14 13 t minus 10 nine eight seven six
five four we've gone for main engine
start we have
when the Space Shuttle returns to flight
later this year its first payload will
be the TRW built tracking and data relay
satellite known it's tedious this will
not be the first time this NASA
satellite has made history it is the
largest and most sophisticated
communication spacecraft ever launched
and provides comprehensive
telecommunication services by relaying
voice television digital and analog
signals here shown undergoing final
integration and test procedures at trw
is the third in a series of these
satellites built by trw Space and
Technology Group in redondo beach
california the first satellite has been
an orbital operation since the summer of
1983 and the second was lost with the
ill-fated challenger in 1986 the mission
of teachers is to provide NASA with
communications and data relay between
its low Earth orbiting satellites
including the shuttle and the ground
tigres is a huge spacecraft weighing
approximately 5,000 pounds when it
reaches its station some 22,000 miles
above the earth it's solar arrays will
be unfolded and extend over 50 feet from
tip to tip the spacecraft operates in
three frequency bands and can handle up
to 26 satellites passing beneath it a
virtual antenna farm with seven antennas
including a 30 element phased array
Tigres is the first telecommunication
satellite able to operate on three
separate frequency bands simultaneously
the satellites high data rate of 300
million data bits of information per
second is capable of relaying the
information packed in one hundred
volumes of an encyclopedia in just one
second trw is building six of these
spacecraft for NASA during September of
1987 the crew of discovery visited trw
to see firsthand the payload they will
be carrying into orbit in the five years
that the flight one spacecraft has been
in operation teachers has been
supporting all shuttle operations as
well as Landsat and other nasa
spacecraft mission
it represents a significant improvement
in utilizing our space resources in the
past orbiting spacecraft could
communicate with earth only when they
were in sight above one of several
ground tracking stations typically less
than one-fifth of the time or the
constellation of three teacher
satellites is completed spacecraft will
be able to communicate with earth
through eighty percent or more of their
orbit as the launch date nears teachers
see will undergo final checkout it will
then go into a protected packing
container for convoy to Los Angeles
International Airport where it's loaded
on a c5 transport to Cape Canaveral
what impact does teachers have on the
American space program as an example
back in 1983 the crew of the ninth
shuttle flight was the first to relay
their data through the tee dress network
in that single 10-day mission more
information was relayed to the ground
than in all 39 previous manned space
flights
you