Nothing says "State Of The Art" quite like a graphic of a 50-ish year old design that was mothballed 15 years ago. I was rather surprised to see this image from a company like Viasat in a Payload daily email. The only reason I can think of for such an image rather than something that's actually modern boils down the current designs that are flying might involve royalty payments to the company flying them.
Awkward introduction aside, it does sound like something that might be useful.
For decades, space launch providers have faced the same persistent challenge: intermittent loss of telemetry data when rockets travel out of range of ground stations. These “blackouts” can last for minutes—leaving long and critical periods when vehicle health, performance, and safety information go dark. Viasat’s HaloNet Launch Telemetry Data Relay Service (DRS)aims to change that, by providing continuous, global coverage from ascent through early orbit.
“Whenever anyone launches a multimillion-dollar rocket or a billion-dollar payload, they need to know the continuous health of that rocket,” said Arnie Christianson, Senior Director, Program Management, Viasat Government, Space and Mission Systems. Launch telemetry to ground controllers provides the equivalent of a car’s dashboard, he explained. “Engine temperature, trajectory, pressure, performance—it’s how you know everything is working as intended.”
Again, it might well be useful, but I'm kind of focused on the use of the word "need" in that first sentence of the second paragraph. I'm sure the responsible people would like to "know the continuous health of that rocket," but the thousands of launches that didn't have that continuous knowledge argues it's a "nice to have" thing but not a "need."
The rest of the short article on Payload gives lots of details justifying their project, including that gathering this information currently depends on TDRSS,the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, that has been in use since the 1980s. The first TDRSS satellite was lifted to orbit on Space Shuttle Challenger. The TDRSS system is aging out and will be retired over the next decade.
Why this super satellite system? SpaceX has proven Starlink can do all that. Cheaper, faster and better.
ReplyDeleteLegacy aerospace at its finest, only 10 years late and 10 times over budget.
As to the graphic, well, I've seen campaigns for US politicians where they use a Russian (now Chinese) carrier in the images of US military power. So using the Shuttle is not beyond advertising levels of stupidity. Though you'd think they'd use images of Delta or Atlas or even Ariane or the Japanese H2. Doofuses.
Circa 2010, I was the PM (for a time) on a piece of the TDRS modernization program, SSGS. The prime was General Dynamics, Scottsdale, and I worked for Rincon Research Corporation. We won the award from Goddard for the small business subcontractor after we delivered a couple of years later. We digitized the complete L-band downlink and did sub-band tuning to break out the many channels, do demods, and then route them via Ethernet to the various subscriber processors. We did the reverse for the complete L-band uplink. Our part was done well before any of the other subs or the prime finished their work and by that time I got a different position and was traveling to manage our office in Chantilly, VA. Much later, I went to Guam many times working in the NASA ground site there and saw the usual analog TDRS gear still in operation, so I figure it was another case of the USG being unable to get out of its own way.
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