A Life-Savi Ng Satellite Beacon Heads a List of Technology Transfers For
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A life-saving satellite beacon heads a list of technology transfers for improving safety and the environment as a backup to his voice communica- tions. The beacon served another purpose: the Smithsonian Institution, which requested NASA participation, wanted an accurate record of Uemura's daily positions for correla- tion with snow, ice and air samples he was taking. Beacon cost was defrayed by Uemura's Japanese sponsors, Mainichi Newspapers and Bungei Shunju Publishing Company. The Na- tional Geographic Magazine also supported the project. Still another Goddard effort last year involved tracking a Smithsonian sci- entific expedition across the desolate Western Desert of Egypt. In other ap- plications, the beacons are exten- sively used on buoys to track currents for oceanographic and environmental studies. The U.S. Coast Guard puts beacons on icebergs, to help predict their drift routes in the waters off Last summer a trio of aeronauts made Iceland. Heavy rain made voice com- Greenland and Labrador as an aid to aviation history. Ben Abruzzo, Maxie munication impossible. But thanks to the International Ice Patrol. And in Anderson and Larry Newman, all of the beacon, Nimbus-6 and Goddard's ecology studies conducted by the De- Albuquerque, New Mexico, piloted tracking, the downed balloon's posi- partment of the Interior, a mini- their balloon Double Eagle I1 from tion was known. A Navy rescue plane version of the beacon has been used Presque Isle, Maine to Miserey, promptly arrived on the scene. to track polar bears in their Arctic France, some 50 miles from Paris. wanderings. They were the first to negotiate a Needless to say, the beacons-two of successful Atlantic crossing in a them this time-were aboard Double The relatively low-cost beacon-of- freeflying balloon after a score of at- Eagle I1 on last year's successful ficially the Random Access Measure- tempts over a span of more than a crossing. Afterward, Abruzzo and An- ment System (RAMS)-was originally century. derson visited Goddard Space Flight developed by Goddard for a major Center to express their thanks for meteorological experiment in which A year earlier, Abruzzo and Anderson NASA's tracking assistance on both Nimbus-6 gathered data from some had made an unsuccessful try in their flights and for saving their lives on the 450 balloons free-floating in tropical predecessor balloon Double Eagle. first attempt. The beacons, said areas. Such location and interroga- On that occasion, a NASA-developed Abruzzo, were "the most important tion of weather platforms was not satellite beacon helped save their pieces of equipment aboard." new, but beacons used in earlier work lives. were expensive and they also used The beacon figured in other head- large amounts of transmitting power. Carried aboard the balloon, the sim- line-making events last year; it was Innovations in Nimbus-6 permitted ple, seven-pound beacon continu- carried by Japanese explorer Naomi development of the simple, economi- ously transmitted signals to NASA's Uemura on two Arctic expeditions. cal, low-power RAMS. Nimbus-6 satellite. Nimbus relayed The first was a 54-day solo dog-sled the signals to monitors at Goddard trek from Ellesmere Island in Cana- The beacons are manufactured by Space Flight Center, enabling God- da's Northwest Territories across 600 Handar, Inc., Santa Clara, California. dard to compute the balloon's posi- miles of Arctic wasteland to the North In a new development, Handar has tion. Position reports were then tele- Pole. Later, Uemura dog-sledded the repackaged the satellite beacon phoned regularly to Double Eagle's length of Greenland, some 2,170 miles. technology in a hand-held, battery- control center at Bedford, Massachu- powered Emergency Location Trans- setts. This monitoring system proved On both trips, Goddard tracked mitter which allows the receiving invaluable when the balloon encoun- Uemura's progress by means of Nim- satellite to pinpoint the source of the tered trouble several days after liftoff. bus-relayed signals. Both journeys signals. The principal application is were successful and no rescue was for rescue utility aboard private air- Caught in a massive, swirling storm, needed, but Uemura's beacon had a craft flying over sparsely-populated 50 Double Eagle was forced down off special switch to indicate emergency areas. Arctic explorer Naomi Uemura is pic- Bungei Shunju tured at the North Pole after a 600- Magazine, Tokyo mile dog sled trek from northwestern Canada. The equipment on his sled included the NASA beacon, whose satellite-relayed signals enabled Goddard Space Flight Center to track Uemura's progress. A NASA engineer displays the three components of Goddard Space Flight Center's satellite beacon: at right, the antenna; in the center, the signal transmitter;and at left the batterypack. Naomi Uemura pauses to consult his Bungei Shunju Magazinc Tokyo map during a second 1978 Arctic ex- ploration on which he dog-sledded the length of Greenland. The hooded instrument at Uemura's right is the NASA beacon which provided a rec- ord of his daily positions. The infor- mation was used to determine loca- tions of snow, ice and air samples he collected. .