration 

FCC Federal Communications Commission 

FDR Final Design Review 

FM frequency modulation 

FY fiscal year 

Gbps gigabits per second 

GDSCC Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex 

GHz gigahertz 

GLTN Goddard Laser Tracking Network 

GMT Greenwich Meridian Time 

GN Ground Network 

GOES Geostationary Observational Environmental Satellite 

GRARR Goddard Range And Range Rate 

GRGT Guam Remote Ground Terminal 

GRO Gamma Ray Observatory 

GRTS GRO Remote Terminal System 

GSFC Goddard Space Flight Center 

GWM Guam 

HAW Hawaii 

HDTV high definition television 

HEAO High Energy Astronomy Observer 
Appendix 1 \ Acronyms, Abbreviations, Glossary 405 

HST Hubble Space Telescope 

HTV H-II Transfer Vehicle 

IAGS Inter-American Geodetic Survey 

IBM International Business Machines 

IBEW International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 

ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile 

IDEA International Space Station Downlink Enhancement Architecture 

IGY International Geophysical Year 

IMP Interplanetary Monitoring Platform 

INEN Integrated Near-Earth Network 

INTA Spanish National Institute of Aerospace Technology 

INTELSAT International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium 

IOAG Interagency Operations Advisory Group 

IPF Image Processing Facility 

ISIS International Satellite for Ionospheric Studies 

ISO Infrared Space Observatory 

ISS International Space Station 

IUE International Ultraviolet Explorer 

IUS Inertial Upper Stage 

JAXA Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency 

JDMTA Jonathan Dickinson Missile Tracking Annex 

JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

JSC Johnson Space Center 

JWST James Webb Space Telescope 

KHz kilohertz 

KLP Kolpashevo, Russia 

Kpbs kilobits per second 

KPGO Kokee Park Geophysical Observatory 

KSAT Kongsberg Satellite Services 

KSC Kennedy Space Center 

LAGEOS Laser Geodynamics Satellite 

laser light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation 

LM Lunar Module 

LRC Langley Research Center 

LRO Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter 

LRV Lunar Roving Vehicle 

M&DO Mission and Data Operations 

MA Mercury-Atlas 

MA Multiple Access 

MAD Madrid 

maser microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation 

Mbps megabits per second 

MCC Mission Control Center 
406 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

MDSCC Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex 

MESA Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly 

MFS Manned Flight Support 

MGS McMurdo Ground Station 

MHz megahertz 

MILA Merritt Island Launch Annex 

MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

MOBLAS Mobile Laser Ranging System 

MOCR Mission Operations Control Room 

MOTS Minitrack Optical Tracking System 

MRCS Mobile Range Control System 

MSC Manned Spacecraft Center 

MSFN Manned Space Flight Network 

NACA National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 

NAR Non-Advocate Review 

NAS National Academy of Science 

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

NASCOM NASA Communications Network 

NASDA National Space Development Agency of Japan 

NC Network Controller 

ND Networks Directorate

NEN Near-Earth Network 

NFL Newfoundland 

NISN NASA Integrated Services Network 

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

NOCC Network Operations Control Center 

NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command 

NRD Air Force National Range Division

NRL Naval Research Laboratory 

NSC Norwegian Space Center 

NSF National Science Foundation

NTSC National Television System Committee 

NTTF Network Test and Training Facility 

OAO Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 

OCC Operations Control Center 

OGO Orbiting Geophysical Observatory

OMS Orbital Maneuvering System 

ORR Orroral 

OSC Office of Space Communications 

OSO Office of Space Operations 

OSO Orbiting Solar Observatory 

OSTDA Office of Space Tracking and Data Acquisition 

OTDA Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition 
Appendix 1 \ Acronyms, Abbreviations, Glossary 407 

PAL Phase Alternating Line 

PAM Pulse Amplitude Modulation 

PCM Pulse Code Modulation 

PCR Payload Changeout Room 

PCS Pacific Command Ship 

PCU Power Control Unit 

PDL Ponce de Leon Station 

PDR Preliminary Design Review 

PER Pre-Environmental Review 

PLSS Portable Life Support System 

PMR Pacific Missile Range 

PMRF Pacific Missile Range Facility 

POCC Project Operations Control Center 

POGO Polar Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 

PPK Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskaya, Russia 

PSAC President’s Science Advisory Committee 

QUI Quito 

RCA Radio Corporation of America 

RCS Reaction Control System 

RF radio frequency 

RFP Request For Proposal 

ROS Rosman 

RTG Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator 

RTHU roll to heads-up 

RTLS Return to Launch Site abort 

SA Single Access 

SAO Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 

SATAN Satellite Automatic Tracking Antenna 

SCAMA Switching, Conferencing And Monitoring Arrangement 

SCAMP Satellite Command Antenna on Medium Pedestal 

SDK Ussuriysk, Russia 

SDO Solar Dynamics Observatory 

SEB Source Evaluation Board 

SECAM Sequential Color with Memory 

SECO sustainer engine cutoff 

SGL Space to Ground Link 

SGLT Space to Ground Link Terminal 

SGS SvalSat Ground Station 

SIRTF Space Infrared Telescope Facility 

SITE Satellite Instructional Television Experiment 

SN Space Network 

SNIP Space Networks Interoperability Panel 

SOMO Space Operations Management Office 
408 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

SRB Solid Rocket Booster 

STADAN Satellite Tracking And Data Acquisition Network 

STADIR Station Director 

STDN Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network 

STG Space Task Group 

STGT Second TDRSS Ground Terminal 

STS Space Transportation System 

STTCS S-band Tracking, Telemetry & Command System 

T&DS Tracking and Data Systems 

TAGIU Tracking And Ground Instrumentation Unit 

TAGS Text And Graphics System 

TAL Transatlantic Abort Landing 

TAN Tananarive 

TAT-1 trans-Atlantic telephone cable 

TBL Tbilisi, Georgia 

TCS Thermal Control System 

TDRS Tracking and Data Relay Satellite 

TDRSS Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System 

TDSD Tracking and Data Systems Directorate 

TELOPS Telemetry Online Processing System 

TEI Trans-Earth Injection 

TIROS Television Infrared Observation Satellite 

TLI Trans-Lunar Injection 

TLRS Transportable Laser Ranging System 

TM telemetry 

TTS Test and Training Satellite 

TSSG Tracking System Study Group 

TT&C Tracking, Telemetry and Command 

TWT traveling wave tube 

UHF ultrahigh frequency 

ULD Ulan-Ude, Russia 

US United States 

USAF United States Air Force 

USB Unified S-Band 

USN Universal Space Network 

USNS United States Navy Ship 

USSR Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic 

VERLORT Very Long Range Tracking 

VHF very high frequency 

VLBI Very Long Baseline Interferometry 

WART White Sands Complex Alternative Resource Terminal 

WECO Western Electric Company 

WGTC Working Group on Tracking and Computation 
Appendix 1 \ Acronyms, Abbreviations, Glossary 409 

WRE Weapons Research Establishment 

WSGT White Sands Ground Terminal 

WSMR White Sands Missile Range 

Glossary 

acquisition: The process of first finding, either visually or electronically, a 

satellite or spacecraft of interest so it can then be tracked. 

antenna feed: The electronic device at the focal point of an antenna through 

which electromagnetic wave transmissions are received, amplified, and/or 

transmitted. 

apogee: The high point in a trajectory. 

array: The electronic combining of antennas pointed at the same object so as 

to increase the received signal strength. 

autotrack: Automatic tracking of a spacecraft by an antenna (or vise versa) 

where the position is continuously and automatically computed. 

bandwidth: The range of frequencies occupied by a radio frequency carrier 

wave. The more information there is on the carrier (for example, high-definition television), the more bandwidth is required to fully transmit that data. 

UHF air-to-ground voice, for instance, is a low bandwidth item. 

bit errors: The fraction of received digital bits that are errors in a transmission. The lower the bit error, the better the quality of the transmission. Bit 

errors, or more precisely, bit error rate, is usually expressed in exponential 

notation such as 1x10-6 (one bit error in a million). 

bit rate: The rate that digital bits of data are transmitted in a digital stream. 

The higher the bit rate, the faster the transmission. Bit rates can vary from 

kilobits per seconds (thousands of bits per second) to gigabits per second (billions of bits per second). 

boresight: The focal axis of a directional antenna. 

Capcom: By rule, the designated voice contact between Mission Control and 

the astronauts. By tradition, the Capcom is always another astronaut. Others 

may also, on occasion, speak with the astronauts but are never referred to as 

“Capcom.” 
410 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

carrier frequency: The selected frequency used to transport radio signals. 

collimation tower: A tower, usually located a few kilometers from the main 

ground station antenna, equipped with a radio frequency emitter used as an aimpoint to checkout and calibrate the automatic tracking capability of the antenna. 

data rate: The rate of downlink or uplink between a spacecraft and its ground 

station. Usually measured in bits per second. 

demodulate: The removal of the modulation on a carrier frequency using a 

series of electronic filters so as to isolate the data from its carrier. 

digital: A transmitted radio frequency signal or scheme comprised only of 

ON and OFF pulses (0’s and 1’s). 

eccentricity: The amount of oblateness in a spacecraft’s orbit. A perfectly circular orbit has zero eccentricity while a high apogee orbit that swings around, 

for example, to the back side of the Moon is of high eccentricity. 

electromagnetic waves: Electromagnetic (EM) waves or radiation is a self 

propagating wave in space with electric and magnetic components. Such 

waves carry energy and momentum. All energetic media such as heat, light 

and radio transmissions are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. 

elevation: The angle above the horizon. An antenna pointed perfectly at the 

horizon has zero elevation. Ninety-degrees is directly overhead. 

equatorial orbit: An orbit which has no inclination or tilt with respect to 

the Equator. Thus a spacecraft in true equatorial orbit will always revolve over 

the Equator. 

field of view: The amount of sky that can be viewed at any one time. For 

an optical device, it is what can be seen at any moment with a given aperture. 

For an electronic device like an antenna, it is also the region where a radio 

frequency link can be reasonably detected. 

Figure of Merit: Commonly referred to as G/T, or “G-over-T”, a ground 

station’s Figure of Merit is a fundamental quantitative measure of its overall 

capability to enhance the received signal with respect to noise. The higher the 

G/T, the more sensitive the ground station is. 
Appendix 1 \ Acronyms, Abbreviations, Glossary 411 

g: A measure of the equivalent gravitational acceleration experienced by an 

object or a person. A person standing at mean sea level experiences 1 g. Apollo 

astronauts returning from the Moon experienced around 8 g during reentry. 

gain: An increase in electromagnetic signal strength due to any of several 

sources, resulting in the output signal being measurably stronger than the input 

signal. Types of gain include amplifier gain due to active electronic components 

such as High Power Amplifiers or Low Noise Amplifiers, and antenna gain due 

to antenna features such as large dish aperture and parabolic shape. 

geode: The mathematical, gravitational model of Earth characterizing its 

local variations in shape, size, and mass concentrations, used by computers to 

calculate the orbit and trajectory of a spacecraft. 

geosynchronous orbit: A zero-inclination,circular orbit at an altitude of 35,900 

kilometers (22,300 miles) above the Equator.In such an orbit,a spacecraft’s rate of 

revolution round Earth is the same as the rotation rate for a point on the Equator. 

The craft would thus appear to be hanging stationary over a given location.The 

term is often used synonymously with ‘geostationary orbit.’ 

Go/No-Go: A decision point during a mission when Mission Control has to 

determine whether to proceed or abort. 

Ground Network: A network of NASA ground stations organized under 

the Science Mission Directorate of Headquarters. These consist of stations 

in Alaska, Antarctica, Florida, Norway, and Virginia. The Ground Network 

(GN) also includes support from the Network Integration Center located at 

the Goddard Space Flight Center and the GN scheduling and VHF systems at 

White Sands, New Mexico. 

ground station: A location on the ground comprising of electrical, mechanical, and/or optical subsystems used for communicating with and retrieving 

data from space assets. 

ground track: The path that a spacecraft traces on the ground. 

GSTDN: The original ground elements of the remaining Spaceflight Tracking 

and Data Network (STDN) as the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System 

(TDRSS) was being brought operational in the 1980s. 

high inclination orbit: An orbit whose plane is highly inclined with respect 

to the Equator. Such orbits have ground tracks that enable them to pass over or 

observe a greater amount of Earth’s surface than low inclination orbits. 
412 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

high power amplifier: An electronic device usually located at the base or 

the back of an antenna which greatly amplifies its transmitting signal strength 

for establishing command uplink with a spacecraft. 

housekeeping telemetry: Data from a spacecraft used only for assessing the 

performance, health, and status of the spacecraft itself. Typical data include 

voltages, temperatures, propellant tank pressures, etc. 

