Tags : nasa, NASA Data Satellite
NASA to Decommisssion Satellite that Helped Shape Modern Communication
Greenbelt, MD (AHN) – After 26 years in service, NASA is retiring the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite – 1 (TDRS-1). Officials say it will be decommissioned on October 28th following communication failure.
According to NASA communications equipment that links TDRS-1 to the ground has failed and without this capability it can no longer relay science data and spacecraft telemetry to ground stations located at the White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, N.M., and on Guam.
“Our immediate plans are to develop a strategy to shut down critical payload systems aboard the satellite,” said Space Network Project Manager Roger Flaherty at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Then the team will execute maneuvers to raise TDRS-1’s orbit, thus eliminating potential collision dangers with other communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit.”
TDRS-1 had many firsts and virtually changed the way space travel, exploration, and long distance communication was done. Its position over the Indian Ocean successfully eliminated the “Zone of Exclusion” in an area where communications with spacecraft were previously impossible, thus providing true global coverage for all TDRS System customers.
In 1998, TDRS-1 garnished world-wide publicity when it provided the first medical teleconferencing link, complete with voice, video and imaging data from the South Pole.
Then in July 2002 engineers and medical personnel relied on TDRS-1 to provide continuous, dropout-free data during a two-hour telemedicine event involving a physician at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and physicians at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The satellite that has contributed so much to exploration and telecommunication advancement nearly didn’t make it to orbit. When it was being launched in April 1983, TDRS-1’s upper stage failed upon deployment from the space shuttle. Engineers at Goddard came to its rescue using the tiny, one-pound thrusters on board the spacecraft. Throughout the next several months engineers painstakingly fired thrusters at the precise interval to nudge TDRS-1 into its geosynchronous Earth orbit.
Since its launch and position in orbit the satellite has inclined nearly one degree per year. This unexpected development has enabled NASA to use the satellite in ways never expected.
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