Facilities
Support facilities at Poker Flat Research Range include five launch pads, including two optimized for severe weather operations capable of handling rockets weighing up to 35,000 pounds (16,000 kg). Launches have attained an apogee of up to 930 miles (1,500 km) and impact on the Arctic ice shelf over 1,100 miles (1,800 km) downrange. Range facilities include an administrative facility, a blockhouse, several rocket assembly buildings, a 2-story science observatory, and a payload assembly building. Three S band antennas are used to collect telemetry, and a C band radar is used for tracking rocket payloads in-flight.
Poker Flat's scope of activities is ever changing with the recent addition of SRI's PFISR (Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar) phased array antenna and the recent purchase of several Insitu UAV/UAS (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle/Unmanned Aerial System).
The Alaska Ground Station (AGS) together with the Honeywell Datalynx PF1 supports PFRR operations of many NASA and other nation's spacecraft including Aqua, Aura, Terra, and Landsat 7 with S band and X band services. PF1 is part of the Earth Observing System Polar Ground Network (EPGN), along with the Alaska Ground Station (AGS). Other ground stations in the EPGN include the Svalbard Satellite Station (SGS), the Kongsberg–Lockheed Martin ground station (SKS), and the SvalSat ground station (SG3) in Norway.
Read more about this topic: Poker Flat Research Range
Famous quotes containing the word facilities:
“Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I have always found that when men have exhausted their own resources, they fall back on “the intentions of the Creator.” But their platitudes have ceased to have any influence with those women who believe they have the same facilities for communication with the Divine mind as men have.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)