Lagrange Points: The Lagrangian points are five positions in the EarthMoon-Sun interplanetary system where a small object affected only by gravity can theoretically appear stationary relative to two larger objects (such as 

a satellite with respect to Earth and the Moon). Such an object would appear 

to be in a “fixed” position (or on a relatively small “Figure 8” orbit) in space 

rather than in a traditional orbit in which its position changes continuously. 

launch azimuth: The direction that a rocket is launched in, usually measured in degrees relative to due North. For example, a rocket launched due 

East from Cape Canaveral has a launch azimuth of 90°. 

“Lights-out” operations: A trend in ground station operations in which 

a station operates autonomously in an unattended fashion or with minimal 

staffing. Lights-out can take many forms such as nine to five workday operations with automated service at all other times. It can also be a centralized, 

fully staffed operations center continuously monitoring a suite of multiple, 

unattended remote ground stations. 

line of sight: The straight line between a transmitting antenna and a receiving antenna. The two can only communicate when a line of sight has been 

established. 

multipath: The propagation phenomenon that results when radio signals 

reach the receiving antenna by two or more paths. Causes of multipath include 

ionospheric reflection and refraction, and reflection from mountains, buildings, ocean, and the ground. The effects of multipath include constructive and 

destructive interference, errors, and phase shifting of the signal. A common 

multipath phenomenon is ghosting of television images, for example. 

“Picket Line”: The seven original primary Minitrack stations located 

approximately along the 75th West meridian, spanning North and South 

America. The picket line had a better than 90 percent chance of capturing 

every pass of a satellite in low inclination, low-Earth orbit. 
Appendix 1 \ Acronyms, Abbreviations, Glossary 413 

polar orbit: An orbit whose plane is inclined 90° to the Equator. Thus, as 

its name implies, a satellite in polar orbit travels over, or near, both the North 

and the South pole. A great advantage of a satellite in such an orbit is its ability 

to observe the entire surface of the globe over time. 

max-q: The occurrence of maximum aerodynamic pressure (q) during a 

rocket’s ascent or a spacecraft’s descent through the atmosphere. Knowing 

when max-q occurs is important as it factors into the structural stress experienced by the vehicle. 

parabolic: Surface shape of an object, like an antenna reflector or the objective mirror in a telescope, based on the mathematical curve Y=X2 which 

focuses incoming rays to a single point. 

radio frequency:The number of oscillation cycles per unit time that an electromagnetic wave propagates through space at. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz). 

radio interferometry:The use of separate antennas to receive a radio signal at 

slightly different times so as to determine phase differences in the radio waves. 

These differences can then be used to calculate position solutions for an object. 

Radio interferometry had the advantage of yielding highly accurate tracking 

angles and could be used under virtually any atmospheric condition. 

Schmidt camera: A telescopic, astronomical camera designed to provide 

wide fields of view, typically used as a survey instrument in which a large 

amount of sky must be covered. 

solar wind: A stream of charged particles (plasma) which are ejected from the 

upper atmosphere of a star. It consists mostly of high-energy electrons and protons that are able to escape the star’s gravity. Many phenomena can be explained 

by the solar wind, including: geomagnetic storms that knock out power grids on 

Earth; auroras, and why the tail of a comet always points away from the Sun. 

sounding rocket: A small, usually unguided rocket launched into the upper 

atmosphere for conducting experiments and scientific research. 

Space Network: NASA’s constellation of geosynchronous Tracking and Data 

Relay Satellites and their associated ground segment. The ground segment 

consists of the White Sands Complex, the Bilateral Ranging Transponder 

System, the Merritt Island Launch Area TDRSS Relay, and the Data Services 

Management Center. The Space Network (SN) is run by the Goddard Space 

Flight Center under management of the Space Operations Mission Directorate 

at Headquarters. 
414 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

state vectors: The set of position and velocity measurements of a traveling 

object as a function of time, particularly those of a spacecraft in orbit or a 

rocket on a ballistic trajectory. 

telemetry: Electronic data measurements downlinked or transmitted from a 

spacecraft to the ground. 

teletype: A now largely obsolete electro-mechanical typewriter which was 

used to communicate typed messages from point to point through a simple 

electrical communications channel, often just a pair of wires. Later versions 

used a screen instead of a printer. 

tracking: Collection of spacecraft position and velocity measurements so that 

its orbit or trajectory can be determined. 

wavelength:The distance traveled by an electromagnetic wave during one cycle 

of oscillation. Radio frequency wavelengths ranges from millimeters to meters. 

Wing Station: A support or backup ground station located near the designated 

primary station on a given mission. Deep Space Network sites were often used 

to support nearby Manned Space Flight Network sites in this manner. 

yagi antenna: An antenna consisting of an array of linear elements, such as a 

common rooftop television antenna. The antenna achieves a distinct response 

bandwidth determined by the length, diameter, and spacing of all the individual elements. Its overall gain is proportional to its length, rather than simply 

the number of elements. Yagis can range in size from small (like TV antennas) 

to very large (dozens of feet long with multiple elements). 
APPENDIX 2


Maps 

Each location has been plotted by the author on blank Robinson 

Projections. 
416 “Read You Loud and Clear!” ) s059te 1alk (rowtek Ncartinie MhT
Appendix 2 \ Maps 417 

) s079d 1im–s069y 1lraek (rowten Noitisiuqa Actad Dng Anikcare Ttilletae ShT
418 “Read You Loud and Clear!” ) s069y 1lraek (rowtet Nhgifl ecapy Srucree MhT
Appendix 2 \ Maps 419 

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424 “Read You Loud and Clear!” ks rowtey Nat DneserP
APPENDIX 3


Radio Frequency Chart 

APPENDIX 4


Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 

The actual mission log as recorded at the Honeysuckle Creek 

Tracking Station (HSK) is reproduced here courtesy of John Saxon. When he 

donated these scans to the Honeysuckle tribute Web site (www.honeysucklecreek. 

net) in 2003, John wrote: 

It may seem strange, but Apollo support sites were not required 

to keep a formal log. Usually, particular times were reported to 

Houston as they happened or when the action was completed. 

Some times were reported in post-pass teletype messages. 

At Honeysuckle we did try to maintain an overall log of mission events as we observed them, and the operating position on 

the right hand side of the main station Operations console got 

lumbered with the job. This position was also required to monitor anything up to six or seven voice loops simultaneously and 

respond as required.Also, there were two 25 key CAMs (Computer 

Address Matrix) used to control some aspects of the Command 

and Telemetry Computers (send commands to the spacecraft if data 

communications were lost between the site and Houston, etc.), 

operated by this position. So keeping a written log as well was 

sometimes difficult. 
428 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Most sections of the station (USB,TLM, Computer, Comms, 

etc.) also made note of significant times and events, and so this 

helped the main log keeper because they could be reported later 

in ‘easy time.’ Times were sometimes guessed when there was a 

chance to jot them down,so normally they were noted to the nearest minute unless they were deemed to be very significant! 

The log pages presented here were maintained for the entire 

Apollo 11 mission 24 hours per day by my opposite number, Ken 

Lee (otherwise known as “the silver fox”) and myself as we worked 

alternating 12-hour shifts. It should be noted that they were “borrowed” by me at the end of the Apollo program.All the rest of the 

mission files,which contained many other documents on each mission, were consigned to the local landfill site (Tharwa Tip) when 

we were not looking. 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 429 
430 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 431 
432 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 433 
434 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 435 
436 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 437 
438 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 439 
440 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 441 
442 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 443 
444 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 445 
446 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 447 
448 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 449 
450 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 451 
452 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Appendix 4 \ Honeysuckle Station Log for Apollo 11 453 
454 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 
Index 455 

A 

A-12 satellite: 54 

Acquisition aid: 35, 73, 75; on Gemini, 108, 112 

Acquisition-of-signal: 47, 52, 75, 84, 128, 129, 169; TDRS deployment, 167-168 

Ada, Joseph F.: 236 

Adams, John: 96 

Adelaide switching center, South Australia: 64 

Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft (See Apollo Range Instrumentation Aircraft) 

Advanced Research Projects Agency: 29, 67, 208 

Aerobee sounding rocket: 2 

Agenzia Spatiale Italiana: 337 

Air Force, United States (See also Department of Defense and specific test ranges and locations): xxxiii, 

2, 5, 21, 67, 71, 74, 78, 82, 85-88, 94, 116, 117, 120, 122, 131, 137, 149, 154, 206, 208, 226, 

238, 253, 308; Andrews Air Force Base, 77; ARIA support, 159-162, 203; Bonham Air Force 

Base (See Hawaii Ground Station); Department of Defense Manager for Manned Spaceflight, 

94; Eastern Space and Missile Center, 237, 239; Edwards Air Force Base, 59, 162, 223, 232; 

Electronic Systems Division, 161; Hickam Air Force Base, 160; Holloman Air Force Base (See 

Tula Peak Ground Station); Kindley Air Force Base, 82; Military Airlift Command, 117; National 

Range Division, 160-161; Patrick Air Force Base, 11, 15, 18, 21, 123, 160, 163; Satellite Control 

Network, 71, 93; Securing the high ground, 93, 253; United States Air Force Museum, 162; 

Vandenberg Air Force Base, 2, 85, 87, 163, 202; Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, 161 

Alamogordo Bombing Range (See White Sands Missile Range) 

Alaska Tracking Station: xxxii, 41-43, 50, 53, 55, 64, 103, 219, 221, 222, 227, 228, 281, 337; Poker 

Flat, 317-319 

Albert monkey flights: 2 

Aldrin, Edwin E., Jr.: 174, 175, 177, 179, 180, 341 

Alice Springs, Australia Northern Territory: 189 

Aller, Robert O.: 258, 282, 325, 336 

Allied Signal (See also Honeywell): xix, 289 

Alouette satellite: 43 

Ames Research Center: xv, 28 

Anchored Interplanetary Platform: 39 

Anders, William A.: 171 

Anderson, Clinton D.: 25 

Anderson, Michael P.: 334, 335 

Angular measurement: 11, 13, 14, 35, 37, 38, 52 

Antarctica (See McMurdo Ground Station) 

Antenna Control Unit: 46, 47, 52 

Antenna operating modes: 52-53, 112 

Antofagasta, Chile: 16, 19, 23, 40 

Antigua: 114, 136, 138, 203, 204; Apollo support, 117-121, 146, 149, 151, 162, 163, 169; early-ops 

support, 18, 21, 40, 98, 112 

Apartheid (See Johannesburg, South Africa) 

Apollo, Project: 1B network, 145-146; V network, 145-146; Antenna pattern pull, 136; Apollo 1, 166, 

167; Apollo 4, 131, 147, 156, 158, 166-167; Apollo 5, 147, 167; Apollo 6, 168-169; Apollo 7, 150, 

163, 170-172, 331; Apollo 8, 147, 151, 156, 171-173; Apollo 9, 173; Apollo 10, 173-174; Apollo 

11, xxxv, 120, 151, 157, 158, 174-180, 181, 186, 196, 203, 205, 206, 221, 235, 342, 427-454; 

Apollo 12, 158, 182, 183; Apollo 13, 180-182, 203, 234, 250; Apollo 14, 174, 182, 187; Apollo 15, 

183; Apollo 16, 168, 169, 234; Apollo 17, 182, 184, 185, 306; Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments 

Package telemetry, 182-184, 205; AS-201, 118, 145; Bailout decision during powered descent, 

174; Command/Service Module, 112, 136, 137, 144, 145, 150, 151, 157, 166, 169, 170, 171, 173, 

180, 181, 185, 196, 232, 306, 341; Flight phases, 143-144, 153; Free-return trajectory, 151, 181; 

Implications of moving the launch window, 157-159; Lunar Module, 112, 136, 144, 145, 147, 151, 

152, 166, 167, 168, 173-179, 181-185, 232, 305; Original tracking plans, 145-147; Portable Life 

Support System telemetry, 175, 180; Reentry and recovery considerations, 150-152, 156-159, 160, 
456 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

163; S-IVB transponder interference, 181; Saturn 1B launch vehicle, 118, 154, 167, 196; Saturn 

V launch vehicle, 118, 131, 135-138, 145, 147, 151, 154, 156-159, 166, 186, 187, 224; Trans-Earth 

Injection tracking, 144; Trans-Lunar Injection tracking, 129, 135, 149, 150, 151, 153, 157-159; 

Transposition and docking tracking requirements, 151-152, 158 

Apollo Range Instrumentation Aircraft: 158-161, 163, 193, 203, 214; Flight 328 crash, 161-162; Joint 

NASA/DOD responsibility, 159-161; Project Configuration Control Board, 161; Two-ocean 

versus single-ocean support, 158-159 

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: xl, 135, 190-198, 200, 205, 214, 215, 229, 249, 281, 306, 327; American/ 

Soviet cultural differences, 195-197; Soviet ground stations, 191, 193; Soviet tracking ships, 193; 

