Operational Details
The satellite is in geo-synchronous orbit 21,156 miles above the Earth's surface. The satellite has served as a communications link for rescue operations, including the 1985 Mexico City earthquake and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
Circa 1970, ATS-3 was used to collect images of weather patterns, especially developing hurricanes in the Western Hemisphere. 1,200 line photos were downlinked, approximately every 25 minutes, during daylight hours to NOAA's Command and Data Acquisition Station at Wallops Station, Virginia and transferred to various users. The satellite was known for its spinning beam antennas locking up and rotating with the satellite. When that happened, it took a powerful ground-based transmitter, like the one at Mojave, to blast through digital instructions to get the antenna aimed back at earth again.
Read more about this topic: ATS-3
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