Jul 2 1978
From The Space Library
The Washington Post reported that, as a result of belated discovery that Soviet radar in Europe would interfere with two NASA satellites scheduled for launch in 1980 to communicate with orbiting spacecraft, NASA would have to spend $100 million to redesign the satellites' electronic systems. NASA had awarded Western Union a $786 million contract to build six 50001b tracking and data-relay satellites (giant orbiting transmitters and receivers, each carrying two umbrella-like antennas weighing 501b apiece and unfurling in orbit to a diameter of 16.5ft) that would have replaced 60% of NASA ground-station antennas at an estimated saving of more than $100 million a yr. The 3-mo delay necessary for redesign was important because it would affect communications with the Space Shuttle; failure by the Pentagon and the CIA to warn NASA of the size and scope of Soviet communications interference in high-orbit regions had delayed' discovery of the problem.
NASA testimony before two Senate committees revealed that Soviet radars from the Baltic to the Black Sea were emitting beams that converged high over the Atlantic and Pacific in the exact places NASA wanted to put the TDRS. Built to replace obsolete and expensive ground antennas at Ascension Island; Quito, Ecuador; Santiago, Chile; Guam; and Hawaii, the TDRS would improve communications by allowing ground controllers to talk to other satellites and Space Shuttle astronauts during more than 90% of each earth orbit. The electronic interference was said to have been unintentional. NASA "did not fully understand the environment and the effects it would have on the system," said C. Curtis Johnson, satellite project manager at Goddard Space Flight Center. "Otherwise, we would have been more careful in the specifications of the system." NASA had considered reducing the number of satellites on order from six to four to save $100 million, estimated cost of the redesign. (W Post, July 2/78, A1)
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