Soyuz 16 network rehearsal, 195; Use of ATS-6, 193-195 

Application satellites (See also specific satellite names): xxxii, xxxvii, xxxviii, xl, 65, 222, 229, 232, 

234, 249, 273, 304, 306 

Applications Technology Satellite (See also Apollo-Soyuz Test Project): 50, 55-56, 156, 193-195, 205, 

206, 214, 215, 219, 227, 248 

Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University: 184 

Ariane launch vehicle: 238, 239 

Argee Corporation: 282 

Armstrong, Neil A.: xxxv, 174-178, 180, 341 

Army, United States (See also Department of Defense): xiii, 6, 8, 9, 19, 21, 23, 24, 40, 42, 60, 74; 

Ballistic Missile Agency, 29; Corps of Engineers, 7, 15, 31, 236; Map Service, 15; Ordnance 

Department, 6, 7; Project Orbiter, 15; Signal Corps, 15 

Ascension Island: xxxii, 2, 98, 114, 116-119, 123, 124, 149, 160, 162, 163, 189, 192, 220, 237-240 

AT&T: 101, 196, 244, 246 

Atlantic Missile Range (See Eastern Test Range) 

Atlas launch vehicle: xxxviii, 2, 69, 81, 99, 106, 139, 145, 260, 295, 297, 299, 306 

Attwood, William H.: 127 

Australia (See also specific locations in Australia): xiv, xv, xxxiv, xxxv, 4, 19, 34, 39, 44, 45, 48-50, 56, 

83, 95, 99, 110, 113, 114, 146, 148, 150, 174-176, 188, 189, 193, 203, 208, 212, 220, 223, 226, 

227, 232, 233-235, 251, 288-290, 304, 318, 338, 340; Australian Land Information Survey Group 

(See Geoscience Australia); Department of Supply, 21, 44, 45, 115; Department of Territories, 

235; Department of Transport and Communications, 235; Geoscience Australia, 235; Weapons 

Research Establishment, 21, 45, 115 

Automated Transfer Vehicle: 335 

Autotrack: 39, 40, 51-52, 76, 149, 327 

Azusa missile tracking system: 9, 10 

B 

Badgeless controller: xxxvii, 232 

Baghadady, Eli: 37 

Baikonur-Tyuratam Cosmodrome: 66, 191, 195 

Bailey, Harry: 229 

Baker, James G.: 3 

Baker-Nunn camera: 3-5, 234, 235 

Ball Aerospace Corporation: 66 

Bandwidth requirements: xxxviii, 35, 62, 164, 174, 298, 300 

Barbados: 120 

Barbour, Walworth: 84 

Barking Sands, Kauai (See Hawaii Ground Station) 

Barnes, G. M.: 6 

Barnes, Robert: 185 

Baumgartner, A. W.: 134 

Bavely, James: 124 

Beall, J. Glenn: 31 

Beijing, China: 318 

Beamwidth: 52, 144, 181, 232 
Index 457 

Bear Lake, Utah: 223 

Bell Telephone: 80, 244, 246, 249 

Bender, Ed: 96 

Bendix: 21, 57, 80, 86, 156, 161, 222, 227, 228, 229, 331-332; Bendix Aviation Corporation, 21; 

Bendix Field Engineering Corporation, xix, xxxvii, 29, 88, 96, 118, 121, 122, 124, 126, 127, 129, 

204, 214, 237, 240; Pay incentives, 57; Transition to Allied Signal and Honeywell, 289 

Benson, Cliff: 229, 331 

Berg, Wilfred E.: 16 

Bermuda Tracking Station: xxx-xxxi, xxxviii, 64, 73, 80, 81-83, 87, 95, 98-100, 102, 109, 110, 112, 

118, 119, 135-138, 144, 146, 149, 151, 162, 164, 168, 192, 220, 305-306 

Berndt, Morton: 140 

Big Dish (book): xiii 

Bit errors and bit error rates: xlii, 118, 217, 313, 341 

Blagonravov, Anatoly: 190 

Blaha, John E.: 284 

Blossom Point, Maryland: 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 55, 58, 60, 203 

Bobko, Karol J.: 270 

Bodin, Wesley J.: 31, 40-41, 236, 

Boeing: 223, 270, 298, 299; Boeing-Delco, 184 

Boller and Chivens Company: 3 

Bolton, John: 174, 181 

Borman, Frank: 171, 172-173, 286 

Botswana Ground Station: 226, 240 

British Cable and Wireless Company: 88, 116, 237, 239 

Brand, Vance D.: 196 

Brinkley, Randy H.: 299 

Brockett, Norm: 127 

Brown, David M.: 334 

Brown Field (See San Diego Station) 

Brussels, Belgium: 196 

Buchli, James F.: 284 

Buckhorn Ground Station: 224 

Buckley, Edmond C.: xi, xviii, xix, xx, xxxiv, 52, 68, 80, 89, 90, 92-93, 116, 112, 123, 127, 131, 136, 

140, 209, 326, 327, 329 

Budget discussions: xxxiv, 28, 45, 79, 103, 137, 152, 199, 200, 211, 218, 254, 332; Guam and Hawaii, 

206-207 

Buitrago, Spain (See Madrid) 

Bureau of Land Management: 228, 317 

Bureau of the Budget: 27, 152, 206 

Bush, George W.: 326, 341 

Bushuyev, Konstantin D.: 197 

C 

Cadena, Carlos H.: 229 

Calibration aircraft: 14, 76-77; High altitude training, 77 

California Tracking Station: 95, 99, 101, 114 

Call, Dale: 138 

Canary Island Tracking Station: xxxi, 88, 94-97, 100, 114, 118, 119, 138, 146, 162, 163, 205-206 

Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex: xiii, xxxv, xxxvi, 34, 46, 50, 175, 212, 222, 231, 235, 

288-290 

Canton Island Tracking Station: xxxi, 83, 84-85, 95, 114, 121-123 

Capcom: xxxi, 95, 100, 164, 171, 271; Communication Technician, 100 

Cape Canaveral, Florida: xxxvi, xxxviii, 32, 64, 72, 74, 79, 80, 81, 87, 88, 89, 92, 94, 95, 98, 99, 100, 

118, 119, 137, 146, 163, 182, 215, 306, 317 

Carlucci, Frank C.: 127 
458 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Carnarvon, Western Australia: 39, 45, 50, 56, 87, 114, 128, 136, 138, 146, 149, 150, 162, 189 

Carpenter, M. Scott: 101 

Carrillo Flores, Antonio: 88 

Castro, Fidel Ruz: 41 

Cellular telephone: xxi, 225, 307, 327, 330 

Centaur upper stage: 260, 295, 299, 306 

Central Intelligence Agency: 23, 66 

Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales: 238, 337 

Certification Program (See Training programs) 

Chaffee, Roger B.: 166, 167 

Chandra X-ray Observatory: 287 

Chawla, Kalpana: 334 

Chula Vista, California (See San Diego, California) 

Cincinnati Observatory: 12 

Civil service personnel, use of: xviii, xxxvii, 26, 57, 94 

Clark, George Q.: 78 

Clark, Laurel: 335 

Clarke, Arthur C.: 244 

Clemence, Gerald M.: 22 

Clements, Henry H.: 94, 331 

Code Division Multiple Access: xxi 

Cold War: xxxvii, 1, 105, 140, 171, 195, 198 

College, Alaska (See Alaska Ground Station) 

Collimation tower: 40, 51, 76, 118, 131, 133, 136 

Collins, Michael: 171, 174, 175, 178 

Collins Radio Company: 149, 209 

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization: xv, 235, 318 

Commercialization of stations: xlii, 238, 239, 246, 253, 254, 257, 312, 313, 317, 321–323 

Commercial satellite (See also COMSAT and INTELSAT): xxxvii, 65, 244-248, 257, 265, 289; Early 

Bird, xxxvii, 247; Telstar 1, 65, 244, 246 

Commercial space transportation: 311 

Communication and Navigation Architecture Working Group: 338 

Communications blackout behind the Moon: xxxiii, 172, 341 

Communications Satellite Act of 1962: 246 

Communications Satellite Corporation: xxxvii, 196, 246-247 

Compton Gamma Ray Observatory: 272, 285, 286; GRO Remote Terminal System (GRTS), 289-292 

Computation and Data Flow Integrated Subsystem: 77 

Congress, United States: xxiii, xxxiv, 25, 30, 67, 106, 130, 153, 154, 156, 198, 203, 227, 254-256, 

258, 275, 282, 324, 332, 333; Debate over Johannesburg, 208-213; Establishment of NASA, 27­

28; House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 210; House Congressional Black Caucus, 210; House 

Space Committee, 210; House Subcommittee on Aeronautics and Space Technology, 210 

Conrad, Charles, Jr.: 110, 188 

Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation: 9 

Consolidated Space Operations Contract: xxiv, 323, 326 

Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems: xxii 

Cooby Creek, Australia: 50, 56, 203 

Cooper, L. Gordon, Jr.: 98, 102-103 

Cooper’s Island (See Bermuda) 

Corliss, William R.: x, xii 

Coronal holes: 66 

Corpus Christi, Texas (See Texas Tracking Station) 

Cosmic Background Explorer: 310 

COSPAS-SARSAT satellite project: 236-237 

Cost reduction: xxii, xxiii, xxv, xlii, 300, 313, 323; Rising cost of station operations, 226-227 

Costrell, James A.: 326 

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research: 208, 210-213 

Courier, air and surface: 22, 36 
Index 459 

Covington, Ozro M.: xi, xix, xl, 8, 78-80, 101, 178, 185, 201, 327, 331 

Crabill, Donald: 152 

Crew Exploration Vehicle: 340 

Crippen, Robert L.: 224 

Crough, Ed: 96 

Crowley, J. W.: 70 

Crustal Dynamics Project (See Tectonics) 

Cubic Corporation: 75 

Cunningham, R. Walter: 170 

Cushman, Ralph E.: 90, 205 

D 

Dakar, Senegal: 56, 225, 226, 231, 240 

Darwin, Australia: 50, 56, 203 

Data Acquisition Facility: 43, 47, 51, 53, 64, 85, 135; Power requirements, 47-49; Staffing and 

operating cost, 49 

Data rate requirements: xxxviii, 36, 201, 265, 298, 300, 301, 335, 338 

Deep Space Network (DSN): ix, xii-xvi, xix, xxi, xxxv, xli, 33, 45, 50, 52, 59, 80, 109, 117, 123-124, 

128, 144, 146, 147-149, 163, 208, 212, 221, 231, 232, 235, 241, 250-251, 288, 308, 322, 338; As 

Apollo wing-station, 147-149, 232-233; Ground Communications Facility: xiv; Subnets, xiv; 

World Net: 208 

Delta launch vehicle: 202, 287, 306 

Department of Commerce: 121 

Department of Defense (See also Air Force, Army and Navy, United States): xxxiii, 2, 12, 27, 94, 115, 

153; Advanced Research Projects Agency, 67; Committee on Special Capabilities, 9 

Department of Interior: 84, 111, 123, 281 

Department of State: xxxiii, xxxiv, 20, 42, 88, 90, 94, 97, 123, 125, 127, 152, 205, 209, 214, 230, 236 

Deutsches Zentrum für Luftund Raumfahrt: 337 

Diggs, Charles C.: 210 

Digital telecommunications: xlii, 35, 50, 108, 109, 112, 299, 313, 329, 342 

Dinn, Mike: 179-180, 234 

Donegan, James J.: xxxviii, 71, 77 

Douglas Aircraft Company: 30, 76, 161 

Dowling, Jack: 138 

Down conversion: 53 

Dynamic Explorer Satellite: 228 

Dryden Flight Research Center: 207, 223, 224 

Dryden, Hugh L.: 26, 90, 106, 131, 205 

Duncome, R. L.: 22 

Dunseith, Lynwood: xxxviii, 82, 110, 182, 186 

E 

Early-ops tracking: 19, 40, 112, 139 

Earth Observatory Data & Images archive: 119 

Earth rotation, effect on trajectory: 2 

Earth Resource Technology Satellite: 201, 202, 314 

Easter, Bill: 138 

Eastern Test Range: 2, 98, 113, 115, 117, 120, 121, 149, 204, 238 

East Grand Forks, Minnesota: 42, 55, 203 

Easton, Roger L.: 12, 15 

Eccentric Geophysical Observatories: 54 

Echo satellite: 17, 244, 245, 246, 263 

Ecuadorian Services Company: 228-229 

Eglin Test Range: 70, 95, 99, 114 
460 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Eisenhower, Dwight D.: 9, 24, 25, 27 

