Operations
The first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite was launched in 1983 on the Space Shuttle Challenger's first flight, STS-6. The Boeing-built Inertial Upper Stage that was to take the satellite from Challenger's orbit to its ultimate geosynchronous orbit suffered a failure that caused it not to deliver the TDRS to the correct orbit. As a result, it was necessary to command the satellite to use its onboard rocket thrusters to move it into its correct orbit. This expenditure of fuel reduced its capability to remain in a geostationary orbit, and this TDRS, in orbit for a long time, was re-assigned to the part-time mission of supporting communications to Antarctic scientific stations.
The second Tracking and Data Relay Satellite was destroyed along with Challenger shortly after launch during the STS-51-L mission in January 1986. The next five TRW-built TDRSS satellites were successfully launched on other Space Shuttles. Three follow-up Boeing-built satellites were launched by Atlas rockets in 2000 and 2002. A NASA Press Release summarized the capabilities of the system as a whole:
"Working solo, TDRS-1 provided more communication coverage, in support of the September 1983 Shuttle mission, than the entire network of NASA tracking stations had provided in all previous Shuttle missions."
The first generation of TDRS are planned to be retired in 2015.
Read more about this topic: Tracking And Data Relay Satellite
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)