“Read You Loud and Clear!”
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Regardless of how sophisticated National Aeronautics and Space Administration it may be, no spacecraft is of any NASA History Division value unless it can be tracked Office of External Relations Washington, DC accurately to determine where ON THE it is and how it is performing. 2008 At the height of the space race, 6,000 FRONT COVER men and women operated NASA’s Spaceflight “On Location—Sketch Tracking and Data Network at some two dozen 3,” pastel drawing by Bruce locations across five continents. This network, A. Aiken.This drawing, third in a series of field studies, was done in known as the STDN, began its operation by track- the early morning with a closer look at ing Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite the NASA White Sands Ground Terminal. that was launched into space by the former Soviet June 1986. (86-HC-236) Union. Over the next 40 years, the network was destined to play a crucial role on every near-Earth ABOUT THE AUTHOR space mission that NASA flew. Whether it was Sunny Tsiao conducts aerospace research for ITT receiving the first television images from space, Corporation and has written for the Department of tracking Apollo astronauts to the Moon and back, Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration and or data acquiring for Earth science, the STDN was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. that intricate network behind the scenes making He began his career as a cooperative student at the the missions possible. Some called it the “Invisible Johnson Space Center, serving on the Flight Crew Network,” a hallmark of which was that no NASA Training Team for STS-5 and 6. He holds a mas- “READ mission has ever been compromised due to a net- ter’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from work failure. Purdue University and is a member of the Tau Beta YOU Read You Loud and Clear! is a historical Pi and Sigma Gamma Tau engineering honorary LOUD account of the STDN, starting with its formation societies. An accomplished amateur model builder AND in the late 1950s to what it is today in the first and violinist, Sunny Tsiao was born in Taiwan and ” decade of the twenty-first century. It traces the grew up in Denver. He lives in Monument, CLEAR! roots of the tracking network from its beginnings Colorado with his wife and their three children. at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico Read You Loud and Clear! is his first book. to the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System by Sunny Tsiao (TDRSS) space-based constellation of today. The ON THE BACK COVER story spans the early days of satellite tracking using A team from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center the Minitrack Network, through the expansion (GSFC) visits the Intelsat communications relay of the Satellite Tracking And Data Acquisition station on Black Island, 30 miles from the McMurdo Network (STADAN) and the Manned Space base in Antarctica in February 1999. Pictured Flight Network (MSFN), and finally, to the Space from left to right are Ken Griffin, HTSI (Honeywell Technical Services Inc.); Phil and Ground Networks of today. ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 Written from a nontechnical perspec- Liebrecht, GSFC; Bill Watson, NASA eciffOgnitnirPtnemnrevoG.S.U,stnemucoDfotnednetnirepuSehtybelasroF 90000 0081-215)202(aeraCD;0081-215)668(eerfllot:enohPvog.opg.erotskoob:tenretnI tive, the author has translated a highly techni- Headquarters; and Don Shinners, notgnihsaW,CCDIpotS:liaM4012-215)202(:xaF 1000-20402CD, HTSI. Image courtesy of cal subject into historical accounts told within Steve Currier, NASA ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 the framework of the U.S. space program. These Wallops Flight accounts tell how international goodwill and for- Facility. eign cooperation were crucial to the operation of 9 780160 801914 NASA the network and why the space agency chose to SP-2007-4233 build the STDN the way it did. More than any- ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 thing else, the story of NASA’s STDN is about the F orsale by the Superintendent of Documents, U .S.G overnmentPrinting Office 9 0 0 0 0 I nternet:bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free ( 8 6 6 ) 5 1 2 - 1 8 0 0 ; DC area ( 2 0 2 ) 5 1 2 - 1 8 0 0 “unsung heroes of the space program.” Fax: ( 2 0 2 ) 5 1 2 - 2 1 0 4 M a il: Stop IDCC, W ashington, D C 2 0 4 0 2 - 0 0 0 1 ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 9 780160 801914 “READ YOU LOUD AND CLEAR!” “READ YOU LOUD AND 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 ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 F asro le b yt eh S epu ir tn e edn tn fo D co mu e tn s , .U S . G evo r emn tn irP tn i Ogn eciff 90000 I tn re en :t skoob t ro e .Popgenoh .vog : lot l f ree ( 0081 215 )-;668 DC a re a( 0081 215 )-202 aF :x ( M4012 a215 )-202 :li S t Ipo DCC, W ihsa gn t no , D C 20402 - 1000 ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 9 780160 801914 ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 F ro as l eb y teh S pu e r i tn e dn e tn fo D co mu e tn s, .U S . G vo er mn e tn P r i tn i gn O f fice 90000 I tn e r en t : koob s t ro e . opg . vog P noh e : lot l f r ee ( 668 ) 215 - 0081 ; DC a re a ( 202 ) 215 - 0081 Fa :x ( 202 ) 215 - 4012 Ma i l: S tpo I DCC, W a hs i gn t no , D C 20402 - 000 1 ISBN 978-0-16-080191-4 9 780160 801914 CONTENTS Preface . .ix . Foreword . .xvii . Acknowledgments . .xxvii . Introduction: Invisible Network . .xx . ix 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, Cassini- Huygens, 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 space flight 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 sub ject 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 unpub lished work titled Vital Links: The First 25 Years of NASA’s Space Tracking, Communications and Data Acquisition 1958–1983.