Eisenhower, Milton S.: 88 

Eisele, Donn F.: 170, 171 

Electromagnetic waves: 6, 9, 50, 286 

Eleuthera, Bahamas: 120 

Elliptical orbit: xiv, 35, 43, 54, 111, 166, 169, 200, 232, 270 

Engle, Joe H.: 230 

Enhanced Launch Vehicle Imaging System: 335 

Ervin, Samuel J., Jr.: 52 

Esceula Politecnica Nacional: 229 

European Broadcast Union: 196 

European Earth Resource Satellite: 204, 314 

European Space Agency: 237, 239, 324, 333-335, 336, 337 

Explorer spacecraft: 24, 29, 33, 65, 203, 244; Explorer 1, xiii, 24; Explorer 6, 65; Explorer 35, 39; 

Explorer 55, 65 

Extravehicular activity: 141, 149, 175, 176, 234, 267 

F 

Fairbanks, Alaska (See Alaska Tracking Station) 

Fairchild Corporation: 193, 257 

Fariss, George: 138 

“Faster, Better, Cheaper”: xlii, 321 

Federal Aviation Administration: 121, 122, 123, 244, 317; Office of the Associate Administrator for 

Commercial Space Transportation, 311 

Federal Communications Commission: xxii, 244, 260 

Fiber optics: 289, 308, 320, 335 

Field-of-view: 3, 52, 53, 172, 243, 249, 260, 264 

Figure-of-merit: 275, 298 

Fish and Wildlife Service, United States: 317 

Flaherty, Roger: 252 

Fletcher, James C.: 211, 236, 254-255 

Flight controller: xxxvi, xxxviii, 61, 68, 99, 102, 109, 110, 164, 172, 176, 182, 184, 271, 278 

Ford Aeronutronics: 71 

Force, Charles T.: xlii, 131, 134, 138, 217, 218, 229, 230, 236, 275-277, 286, 289, 298, 325, 331 

Force, Marilyn: 134 

Ford, Gerald R.: 197 

Fort Myers: 42, 55, 203, 212, 306 

Fort Stewart: 19, 21, 42, 60 

Fraleigh, William: 97 

Frequency allocation: xxii, 337 

Fresnedillas, Spain (See Madrid Tracking Station) 

Frutkin, Arnold W.: 93 

FRW-2 transmitter: 75, 112 

G 

Gagarin, Yuri A.: 66, 67 

Galapagos Islands: 194 

Galileo space probes: iv 

Garvey, Joe: 138 

Gemini, Project: 80, 88, 107, 108-113, 116, 118, 120, 121, 122, 128, 131, 135-136, 140-141, 144, 145, 

164, 169, 172, 213; Agena docking target, 108, 112, 140; Gemini 3, 110, 128-129; Gemini 4, 74, 

107, 111, 113; Gemini 5, 111, 139; Gemini 6, 141; Gemini 7, 141; Gemini 8, 141; Gemini 11, 141; 

Gemini 12, 87, 122, 147, 161; Titan launch vehicle, 139, 145 

General Dynamics: 154-156 
Index 461 

General Electric: 88, 202, 253 

Geostationary orbit (See Geosynchronous orbit) 

Geosynchronous orbit: 37, 52, 162, 194, 243, 244, 246, 248, 250, 253, 261, 265, 270-271, 277-279, 

282, 298, 300, 336, 338 

Giant Leap tour: 206 

Gitlin, Thomas A.: 290 

Gilmore Creek (See Alaska Tracking Station) 

Glenn, John H., Jr.: xxix-xxxi, 85, 100, 101 

Glenn Research Center: xxii, 28, 315 

Glennan, T. Keith: 31, 36, 84, 85, 88, 91 

Global Positioning System: 53 

Go/No-Go decision: xxxviii, 73, 82, 100, 115, 129, 135, 149, 151, 164, 305 

Goddard Laser Tracking Network: 223, 235 

Goddard Range And Range Rate system: 37-39, 42-43, 51, 55-56, 144, 165, 219-220 

Goddard, Robert H.: 31-32 

Goddard Space Flight Center: iv, x, xiv, xix, xxxvii-xxxviii, xxxix, xl-xli, 30-33, 35-36, 38, 39, 47, 

48, 53, 57, 58, 61-63, 64, 65, 68, 74, 77-79, 91, 92, 101, 103, 108, 110, 111, 114, 135, 145, 164­

165, 178, 180-182, 185, 187, 192, 194-195, 198, 200, 202, 223, 224, 229, 230, 237, 253-255, 

271, 289, 296-297, 311, 316, 322, 323, 324, 326, 331; Advanced Development Division, 35; 

Communications Division, 59, 330; Competition between Code 500 and Code 800, 217-218; 

Explorations, Operations, Communications and Navigation Systems Division, 300; Foreign 

policy work, 215, 226, 323; Image Processing Facility, 217; Manned Flight Operations Division, 

80, 138, 201; Manned Flight Support Directorate, 80, 215; Manned Space Flight Support 

Division, 74; Mission and Data Operations Directorate, 215, 236; Mission Operations and Data 

Systems Division, 236, 287; Mission Operations Control Center, 215; Multisatellite Operations 

Control Center, 215; Network Office for International Operations, 215; Network Operations 

Control Center, xxxix, 201, 215-217, 301; Networks Directorate, 215; Project Operation Control 

Centers, 201, 215-217, 311; Space Communications Branch, 32; Space Network Project Office, 

277; Space Projects Center, 30, 68; Space Sciences Division, 31, 66; STADAN Engineering 

Division, 40; Suborbital Projects and Operations Directorate, 310, 312; Tracking and Data 

Systems Directorate, 10, 32, 59, 144, 215 

Goetchius, Rod: 80 

Goett, Harry J.: 52, 68, 74, 77, 78, 79, 117, 125 

Goldin, Daniel S.: 322, 325 

Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex: xiii, xiv, 40, 138, 147, 162-163, 172, 174-176, 178, 

181, 182, 184, 203, 208, 212, 219, 221-222, 227, 231, 232, 270 

Gomez, Louis: 281 

Goodman, Charles J.: 196 

Grand Canary Island (See Canary Island Tracking Station) 

Grand Bahama Tracking Station: 21, 40, 112, 114, 118, 119-120, 136-139, 149, 163, 224, 308 

Grand Turk Tracking Station: 18, 21, 40, 95, 100, 112, 114, 136-138 

Graves, G. Barry, Jr.: 71, 74, 76, 80, 90 

Gray, Don: 138 

Great Observatories spacecraft: 281, 286-287 

Griffin, L. F.: 126, 127 

Grissom, Virgil I.: 166, 167 

Ground Network (See also individual station locations): iv, xli-xlii, 301, 302, 303, 311, 315, 320-321; 

DataLynx, 317-318, 321; Universal Space Network, xlii, 318, 321, 323 

Ground track, spacecraft: xli, 19, 34, 42, 72, 84, 92, 113, 118, 129, 172 

Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation: 167 

Guam Tracking Station: 64, 129-135, 138, 147, 151, 162, 163, 166, 192, 206-208, 219, 229, 235-236, 

240, 321 

Guaymas Tracking Station: xxxi, xxxiv, 88-92, 95, 99, 101, 114, 138, 139-141, 146, 147, 162, 165, 204­

205 

Guerrero, Jose A. Leon: 134 

Guerrero, Manuel F. Leon: 130, 131, 237, 292 
462 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

H 

H-II Transfer Vehicle: 335 

Habib, Edmund J.: 14, 37 

Hagen, John P.: 22 

Hainworth, H. C.: 84 

Haise, Fred W., Jr.: 181, 182 

Haney, Paul P.: 170 

Harris Corporation: 256, 257, 280 

Harris, David W.: 17, 77, 239, 325 

Harris, Matt: 96 

Hauck, Frederick H.: 282 

Hawaii Ground Station: 84-87, 95, 99, 100, 101, 110, 113, 114, 129, 138, 146, 149, 151, 162, 163, 166, 

171, 192, 206-208, 219, 240; Bonham Air Force Base, 85; Honolulu switching center, 64; Kokee 

Park Geophysical Observatory, 85, 219, 303-304; University of Hawaii, 240, 303 

Headquarters, NASA: xviii-xx, xxiii-xxv, xxxiv, xxxix, 17, 20, 59, 70, 74, 77, 80, 82, 84, 90, 97, 111, 

122, 125, 134, 140, 155, 164, 165, 170, 189, 194, 205, 209, 210, 213, 215, 227, 236, 239, 255, 298, 

323, 324-325, 332, 336, 338, 340; Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, 170; Code O and Code 

T, xx, 323-325; Office of Manned Space Flight, 123, 128, 158, 203; Office of Procurement, 90; 

Office of Program Planning and Evaluation, 36; Office of Space Communications, xi, xx, xxixxiv, 82, 284, 322, 323-325; Office of Space Flight Programs, 77; Office of Space Operations, xx, 

258, 325; Office of Space Tracking and Data Systems, 281, 293, 323; Office of Tracking and Data 

Acquisition, xix, xx, xxii, xxiii, xxxiv, 52, 80, 111, 120, 121, 122, 124, 128, 129, 131, 151, 152, 

153, 156, 188, 199, 253, 254, 325 

Healey, Fred: 138 

Heller, Niles R.: 74 

Herget, Paul: 12, 13, 18, 21, 22 

Hewitt, Frank: 213 

High apogee orbit: xiv, 35, 37, 43, 54, 111, 145, 166, 200 

High eccentricity orbit (See High apogee orbit) 

High Energy Astronomy Observer: 201 

High frequency: 12, 60, 61, 155, 159, 238 

High inclination orbit (See Polar orbit) 

Hinners, Noel W.: 198, 237 

Hoff, Hal: 77 

Honeysuckle Creek, Australia: xxxv-xxxvi, 129, 138, 148, 162, 172, 175-179, 181, 220, 234, 235 

Honeywell: xix, 318 

Hooker, Ray W.: 71, 93 

Hubble Space Telescope: 216, 286, 290, 293, 298, 340 

Hughes Aircraft Company: 52, 245, 248, 254, 255, 294, 298 

Hunter, Dan: 138 

Hurd, Cuthbert C.: 21 

Husband, Rick D.: 334 

Hynek, J. Allen: 3 

Ikonos satellite: 119 

Indian Ocean Station: 226 

Inertial Upper Stage: 260, 266, 270, 275, 276 

Infrared Space Observatory: 39 

Instantaneous contact requirement: 70 

Institute of Aerospace Technology: xv, 233 

Integrated Near-Earth Network: 338–340 

Interagency Operations Advisory Group: 337 

Inter-American Geodetic Survey: 60 

I
Index 463 

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile: xxxviii, 2, 24, 66, 86, 87


Interference, radio frequency: 81, 102, 165, 181, 184, 188, 260, 261; Rocket plume attenuation, 118, 


138, 306-307; Solar activity, 94, 101 

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (See Labor dispute) 

International Business Machines: 21-22, 32, 74, 77, 81; IBM 1218 computer, 58; IBM 709 computer, 99 

International Council of Scientific Unions: 3 

International Geophysical Year: 3, 9, 10, 15, 24, 44, 93, 208 

International Organization for Standardization: xxii 

International Satellite for Ionospheric Studies: 50 

International Space Station: xxxvi, xlii, 184, 241, 251, 252, 272, 278, 282, 304, 310, 331, 333, 334, 340 

International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium: 64, 247-248, 289, 315; Apollo support, 162

163, 194; Early Bird, xxxvii, 247 

­

International Telecommunication Union: 34 

International Ultraviolet Explorer: 55, 201, 216, 228, 310 

Internet: 272, 316, 330, 341; Access to South Pole, xlii, 272, 315 

Interplanetary Monitoring Platform: 34, 35, 304, 309 

Invisible Network: xl, xlii, 102-103, 330, 331 

Ippolito, Tony: 308 

Ionosphere: 2, 22, 24, 43, 314 

Irwin, James B.: 183 

Island Lagoon, South Australia: 45, 47, 234 

ISS Downlink Enhancement Architecture: 335 

Iuliano, Henry: 189, 250 

J 

Jackson, Chuck: 138 

James Webb Space Telescope: 340 

Japanese Institute for Aerospace Technology: 318, 337 

Jarvis, Gregory B.: 272 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (See also Deep Space Network): xiii-xv, xviii, 24, 28, 29, 33, 117, 165, 209, 

228, 232, 235, 308, 322–323, 324, 333 

Jochen, Larry: 331 

Johannesburg Tracking Station: 19, 21, 41, 42, 56, 114, 124, 128, 149, 152, 208-213, 222, 226, 318, 

336, 340 

Johnson, Lyndon B.: 28, 106 

Johnson Space Center: xi, xix, xxiv, 74, 79, 110, 111, 113, 136, 138, 159, 164, 170, 173, 224, 252, 258, 

278, 286, 306, 307, 322, 324, 331, 335, 342; Data Systems and Analysis Directorate, 82, 182; 

Formation of, 33, 68, 77; Relationship with GSFC, xix, xxxiv, xxxvii, xl, 79-80, 108-110, 306 

Jonathan Dickinson Missile Tracking Annex: 308, 335 

Jones, Jesse C.: 281 

Jordan, B. Everett: 52 

Jupiter C launch vehicle: 24 

K 

Kano, Nigeria: xxxi, 30, 50, 86-88, 93, 95, 97, 114, 124, 125, 127 

Karume, Abeid Amani: 127 

Kauai, Hawaii (See Hawaii Tracking Station) 

Kelly, Richard: 96 

Kennedy, Edward M.: 211 

Kennedy, Gregory P.: 282 

Kennedy, John F.: 78, 106, 108, 245 

Kennedy Space Center: 64, 114, 123, 135, 136, 137, 143, 151, 166, 194, 196, 204, 224, 225, 232, 239, 

267, 272, 273, 275, 306, 308, 309, 326, 340 
464 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Kent, Marion: 207 

Kentron: 86 

Kerrigan, E. J.: 89 

Kerwin, Joseph P.: 188 

Khrushchev, Nikita S.: 105 

Killian, James R., Jr.: 25, 26, 27 

Kodak Corporation: 3 

Kokee Park, Kauai (See Hawaii Tracking Station) 

Kosygin, Alexey N.: 190 

Kourou, French Guiana: 239 

Kraft, Christopher C., Jr.: xix, xxxvi, xxxviii, xl, 79, 174, 179, 182, 197, 205, 224 

Kranz, Eugene F.: 110, 180 

Kronmiller, George: 37-38 

Krugman, Clay: 96 

Kubasov, Valeri N.: 196, 197 

L

Kwajalein, Marshall Islands: 2, 87, 98 

Labor dispute: 227 

LaFleur, Walt: 138, 230 

LAGEOS satellite: 222 

Lagrange point: 340 

Lake Victoria, Africa: 194 

LANDSAT: 50, 202, 212, 226, 228 

Langley Research Center: 32, 63, 67, 68, 70, 71, 74, 77, 84, 88, 90, 91, 93, 218, 245, 310; Langley 

Aeronautical Laboratory, 28 

Las Cruces, New Mexico: 278, 281, 283, 284, 285, 286 

Laser tracking: 222-223, 235 

Launch azimuth: 72, 119, 225; Apollo missions, 135-137, 151, 153, 158, 203 

Lawless, Ed: 189 

Leddy, Raymond: 91 

Lee, Roger: 96 

Lee, William A.: 170-171 

Leonov, Aleksei A.: 196, 197 

Leslie, Robert A.: 45 

Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (See Glenn Research Center) 

Lights-out operations: 259, 308, 318, 320 

Lima, Peru: 16, 19, 23, 40, 56, 149, 163, 203 

Lindsay, Hamish: xxxvi, 235 

Lindsay, John C.: 66 

Line-of-sight limitation: xli, 277, 288, 305 

Lissajou orbit (See Lagrange point) 

Lockheed Missiles and Space Company: 66, 76, 253, 299, 323, 326 

London switching center: 61, 64 

Looney, Chesley H., Jr.: 12, 16, 23, 35 

Lopez Mateos, Adolfo: 88, 89 

Loss-of-signal: 72, 84, 124, 129, 172, 307, 309 

Lovell, James A., Jr.: 171, 181, 182 

Low, George M.: 106-107, 170, 171, 204-205 

Lowe, Bryan: 138 

Lunar Orbiter space probe: xv 

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: 338 

Lunar Rover, Apollo: xii, 183-185; Solution for communications time lag, 184; Tracking, 185 

Lundy, Wilson T.: 286, 325 

Lunney, Glynn S.: 197 

Lutz, Russell: 96 
Index 465 

M 

Madagascar: 30, 39, 41, 43, 53, 54, 56, 59, 114, 124, 128, 129, 146, 149, 152, 163, 213, 214, 215 

Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex: xiii, 61, 148, 163, 212, 231, 233, 288, 336, 338 

Magnetic tapes, 14-track: 22, 48, 53, 60, 216 

Manned Lunar Landing Task Group: 106 

Manned Spacecraft Center (See Johnson Space Center) 

Manned Spaceflight Instrumentation and Communications Panel: 136, 138 

Mariner space probe: ix, xv 

Mars, exploration of: ix, 212, 336, 338, 339, 340; Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, xv; Spirit and 

Opportunity rovers, xvi 

Marshall Islands (See Kwajalein, Marshall Islands) 

Marshall Space Flight Center: xiv, 166, 187, 306, 322, 324, 326, 335, 337 

Masers: 124 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 71, 156 

Mathews, Charles W.: 70 

Matthes, Chester: 42 

Mayer, John: xxxviii 

Mayo, Robert P.: 206 

McAuliffe, S. Christa: 272 

McCool, William C.: 334 

McCormack, John W.: 28 

McDivitt, James A.: 107, 113 

McElroy, John H.: 230 

McKeehan, B. Harry: 20, 21, 54, 226 

McMurdo Ground Station: 272, 313-316; McMurdo TDRSS Relay System, 314; Working with NSF, 

313 

McNair, Ronald E.: 272 

Mendez Docurro, Eugenio: 90, 205 

Mengel, John T.: xxxiii, 10-13, 15, 18, 19, 36, 59, 74, 201, 218, 327; Space Communications Branch, 32 

Mercury, Project: xxix-xxxi, xxxiv, xxxviii, 54, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 74, 75, 79, 80, 81, 

84, 88, 92, 94, 102, 103, 105, 108, 110, 111, 113, 116, 125, 128, 139, 145, 150, 164, 172, 240, 310, 

331; MA-4, 85; MA-5, 101; MA-6, 85, 92, 100, 101; MA-7, 101; MA-8, 98, 101; MA-9, 98, 99, 

102, 105, 109, 121; Project 7969, 67 

Mercury Space Flight Network: 65-103; 12 ground rules, 72-73; Communication gap, 73, 84; 

Mercury Control, 70, 71, 73, 74, 78, 83, 92, 101, 109; Site selection, 71, 73-75, 80-82; Tracking 

And Ground Instrumentation Unit, 71-72, 74-75, 79, 84, 90; Tracking System Study Group, 68, 

70-71, 103 

Mexican National Commission for Outer Space: 204 

Microwave relay: xiv, 60, 94, 147, 175, 176, 181, 225, 307, 308, 311, 315, 316 

Midway Island: 98, 115 

MILA: 136-137, 219, 305, 306, 307-308 

Minitrack Network (See also Naval Research Laboratory): 9-24; Antenna array, 13-14, 16, 18; 

Calibration, 14, 19, 22, 76; Data processing, 21-22; Initial cost, 12; Mark II and Project 

Moonbeam, 15; Minitrack Optical Tracking System, 14, 17; Origin of the name, 11; Picket Line, 

19, 40, 42; Role of the Defense Department, 15, 21; Role of the State Department, 20, 59-60; 

Site selection, 16, 18-19 

Mintz, Frank P.: x 

Mission Control Center, Houston: xxxiii, 64, 74, 109-113, 135, 151, 155, 159, 164, 165, 169, 175, 176, 

178, 182, 184, 185, 186, 188, 215, 224, 225, 234, 271, 305, 306, 307; Mission Operations Control 

Room, 111, 113, 165; Network Controller, 94, 165 

Mobile Laser Ranging System: 223 

Mobile stations (See Temporary tracking stations) 

Mogan, Kathleen M.: x 

Mongas Lopez, Ricardo: 90, 91 

Montoya, Percy: 96 
466 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Morse, Gary A.: 301 

Mosquera, Fabian: 229 

Moss, Frank E.: 211, 212 

MPS-26 radar: 54, 128 

Muchea, Western Australia: xxxi, 54, 95, 99, 100, 115, 128 

Mudgway, Douglas J.: xii 

Multipath interference: 14 

Multiplexing/De-multiplexing of signals: 224-225, 265 

N

Musgrave, F. Story: 270 

Nairobi, Kenya: 127 

NASA Communications Network: 37, 53, 59-63, 64, 77, 131, 164, 176, 188, 189, 215, 225, 234, 241, 

251; Switching centers, 61, 64, 131, 189 

NASA, establishment of: 24-29; Anderson, Clinton D., 25; Atomic Energy Commission, 25, 27; 

Civilian charter, xxxiv, 24, 93, 244; Department of Science and Technology, 27; National 

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 25-28, 207, 310; National Aeronautics and Space Act of 

1958, 28; Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, 28; Special Committee on 

Space and Astronautics, 28; President’s Science Advisory Committee, 25, 26 

NASA Integrated Support Network: xiv, 278, 323 

NASA Long-Range Plan document: 36 

National Academy of Sciences: 2, 3, 4, 10, 25, 27, 93 

National Facilities Study: 337 

National Institute of Aerospace Technology (Spain): xv, 233 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: 219, 228, 317, 321, 337 

National Science Foundation: 25, 27, 272, 277, 314, 316 

National Space Development Agency of Japan: 237, 333, 334 

National Telecommunications and Information Administration: xxii 

Nationalizing of overseas stations: xxxv, 20, 229, 321 

Naval Research Laboratory: 7, 9-10, 12, 15, 18, 19, 21-23, 31, 32, 55, 59, 60, 74, 93; Office of Naval 

Research, 21, 30 

Navy, United States (See also Department of Defense and names of specific ranges and ships): xxxiii, 2, 

6, 15, 16, 24, 31, 40, 74, 84, 98, 101, 113, 116, 122, 127, 130, 134, 150, 152, 154-157, 240, 292, 

303, 304, 313; Blossom Point, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 55, 58, 60, 203; Bureau of Yards and Docks, 15, 

121; Facilities Engineering Command, 97; Instrumentation Ships Project Office, 154, 156; Naval 

Academy, 55, 228; Naval Observatory, 22, 280, 304 

Network centralization: xxxviii, 109-110, 141, 164, 216, 218, 330 

Network Director: 165, 301 

Network Operations Control Center (Pasadena): xiv 

Network Operations Control Center (Greenbelt): xxxix, 201, 215-216 

Network Operations Manager: 165 

Network Test and Training Facility: 55, 58, 203, 219, 228, 310, 337 

Newberry, Stan C.: 325 

Newfoundland Tracking Station: 42, 55, 192, 203 

New Mexico Institute of Technology: 281 

New Mexico State University: 281, 284 

Nimbus meteorological satellite: 36, 39, 43, 54, 195, 228 

Nitze, Paul H.: 127 

Nixon, Richard M.: 190, 197 

North American Aviation: 170; North American Rockwell, 254 

North Carolina (See Rosman Tracking Station) 

North Pole: 272, 318, 319 

Northern Mariana Islands: 129, 130, 290 

Nunn, Joseph: 3 
Index 467 

O 

Ocean cables: xiv, xxxii, 60, 64, 88, 98, 99, 110, 113, 129, 225, 238 

O’Connor, Gerry: 100 

Odenthal, Larry: 138 

Office of General Counsel: 90, 239 

Office of Manned Space Flight (See Headquarters, NASA) 

Office of Program Planning and Evaluation (See Headquarters, NASA) 

Office of Space Communications (See Headquarters, NASA) 

Office of Space Tracking and Data Systems (See Headquarters, NASA) 

Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition (See Headquarters, NASA) 

Onizuka, Ellison S.: 272 

Operating cost: xxi, xli, xlii, 20, 152, 160, 161, 203, 211, 212, 214, 217, 226, 228, 239, 249, 260, 290, 

301, 306, 311, 312, 320, 321, 322, 323, 335; Ground station, 36, 43, 49, 103, 123, 148, 152, 204, 

206, 215, 227, 249; Ship, 128, 150, 152, 156, 214 

Operation Moonwatch: 4-7 

Operation Paperclip: 2 

Optical tracking (See also Minitrack Optical Tracking System): 2-6, 8, 10, 326; Acquisition, 4, 6, 10, 

13; Optical network: 3-4; Weather and lighting, 6 

Orbit determination: 18, 22, 35, 40, 47, 53, 70, 100, 169 

Orbit inclination, effect on tracking: 19, 34, 50, 67, 73, 87, 270, 272, 305, 312 

Orbiting Astronomical Observatory: 50, 61, 215, 227 

Orbiting Geophysical Observatory: 39, 50, 54, 56, 61 

Orbiting Geophysical Project: 50 

Orbiting Solar Observatory: 50, 66 

Orellana, José Rubén: 229 

Orroral Valley Tracking Station: 44, 47-49, 53, 56, 192-193, 220, 221, 222, 233-235 

Owen, Robert L.: 181 

Owens, Joseph S.: 282 

P 

Pacific Missile Range: 2, 70, 85, 87, 115, 121, 240, 303 

PAGEOS satellite: 219 

Paine, Thomas O.: 178, 187, 190, 206, 207 

Pakistan: 50, 226 

Palermo, Sicily: 146 

Parabolic antennas: 4.3-meter, 224, 226, 307, 309; 9-meter, 54, 117, 120, 131, 132, 136, 139, 147, 149, 

153, 155, 192, 193, 203, 228, 232, 240, 289, 292, 304, 306, 309, 312; 12-meter, 36, 40, 42, 144, 

228, 230, 341; 18-meter, 226, 278, 283, 336, 338; 26-meter, xiv, xxxv, 36, 41, 43, 44, 47, 51, 52, 

55-56, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 181, 209, 221, 222, 228, 231, 232, 233, 

234, 249; 34-meter, xiv, 149; 64-meter, xxi, 149, 174, 176, 177, 181; 70-meter, xiv, 149, 231 

Parkes Observatory: xxxv, 174-178, 181, 182 

PEACESAT: 304 

Performance matrix, MSFN and STADAN: 217 

Perkin-Elmer Corporation: 3 

Perth, Western Australia: 114-115, 150, 189, 318 

Peterson, Donald H.: 270 

Phillips, Samuel C.: xx, 137, 139, 167, 171 

Phoenix Islands: 276, 289, 300 

Picard, Fredrick: 127 

Pickett, Eugene: 134 

Pierce, John R.: 244 

Pioneer space probe: iv, 147, 158, 172; Pioneer 3, xiii, xv; Pioneer 4, xiii, xv; Pioneer 6-9, xv; Pioneer 

10, xv; Pioneer 11, xv 

Polar orbit: 34, 41, 50, 228, 315, 319, 320 
468 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Polar Orbiting Geophysical Observatory: 54 

Ponce de Leon Tracking Station: 273, 306, 307-309, 335 

Portugal: 209 

Pretoria, South Africa (See Johannesburg Tracking Station) 

Puerto Rico: 98 

Pulse Amplitude Modulation: 75 

Pulse Code Modulation: 108, 109, 159 

Q 

Quann, John J.: 282 

Quito, Ecuador: 16, 19, 42, 56, 192, 193, 220, 222, 228-231; CLIRSEN agency, 231; Ecuadorian 

Services Company, 229; Mount Cotopaxi, 228, 230 

R 

Rabasa, Oscar: 91 

RADARSAT: 314 

Radar tracking: 2, 6, 8, 9, 15, 70, 71, 73-75, 87, 95, 100, 101-102, 108, 135, 144, 153, 162-163, 219­

220, 261; Beacon track, 74, 94; FPQ-6, 58, 111-112, 128, 135; FPS-16, 11, 74, 98, 112; MPS-26, 

54, 128; Skin track, 74, 111; Very Long Range Tracking, 74-75, 112 

Radio Corporation of America: 8, 43, 57, 71, 72, 74, 80, 135, 173, 244, 253, 255, 278 

Radio interferometry: 9, 11, 33, 39; Operating theory, 13; Azusa missile tracking, 9, 10; Tracking 

Viking guided missile, 10-11 

Ramon, Ilan: 335 

Rangel, Charles B.: 210, 211 

Ranger space probes: xv 

Ratsiraka, Didier: 213, 214 

Raytheon: 289 

Reagan administration: 238, 274 

Reeves Instrument Corporation: 74, 80 

Relay communication satellite: 244 

Remote sensing: 201, 202, 217, 281, 300 

Rendezvous and docking, tracking requirements: 108, 112, 129, 141, 144, 178, 190, 195 

Resnik, Judith A.: 272 

Roberts, Tecwyn: xl, 138 

Robledo, Spain (See also Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex): xiii, 148, 221, 233 

Rodd Naval Auxiliary Air Station: 115 

Rogers Commission (See Space Shuttle Program, Challenger) 

Rosen, Milton W.: 10 

Rosenthal, Alfred: x, xx, 33 

Rosman Tracking Station: 39, 42, 43, 50, 51-53, 55, 64, 192-194, 219, 221, 227-228, 340 

Rouillier, Charles: 96, 138 

Roy, Melba: 38 

Rusk, D. Dean: 127 

S 

S-band (See also Unified S-band): 36-39, 51, 52, 64, 74, 95, 123, 145, 165, 185, 201, 262, 264, 265, 267, 

269, 271, 291, 292, 293, 298, 304, 306, 312, 315, 318, 340; S-band ranging, 35; Saturn V plume 

attenuation, 118 

Sade, Richard S.: 230 

Samet, Arthur: 207 

San Diego Tracking Station: 18, 19, 21, 23, 40, 55, 60, 203 

Sanford, J. Terry: 52 

San Nicholas Island: 98, 102 
Index 469 

Santiago, Chile: 16, 19, 23, 40, 42, 56, 192-193, 220, 221, 222, 236, 304-305, 318, 321 

Sardinia, Italy: 209 

Satellite Automatic Tracking Antenna: 39, 42, 43, 44, 51, 53, 55-56, 131, 219-220, 311 

Satellite Instructional Television Experiment: 194 

Saxon, John: 234, 427 

Switching, Conferencing And Monitoring Arrangement: 113 

Satellite Command Antenna on Medium Pedestal: 131, 311 

Scheer, Julian W.: 170 

Schmidt camera (See Baker-Nunn camera) 

Schneider, William C.: xxxii-xxxiii, 112, 325 

Schirra, Walter M.: 69, 102, 170, 171 

Schultz, Hank: 138 

Schulz, Gary: 331 

Scobee, Francis R.: 272 

Scott, David R.: 183 

Seamans, Robert C., Jr.: 106, 117, 125 

Seasat program: 281 

Seaton, Fredrick A.: 85 

Seychelles (See Indian Ocean Station) 

Shepard, Alan B., Jr.: 33, 82 

Ships, range and tracking: xxxii, xxxiii, xxxvi, 40, 64, 98, 101, 113-116, 123, 128, 144-147, 150-158, 

159, 162-163, 173, 193; Apollo Instrumentation Ships, 150-151, 156, 203; American Mariner, 98; 

Coastal Sentry Quebec, 95, 98, 113, 114, 128, 146, 150; Cost versus land station, 152-153, 214­

215; Huntsville, 98, 151, 153, 156, 157, 162, 163, 166, 173, 178; Insertion tracking, 151, 152, 154; 

Mercury, 151, 158, 162; Range Tracker, 98, 113, 114; Redstone, 151, 157, 158; Reentry tracking, 123, 

151, 153, 157, 173; Retrofit, 153-155; Rose Knot Victor, 95, 98, 113, 114, 150; Twin Falls Victory, 98; 

Vanguard, 151, 154, 155, 158, 163, 188; Watertown, 98, 150, 153, 156, 157, 162 

Short arc solution: xxxviii 

Sicily, Italy: 146, 209 

Side-tone ranging: 37 

Siepert, Albert F.: 117 

Silverstein, Abe: 70, 77, 80 

Simpson, George L., Jr.: 52 

Simulations: xiv, 19, 59, 73, 76-77, 100, 111, 179, 180, 234; Integrated sim, 77, 278 

Siry, Joseph W.: 22 

Site survey: 7, 16, 50, 74, 81, 85, 120, 129, 130, 131, 209, 288 

Skylab, Project: xl, 135, 161, 186-189, 306; Reentry tracking, 188-189 

Slayton, Donald K.: 110, 196 

Smith, Albert E.: 87 

Smith, Glenn: 96, 331 

Smith, Michael J.: 272 

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory: 2-6, 208, 234 

Smylie, Robert E.: 230, 281, 325 

Solar Dynamics Observatory: 338 

Solar Maximum Mission: 236 

Solrad 1: 65 

Soule, Hartley: 68 

Sounding rocket: 1, 2, 32, 66, 140, 204, 310, 312, 317, 332 

South Africa (See Johannesburg) 

South Atlantic Anomaly: 287 

Southern Rhodesia (See Zimbabwe) 

South Pole (See McMurdo Ground Station) 

Soviet Union: xxi, xxxvii, 1, 2, 22, 23, 24, 36, 66-67, 105, 141, 215, 236; ASTP, 190-198 

Space Electronics Company: 71 

Space Network (See Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System) 

Space Networks Interoperability Panel: 336-337 

Space Operations Management Office: xxiv, 322-326; 1995 Zero Base Review, 322; Affect on Code 
470 “Read You Loud and Clear!” 

O and GSFC, 323; Consolidation of management structure, 323, 325; Consolidated Space 

Operations Contract, xxiv, 322, 325; Shift in program responsibilities from Headquarters to JSC, 

xxiv, 322 

Space Race: xxxvii, 28, 171, 198, 321, 340 

Space Shuttle: xii, xx, 64, 198, 200, 225, 226, 231, 232, 240, 250, 254-255, 257, 266, 271, 278, 286, 

287, 298, 299, 304-305, 331; Approach and Landing Test support, 223-224; Challenger accident, 

237, 271-273, 276, 282, 299, 292, 303; Columbia accident, 332; De-orbit and reentry coverage, 

226; OMS-1 burn tracking, 225; OMS-2 burn, 226; Plume attenuation, 138, 306; SRB, 306­

309; Return-to-Launch-Site abort tracking, 307; RTHU maneuver affect on data coverage, 305; 

Schedule conflict with Ariane 9, 238; Spacehab, 281; Spacelab, 281; STS-1, 224, 226, 308; STS-2, 

228, 235; STS-3, 232; STS-4, 275; STS-6, 267; STS-8, 224, 282; STS-26, 275; STS-29, 276, 277, 

284; STS-31, 286; STS-37, 285, 287; STS-43, 276, 277; STS-54, 266, 276, 277; STS-61, 286; 

STS-70, 276, 277; STS-87, 307; STS-93, 287; STS-114, 335; TDRS launch mode, 260-261, 299; 

Text And Graphics System, 271 

Space Station Freedom: 282 

Space Task Group: 32-33, 68, 70, 72, 77, 310 

Space Telescope Science Institute: 216 

Space Transportation System (See Space Shuttle) 

Spearing, Robert E.: 82, 236, 257, 259, 260, 324, 325, 342 

Speed, transmission: xxxviii, 60, 61, 64, 224, 330 

Spencer, Tom: 127 

Spin stabilization: 66, 203, 247 

Spintman, Daniel A.: 230 

Spitzer Space Telescope: 287 

Sputnik: xxxvii, 23-24, 25, 28, 66, 244 

St. Incia: 120 

St. John’s, Canada (See Newfoundland Tracking Station) 

Stafford, Thomas P.: 196 

Stapp, John P.: 282 

Station Director: 45, 57, 86, 123, 129, 138, 140, 236 

Station equipment, disposition of: 40, 42, 47, 54, 55-56, 123, 224, 235, 236, 240, 289, 306; 

Johannesburg, 212; Tananarive, 127, 158, 204, 214 

Station performance, measure of: 217 

Station workload: 87, 222 

Stelter, Lavern R.: 59, 60, 61, 331 

Stevens, Mike: 230 

Stocklin, Frank J.: 290 

Stockwell, E. J.: 124 

Stromberg-Carlson: 80 

Suarez Dias, Jorge: 90 

Submarine cables (See Ocean cables) 

Subpanel on Launch Area Instrumentation (See USB Implementation Subpanel) 

Surveyor lunar lander: xv, xxxviii 

Svalbard Ground Station: 318-321; EUMETSAT, 320; Konnesberg Satellite Services, 318; Norwegian 

Space Center, 319, 320 

Swigert, John L., Jr.: 181 

Syncom satellite: 52, 245, 247 

T 

Tananarive Tracking Station (See Madagascar Tracking Station) 

Taylor, Roy A.: 52, 227 

Teague, Olin E.: 210, 333 

Technology Readiness Level: 254 

Tectonics: 222-223, 240, 304 

Telemedicine: 272, 327 
Index 471 

Telemetry Online Processing System: 216 

Telephone, network usage: 60, 100, 113 

Teletype: xxxvi, xxxviii, 22, 47, 48, 53, 58, 60, 64, 83, 100, 113, 159, 271 

Television: 35, 62, 64, 109, 164, 165, 170-173, 176-178, 184, 191, 194, 196, 205, 341; Color, 174; 

Digital video, 112, 298; First live broadcast to the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, 195; 

High Definition, 217, 335; Scanner Converter Reversing Switch, 178; Signal protocol, 196; Slow 

scan, 173, 176, 177; 

Television Infrared Observatory Satellite: 39, 65 

Telstar: 65, 244, 246 

TELTRAC: 112, 131 

Temporary tracking stations: 41, 50, 55-56, 98, 203 

Ten-minute “dead time” rule: 72, 109 

Tension between the networks: xxxiii, 123, 124, 217-218 

Tereshkova, Valentina V.: 105, 141 

Terlaje, E. S.: 166 

Test and Training Satellite: 147, 172 

Texas Tracking Station: 95,101, 114, 162, 204 

Thiele, Otto: 138 

Thompson, Floyd L.: 78 

Thompson, Henry: 78 

Tidbinbilla, Australia (See Canberra and Orroral Valley) 

Timing requirements: xxxviii, 12, 14, 53, 173, 279; WWV, 53 

Tindall, Bill: xxxviii 

Tinian: 129 

Torres, Julio: 229 

Tousey, Richard: 10 

Tourist attraction, ground station as: 50, 87, 150 

Town Hill (See Bermuda Tracking Station) 

Townsend, John: 32, 284 

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, First Generation: xxxix, 251, 261-270; Attitude Control System, 

261, 263; General specifications, 262; Launch and deployment of, 268-270; Multiple Access 

antenna system, 254, 262, 265, 298, 301; Omni Antenna, 262, 266-267, 269, 270; Power system, 

261, 264; Reaction Control System (See Attitude Control System); Single Access antenna system, 

254, 262, 264-265, 266, 270, 271, 298, 300; Space-to-Ground Link Antenna, 262, 265-266, 267, 

269-270, 291; TDRS-1, 228, 261, 267, 270-272, 274, 276, 277, 282, 287, 288, 289, 290, 296, 316; 

TDRS-2, 272-273, 276, 296; TDRS-3, 274-276, 297; TDRS-4, 276, 277, 284, 297, 304; TDRS5, 276, 277, 297; TDRS-6, 276, 277, 297; TDRS-7, 276, 277, 290, 293, 297; TDRS-East, 275, 

277, 281, 305; TDRS-West, 275, 277, 281; Thermal Control System, 263-264 

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, Second Generation: xxxix, 292-301; Critical Design Review, 299; 

Data capacity, 298, 300; Definition studies, 293, 296-297; General specifications, 291; Impact of 

Challenger accident on launch mode, 274, 295, 299; Initial MA low performance problem, 299; 

Ka-band efficiencies, 252, 293-294, 298, 300, 337; Launch using Atlas II-A/Centaur, 295, 299; 

Phase A Preliminary Analysis, 293, 296-297; Phase B Definition Study, 293, 296-297; Power 

supply, 294-295, 298; Pre Phase A Advanced Study, 293, 296; Propulsion system, 295; Storage 

locations on-orbit, 275-276, 300; TDRS-H, 297, 299; TDRS-I, 297, 299; TDRS-J, 297, 300 

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System: xxi, xli, 193, 194, 237, 241, 249-302, 305, 322, 323, 334, 

340-342; 100% viewing, 250, 272, 275, 292; Availability of the system, 275-277; “Bent-pipe” 

repeater, 250-252; C-band service, 292, 293; Columbia Communications Corporation, 292; 

Contel, 257, 271; DRSS Requirements and Interface Panel, 253; Electromagnetic Compatibility 

Analysis, 260; Fairchild, 193, 257; Forward link, 271, 278; Guam Remote Ground Terminal, 290, 

292, 296-297; Ka-band, 252, 293, 294, 298, 300, 338; Ku-band, 257, 262, 264, 265, 278, 280, 

292, 293, 335; Launch mode, 261, 272, 295, 299; Leased service approach, 254, 258-259, 292; 

Lessons learned, 258-259; Loading analysis, 253-254; McMurdo TDRSS Relay System, 315-316; 

Multiple Access service, 265, 280, 300 301; Naming contest (Cacique and Danzante), 284-286; 

Network Control Center, 278-279; Operations Control Center, 280; Origins of, 243-249; Public 

Law 95-76, 256; Remote sensing support, 281, 300; Request for Proposals, 255, 298; Return 

link, 278, 292; S-band, 262, 264, 265, 267, 269, 291, 292, 293; S-band Tracking, Telemetry and 
472 

V 

“Read You Loud and Clear!” 

Command System, 280; Second TDRSS Ground Terminal, 282-286, 289, 290, 296-297; Single 

Access service, 265, 280; Shared system, 256-257, 259, 293; Spacecom (See Western Union Space 

Communications); Space Network, xli, 250, 252, 272-278, 289, 300-301, 308, 312, 322, 335; 

Space-to-Ground Link Terminal, 280; Tightly coupled system, 259; Timing accuracy, 280; 

U.S. territory-based solution, 290; Western Union Space Communications, 255-259, 278, 292, 

293, 299; White Sands Complex (See White Sands Ground Terminal); White Sands Complex 

Alternative Resource Terminal, 277; White Sands Ground Terminal, 252, 259, 277-281, 282, 

287, 296-297; Zone of Exclusion, 272, 288, 292 

Training programs: 19, 20, 58-59, 210, 228, 229, 321 

Transportable Laser Ranging System: 223 

Traveling Wave Tube: 247, 249, 271 

True, Virgil: 85, 138 

Truly, Richard H.: 230, 284 

Truszynski, Gerald M.: xi, xviii, xx, 152, 199, 204, 205, 207, 213, 255, 325, 332-333 

TRW: 256, 257-258, 260, 271, 273, 276 

Tsiranana, Philibert: 54 

Tula Peak, New Mexico: 226, 231-232 

U 

Ultra high frequency: 38, 82, 112, 113, 115, 162-163, 224, 226, 306, 308, 330 

Unattended operations (See Lights-out operations) 

Unified S-band (See also S-band): 37, 108-109, 117, 118, 136-137, 139, 144, 146, 147, 159, 162-163, 165, 

173, 184, 200, 221, 224, 232, 233, 234, 306, 340; Implementation Sub-panel, 136-139; CSM 

autotracking antenna, 169; Lunar Module directional antenna limitations, 168, 174 

Uninterruptible power supply: 48, 311 

United Nations: 54, 128 

UNIVAC: 61; 1218 computer, 110 

Universal Space Network: xlii, 318, 321, 323 

University of Chile: 40, 56, 236, 305, 318 

University of New South Wales: 235 

University of Tasmania: 56, 220, 234 

Uplink Downlink (book): xii 

V-2 rocket: 2, 8, 11 

Vaccaro, Michael J.: 79 

Van Allen, James A.: 24 

Vanguard, Project: 10, 12, 14-16, 18-19, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, 35, 39, 263; Computing Center, 21-22, 74; 

Control Center, 22 

Varson, W. F.: 137, 138, 139 

Vaught Aircraft Company: 86 

Vavra, Paul: 71 

Vensel, Joseph: 207 

Verwoerd, Hendrik F.: 209, 210 

Very Long Baseline Interferometry: 304 

Viking, Project: ix, xv, 161, 212 

Vision for Space Exploration: 326; Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, 340 

Voice communications: 61, 64, 70, 71, 72, 75, 83, 98, 100, 109, 110, 112-113, 120, 121, 128, 129, 131, 

151, 158, 159, 171, 184, 185, 191, 192, 194, 224-226, 227, 240, 250, 252, 306, 308, 309, 311 

von Braun, Wernher: 2, 15 

von Bun, F. O.: 195 

Voskhod: 141 

Vostok: 105; Vostok 1, 66-67; Vostok 6, 105, 141 

Voyager space probe: ix, xv, 161 
Index 473 

W 

WAC Corporal sounding rocket: 2 

Wainright, Lewis: 138 

Wake Island: 98 

Wallops Flight Facility: 55, 58, 91, 100, 114, 219, 228, 308, 310-312, 335; As the GSFC Suborbital 

Projects and Operations Directorate, 310; Electrical Systems Branch, 311; Mid-Atlantic Regional 

Spaceport, 311; Mobile Range Control System, 311; Scout launch vehicle, 310 

Wallops Island (See Wallops Flight Facility) 

Watson, Bill: 200, 305, 318, 320-321, 337-338 

Weather Bureau: 5, 121, 122 

Webb, James E.: 106, 122, 127, 136, 166, 339 

Weingarten, Murray T.: xix, 29-30, 331-332 

Wiesner, Jerome: 106 

Weitz, Paul J.: 188, 267 

Western Electric: 80 

Western Union: 256-259, 278, 292, 293; 111 Torn-Tape Relay System, 64; Goetchius, Rod, 80 

Whipple, Fred L.: 3-6 

White, Edward H. II: 107, 166, 167 

White Sands (See White Sands Missile Range) 

White Sands Missile Range: 2, 7-8, 9, 10, 12, 30, 60, 70, 74, 78, 95, 98, 109, 114-115, 146, 147, 163, 

219, 232, 252, 278, 281, 282, 283, 284, 338 

White, Tom: 96 

Williams, Walt: 207 

Wing-station: 147-148, 232-233, 308 

Winkfield Tracking Station: 42, 56, 220, 222, 232 

Womack, Otto: 138 

Wood, H. William: xl, 68, 71, 72, 73, 76, 81, 138, 178-179, 180, 193, 201, 330 

Woomera, South Australia: xxxi, 4, 19, 21, 23, 44, 45, 47, 48, 54, 56, 84, 95, 114, 128, 163, 203, 208, 

212, 234 

Working Group on Tracking and Computation: 2 

World Administrative Radio Conference: xxii 

Wright, G. R.: 5 

X 

X-band: 11, 312, 314, 320, 338 

Y 

Yagi antenna: 34, 36, 39, 48, 51, 219-220 

Yarragadee, Western Australia: 226 

Young, John W: 224, 234 

Yven, Clet: 238 

Z 

Zanzibar Tracking Station: xxxi, 30, 54, 93, 95, 115, 124-128, 333 

Zimbabwe: 128 

The NASA History Series 

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Garber, Stephen J., editor. Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Forty Years of U.S. Human Spaceflight Symposium. 


NASA SP-2002-4107, 2002.


Mallick, Donald L. with Peter W. Merlin.The Smell of Kerosene:A Test Pilot’s Odyssey. NASA SP-4108, 2003.


Iliff, Kenneth W. and Curtis L. Peebles. From Runway to Orbit: Reflections of a NASA Engineer. NASA SP-2004­


4109, 2004.


Chertok, Boris. Rockets and People,Volume 1. NASA SP-2005-4110, 2005.


Laufer, Alexander, Todd Post, and Edward Hoffman. Shared Voyage: Learning and Unlearning from Remarkable 


Projects. NASA SP-2005-4111, 2005.


Dawson,Virginia P.and Mark D.Bowles.Realizing the Dream of Flight:Biographical Essays in Honor of the Centennial 


of Flight, 1903-2003. NASA SP-2005-4112, 2005.


Mudgway, Douglas J. William H. Pickering:America’s Deep Space Pioneer, NASA SP-2007-4113, 2007.

477 

Project Histories, NASA SP-4200: 

Swenson, Loyd S., Jr., James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander. This New Ocean: A History of Project 


Mercury. NASA SP-4201, 1966; rep. ed. 1998.


Green, Constance McLaughlin, and Milton Lomask. Vanguard: A History. NASA SP-4202, 1970; rep. ed.


Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971.


Hacker, Barton C., and James M. Grimwood. On the Shoulders of Titans:A History of Project Gemini. NASA SP­


4203, 1977.


Benson, Charles D., and William Barnaby Faherty. Moonport:A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations. 


NASA SP-4204, 1978.


Brooks, Courtney G., James M. Grimwood, and Loyd S. Swenson, Jr. Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned 


Lunar Spacecraft. NASA SP-4205, 1979.


Bilstein, Roger E. Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles. NASA SP-4206,


1980, rep. ed. 1997.


SP-4207 not published.


Compton,W. David, and Charles D. Benson. Living and Working in Space:A History of Skylab. NASA SP-4208,


1983.


Ezell, Edward Clinton, and Linda Neuman Ezell. The Partnership:A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. NASA 


SP-4209, 1978.


Hall, R. Cargill. Lunar Impact:A History of Project Ranger. NASA SP-4210, 1977.


Newell, Homer E. Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science. NASA SP-4211, 1980.


Ezell, Edward Clinton, and Linda Neuman Ezell. On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958–1978. NASA 


SP-4212, 1984.


Pitts, John A. The Human Factor: Biomedicine in the Manned Space Program to 1980. NASA SP-4213, 1985.


Compton,W. David. Where No Man Has Gone Before:A History of Apollo Lunar Exploration Missions. NASA SP­


4214, 1989.


Naugle, John E. First Among Equals:The Selection of NASA Space Science Experiments. NASA SP-4215, 1991.


Wallace, Lane E. Airborne Trailblazer:Two Decades with NASA Langley’s Boeing 737 Flying Laboratory. NASA SP­


4216, 1994.


Butrica,Andrew J., editor. Beyond the Ionosphere: Fifty Years of Satellite Communication. NASA SP-4217, 1997.


Butrica,Andrew J.To See the Unseen:A History of Planetary Radar Astronomy. NASA SP-4218, 1996.


Mack, Pamela E., editor. From Engineering Science to Big Science:The NACA and NASA Collier Trophy Research 


Project Winners. NASA SP-4219, 1998.


Reed, R. Dale, with Darlene Lister. Wingless Flight:The Lifting Body Story. NASA SP-4220, 1997.


Heppenheimer, T. A. The Space Shuttle Decision: NASA’s Search for a Reusable Space Vehicle. NASA SP-4221,


1999.


Hunley, J. D., editor. Toward Mach 2:The Douglas D-558 Program. NASA SP-4222, 1999.


Swanson, Glen E., editor. “Before this Decade Is Out . . .”: Personal Reflections on the Apollo Program. NASA SP­


4223, 1999.


Tomayko, James E. Computers Take Flight:A History of NASA’s Pioneering Digital Fly-by-Wire Project. NASA SP­


2000-4224, 2000.


Morgan, Clay. Shuttle-Mir:The U.S. and Russia Share History’s Highest Stage. NASA SP-2001-4225, 2001.

478 

Leary,William M. “We Freeze to Please”:A History of NASA’s Icing Research Tunnel and the Quest for Flight Safety. 


NASA SP-2002-4226, 2002.


Mudgway, Douglas J. Uplink-Downlink:A History of the Deep Space Network 1957–1997. NASA SP-2001-4227,


2001.


Dawson,Virginia P. and Mark D. Bowles. Taming Liquid Hydrogen:The Centaur Upper Stage Rocket, 1958-2002. 


NASA SP-2004-4230, 2004.


Meltzer, Michael. Mission to Jupiter:A History of the Galileo Project. NASA SP-2007-4231.


Heppenheimer,T.A. Facing the Heat Barrier:A History of Hypersonics. NASA SP-2007-4232, 2007.


Center Histories, NASA SP-4300: 

Rosenthal,Alfred. Venture into Space: Early Years of Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA SP-4301, 1985.


Hartman, Edwin P. Adventures in Research:A History of Ames Research Center, 1940–1965. NASA SP-4302, 1970.


Hallion, Richard P. On the Frontier: Flight Research at Dryden, 1946–1981. NASA SP-4303, 1984.


Muenger, Elizabeth A. Searching the Horizon: A History of Ames Research Center, 1940–1976. NASA SP-4304,


1985.


Hansen,James R. Engineer in Charge:A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory,1917–1958.NASA SP-4305,


1987.


Dawson,Virginia P. Engines and Innovation: Lewis Laboratory and American Propulsion Technology. NASA SP-4306,


1991.


Dethloff, Henry C. “Suddenly Tomorrow Came . . .”:A History of the Johnson Space Center. NASA SP-4307, 1993.


Hansen, James R. Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center from Sputnik to Apollo. NASA SP-4308,


1995.


Wallace, Lane E. Flights of Discovery: 50 Years at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. NASA SP-4309, 1996.


Herring, Mack R. Way Station to Space:A History of the John C. Stennis Space Center. NASA SP-4310, 1997.


Wallace, Harold D., Jr. Wallops Station and the Creation of the American Space Program. NASA SP-4311, 1997.


Wallace, Lane E. Dreams, Hopes, Realities: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center,The First Forty Years. NASA SP­


4312, 1999.


Dunar,Andrew J., and Stephen P.Waring. Power to Explore:A History of the Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA 


SP-4313, 1999.


Bugos, Glenn E. Atmosphere of Freedom: Sixty Years at the NASA Ames Research Center. NASA SP-2000-4314,


2000.


Schultz, James. Crafting Flight: Aircraft Pioneers and the Contributions of the Men and Women of NASA Langley 


Research Center. NASA SP-2003-4316, 2003.


General Histories, NASA SP-4400: 

Corliss,William R. NASA Sounding Rockets, 1958–1968:A Historical Summary. NASA SP-4401, 1971.


Wells, Helen T., Susan H.Whiteley, and Carrie Karegeannes. Origins of NASA Names. NASA SP-4402, 1976.


Anderson, Frank W., Jr. Orders of Magnitude: A History of NACA and NASA, 1915–1980. NASA SP-4403,


1981.

479 

Sloop, John L. Liquid Hydrogen as a Propulsion Fuel, 1945–1959. NASA SP-4404, 1978.


Roland,Alex. A Spacefaring People: Perspectives on Early Spaceflight. NASA SP-4405, 1985.


Bilstein, Roger E. Orders of Magnitude:A History of the NACA and NASA, 1915–1990. NASA SP-4406, 1989.


Logsdon, John M., editor, with Linda J. Lear, Jannelle Warren-Findley, Ray A.Williamson, and Dwayne A. Day.


Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program,Volume I, Organizing for 

Exploration. NASA SP-4407, 1995. 

Logsdon,John M.,editor,with Dwayne A.Day and Roger D.Launius.Exploring the Unknown:Selected Documents 

in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Volume II, Relations with Other Organizations. NASA SP-4407, 

1996. 

Logsdon,John M.,editor,with Roger D.Launius,David H.Onkst,and Stephen J.Garber.Exploring the Unknown: 

Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program,Volume III, Using Space. NASA SP-4407, 1998. 

Logsdon,John M.,general editor,with Ray A.Williamson,Roger D.Launius,Russell J.Acker,Stephen J.Garber, 

and Jonathan L.Friedman. Exploring the Unknown:Selected Documents in the History of the U.S.Civil Space Program, 

Volume IV,Accessing Space. NASA SP-4407, 1999. 

Logsdon, John M., general editor, with Amy Paige Snyder, Roger D. Launius, Stephen J. Garber, and Regan 

Anne Newport. Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program,Volume V, 

Exploring the Cosmos. NASA SP-2001-4407, 2001. 

Siddiqi, Asif A. Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945–1974. NASA SP-2000-4408, 

2000. 

Hansen, James R., editor. The Wind and Beyond: Journey into the History of Aerodynamics in America,Volume I,The 

Ascent of the Airplane. NASA SP-2003-4409, 2003. 

Hogan,Thor. Mars Wars:The Rise and Fall of the Space Exploration Initiative. NASA SP-2007-4410, 2007. 

Hansen, James R., editor. The Wind and Beyond: Journey into the History of Aerodynamics in America,Volume II, 

Reinventing the Airplane. NASA SP-2007-4409, 2007. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, NASA SP-4500: 

Launius,Roger D.and Aaron K.Gillette,compilers, Toward a History of the Space Shuttle:An Annotated Bibliography. 

Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 1, 1992.


Launius, Roger D., and J. D. Hunley, compilers, An Annotated Bibliography of the Apollo Program. Monograph in 


Aerospace History, No. 2, 1994.


Launius, Roger D. Apollo:A Retrospective Analysis. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 3, 1994.


Hansen, James R. Enchanted Rendezvous: John C. Houbolt and the Genesis of the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Concept.


Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 4, 1995.


Gorn, Michael H. Hugh L. Dryden’s Career in Aviation and Space. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 5, 1996.


Powers, Sheryll Goecke. Women in Flight Research at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, from 1946 to 1995.


Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 6, 1997. 

Portree, David S. F. and Robert C.Trevino.Walking to Olympus:An EVA Chronology. Monograph in Aerospace 

History, No. 7, 1997. 

Logsdon, John M., moderator. Legislative Origins of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958: Proceedings of an 

Oral History Workshop. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 8, 1998.


Rumerman, Judy A., compiler, U.S. Human Spaceflight, A Record of Achievement 1961–1998. Monograph in 


Aerospace History, No. 9, 1998.

480 

Portree, David S. F. NASA’s Origins and the Dawn of the Space Age. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 10,


1998.


Logsdon, John M. Together in Orbit:The Origins of International Cooperation in the Space Station. Monograph in 


Aerospace History, No. 11, 1998.


Phillips,W. Hewitt. Journey in Aeronautical Research: A Career at NASA Langley Research Center. Monograph in 


Aerospace History, No. 12, 1998.


Braslow,Albert L. A History of Suction-Type Laminar-Flow Control with Emphasis on Flight Research. Monograph in 


Aerospace History, No. 13, 1999.


Logsdon,John M.,moderator. Managing the Moon Program:Lessons Learned From Apollo.Monograph in Aerospace


History, No. 14, 1999.


Perminov, V. G. The Difficult Road to Mars:A Brief History of Mars Exploration in the Soviet Union. Monograph in 


Aerospace History, No. 15, 1999.


Tucker, Tom. Touchdown: The Development of Propulsion Controlled Aircraft at NASA Dryden. Monograph in 


Aerospace History, No. 16, 1999.


Maisel, Martin D., Demo J. Giulianetti, and Daniel C. Dugan. The History of the XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft:


From Concept to Flight. NASA SP-2000-4517, 2000.


Jenkins,Dennis R. Hypersonics Before the Shuttle:A Concise History of the X-15 Research Airplane. NASA SP-2000­


4518, 2000.


Chambers, Joseph R. Partners in Freedom: Contributions of the Langley Research Center to U.S. Military Aircraft in the 


1990s. NASA SP-2000-4519, 2000.


Waltman, Gene L. Black Magic and Gremlins:Analog Flight Simulations at NASA’s Flight Research Center. NASA 


SP-2000-4520, 2000.


Portree, David S. F. Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950–2000. NASA SP-2001-4521, 2001.


Thompson, Milton O., with J. D. Hunley. Flight Research: Problems Encountered and What They Should Teach Us. 


NASA SP-2000-4522, 2000.


Tucker,Tom. The Eclipse Project. NASA SP-2000-4523, 2000.


Siddiqi, Asif A. Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes, 1958–2000. NASA SP­


2002-4524, 2002.


Merlin, Peter W. Mach 3+: NASA/USAF YF-12 Flight Research, 1969–1979. NASA SP-2001-4525, 2001.


Anderson, Seth B. Memoirs of an Aeronautical Engineer—Flight Tests at Ames Research Center: 1940–1970. NASA 


SP-2002-4526, 2002.


Renstrom, Arthur G. Wilbur and Orville Wright:A Bibliography Commemorating the One-Hundredth Anniversary of 


the First Powered Flight on December 17, 1903. NASA SP-2002-4527, 2002.


No monograph 28.


Chambers, Joseph R. Concept to Reality: Contributions of the NASA Langley Research Center to U.S. Civil Aircraft of 


the 1990s. SP-2003-4529, 2003.


Peebles, Curtis, editor. The Spoken Word: Recollections of Dryden History,The Early Years. SP-2003-4530, 2003.


Jenkins, Dennis R.,Tony Landis, and Jay Miller. American X-Vehicles:An Inventory-X-1 to X-50. SP-2003-4531,


2003.


Renstrom,Arthur G. Wilbur and OrvilleWright:A Chronology Commemorating the One-Hundredth Anniversary of the 


First Powered Flight on December 17, 1903. NASA SP-2003-4532, 2002.

481 

Bowles,Mark D.and Robert S.Arrighi. NASA’s Nuclear Frontier:The Plum Brook Research Reactor.SP-2004-4533,


2003.


Matranga, Gene J. and C.Wayne Ottinger, Calvin R. Jarvis with D. Christian Gelzer. Unconventional, Contrary,


and Ugly: The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle. NASA SP-2006-4535.


McCurdy, Howard E. Low Cost Innovation in Spaceflight:The History of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) 


Mission. NASA SP-2005-4536, 2005.


Seamans, Robert C. Jr. Project Apollo:The Tough Decisions. NASA SP-2005-4537, 2005.


Lambright,W. Henry. NASA and the Environment:The Case of Ozone Depletion. NASA SP-2005-4538, 2005.


Chambers, Joseph R. Innovation in Flight: Research of the NASA Langley Research Center on Revolutionary Advanced 


Concepts for Aeronautics. NASA SP-2005-4539, 2005.


Phillips,W. Hewitt. Journey Into Space Research: Continuation of a Career at NASA Langley Research Center. NASA 


SP-2005-4540, 2005.


Rumerman, Judith A., compiler, with Chris Gamble and Gabriel Okolski, U. S. Human Spaceflight:A Record of 


Achievement, 1961-2006. NASA SP-2007-4541, 2007.


Electronic Media, NASA SP-4600: 

Remembering Apollo 11:The 30th Anniversary Data Archive CD-ROM. NASA SP-4601, 1999. 

The Mission Transcript Collection: U.S. Human Spaceflight Missions from Mercury Redstone 3 to Apollo 17. NASA SP2000-4602, 2001. 

Shuttle-Mir:The United States and Russia Share History’s Highest Stage. NASA SP-2001-4603, 2002. 

U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission Presents Born of Dreams—Inspired by Freedom. NASA SP-2004-4604, 2004. 

Of Ashes and Atoms:A Documentary on the NASA Plum Brook Reactor Facility. NASA SP-2005-4605, 2005. 

Taming Liquid Hydrogen:The Centaur Upper Stage Rocket Interactive CD-ROM. NASA SP-2004-4606, 2004. 

Fueling Space Exploration:The History of NASA’s Rocket Engine Test Facility DVD. NASA SP-2005-4607, 2005. 

Conference Proceedings, NASA SP-4700: 

Dick, Steven J., and Keith L. Cowing, editors. Risk and Exploration: Earth, Sea and the Stars. NASA SP-2005­

4701, 2005. 

Dick, Steven J., and Roger D. Launius, editors. Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight. NASA SP-2006­

4702, 2006. 

Societal Impact, NASA SP-4800: 

Dick, Steven J., and Roger D. Launius, editors. Societal Impact of Spaceflight. NASA SP-2007-4801, 2007.