GRAA NEWSLETTER
P.O. Box 1184, Greenbelt, MD 20768-1184

IMPORTANT DATES

COMMENTS FROM TONY COMBERIATE, GRAA PRESIDENT: Our July speakers were GRAA members and original GSFC employees Ron Muller and Ed Habib who described key developments in the founding of the Center. In addition, Raquel Marshall, GFSC’s Education Program Manager who coordinates the GSFC Intern program, brought 14 interns and their mentors. These interns are undergraduate and graduate students from universities throughout the country, as far away as the state of Washington and as near as the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Bowie State University, majoring in several branches of engineering, computer science, astrophysics, business, communications, finance and marketing. They introduced themselves and their mentors and spoke about the exciting work they are doing at GSFC this summer.

Ron Muller’s presentation was entitled “1957: The Year the Space Age Began,” and he described what it was like in 1957 when he worked for the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) helping develop the Vanguard spacecraft and tracking the Russian Sputnik spacecraft which was launched that year. The Vanguard satellite was the first spacecraft with solar cells and also the first spacecraft to separate from its launch vehicle. Ron was one of the 159 Vanguard Project employees who were transferred from NRL to NASA on November 16, 1958, once President Eisenhower signed his executive order. In December of that year, another 62 NRL employees transferred to NASA, most of them to Langley Research Center (LRC). On January 22, 1959, the Beltsville Space Center was established with four divisions reporting directly to NASA HQ. On March 16, 1959, the Center was dedicated and officially renamed the Goddard Space Flight Center on May 1^st of that year. Ron showed photos of the Center that indicated how quickly it developed during its early days. In its first decade, GSFC launched 89 successful missions.

Ed Habib described the beginnings of the NASA satellite-tracking program. Ed, also an NRL Vanguard Project employee who was transferred to GSFC in 1958, headed the branch that developed the tracking, telemetry and command systems essential for a space program. In 1955, as part of the US contribution to the International Geophysical Year, an artificial Earth satellite was to be launched in a civilian program with three objectives: 1) to deliver a satellite into Earth orbit; 2) to prove that it is in orbit; and 3) to conduct a scientific experiment. Ed spoke about the origin of the Minitrack System, which was developed to verify the second objective. It was based on interferometry, tracing back to the Viking program of the 1950s and utilizing the internationally-agreed upon satellite frequency of 108 MHz.

The Minimum Trackable Satellite (Minitrack) concept was proposed by Milt Rosen, John Mengel and Roger Easton at NRL. This concept involves measurement of the phase difference between radio waves from distant transmitters as detected by antenna pairs on the ground. The original stations utilized an array of 8 antennas up to 500 feet apart (or 50 wavelengths at 108 MHz) and had to be built on flat land in a radio silent area. To determine the orbit of a satellite travelling at 25,000 ft/sec accurate to one milliarcsecond, the system had to be able to measure a fraction of a wavelength to one part in 1,000. The 8 antennas provided coarse, medium, and fine phase sensing as well as ambiguity resolution. Each station had to have accurate timing calibrated to National Bureau of Standards (re: WWV) universal time broadcasts (Ed also managed this effort). The first Minitrack station, in Blossom Point, MD, became operational in July 1956 and became a training facility for a network of Minitrack stations along the 75^th meridian with stations in places like Havana, Panama, Lima, Antofagasta, and Santiago. A ‘radio fence’ of stations with overlapping antenna patterns was needed to cover the planned orbital inclination of the Vanguard satellite. The system was tested with aircraft transmitter overflights and later with arrays of observers with telescopes marking the time a satellite crossed a field-of-view during twilight.

Right after the Minitrack network became operational, the Soviet Union unexpectedly launched Sputnik, which transmitted at 20MHz and 40MHz, and the 108 MHz Minitrack system was unable to track it. However, engineers immediately began cutting 40MHz dipoles and made other modifications that allowed the system to track the Russian satellites.

THOUGHT FOR AUGUST: Growing old can definitely be hard work… The mind says “yes,” but the body says, “What were you thinking?”

REMEMBERING OUR FORMER COLLEAGUES:

• Wesley J. Bodin, Jr.,, of Chester, MD, passed away on July 10^th. In the early 50’s he moved to DC where he began his career at the NRL where employees worked on Project Vanguard and were transferred from NRL to NASA as pioneers of GSFC. He was an Engineer and initially assigned as Chief of the Advanced Technique Section of the Time Management Branch in the Office of the Assistant Director. In ’63, he was transferred to the Tracking Systems Division and a short time later promoted to be Assistant Chief of the Network Engineering & Operations Division, where he remained through ’66. In ’67, he became Associate Chief of the STADAN Engineering Division through ’71. In ’72, the directorate title was changed to the Networks Directorate and he became Associate Chief of the Network Engineering Division through ’82 and became Associate Chief of the Network Operations Division in ’83. In ’85, the directorate title was changed again to the Mission Operations & Data Systems Directorate and he became Associate Chief of the Ground Network of the Networks Division through ’93, when he retired.
• Jimmie C. Elswick, of Hanover, PA, passed away on July 7^th. He was a Communications Specialist when he was hired at GSFC in ’64 and initially assigned to the NASA Communications Division in the Office of Tracking & Data Systems, where he remained through ’66. In ’67, only the title of the directorate was changed to the Manned Flight Support Directorate, and when the directorate was again changed in ’72 to the Networks Directorate and yet again changed in ’85 to the Mission Operations & Data Systems Directorate. Regardless of all the new directorate titles over time, the NASA Communications Division essentially remained unchanged. In ’88, he became Head of the Mission Planning Section of the division through ’93, when he retired and continued working on the Center for Boeing for several more years as a contractor.
• Thomas M. Janoski, of Hanover, PA, passed away on July 2^nd. He came to GSFC in ’66 from being an Air Traffic Controller at Dulles Airport and was initially assigned to the Manned Flight Operations Division of the Tracking & Data Systems Directorate. In ’67, the directorate changed its title to the Manned Flight Support Directorate, but the division title remained unchanged. In ’72, the organizations changed their titles to the Networks Directorate and Network Operations Division for the following decade. In ’83, he was reassigned to the Support Planning Requirements Office of the same directorate. In ’85, the directorate changed its title once again to the Mission Operations & Data Systems Directorate and he was reassigned to the Flight Mission Support Office until retiring in ’94.
• James J. Rast, of Leesburg, VA, passed away on June 25^th. He came to GSFC in ’63 as an Aerospace Engineer from the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in ’63 and was assigned to the Spacecraft Integration & Sounding Rocket Division in the Office of Space Science & Satellite Applications. In ’65, the Office changed its title to the Technology Directorate through ’70 and in ’71 changed yet again and he was reassigned to the Sounding Rocket Division of the Space Applications & Technology Directorate. In ’77, the directorate title was yet again changed to the Engineering Directorate, where he remained until he retired in ’90. Upon retiring, he found he was in high demand for components that he or his team designed and became a consultant to numerous contractors, including those associated with the National Air & Space Museum.
• Patricia A. Stone, of Odenton, MD, passed away on June 16^th. Soon after graduating from a nearby high school in ‘61, she applied and was hired at GSFC as a Clerk Typist/Stenographer. From ’61 through ’66 she was assigned to the Manned Flight Operations Division of the Office of Tracking & Data Systems. In ’67, the Office changed its title to the Manned Flight Support Directorate, but the division title remained the same through ’71. In ’72, the directorate was changed again to the Networks Directorate and she was promoted to Secretary to the Associate Director through ’83 and then changed again to the Mission Operations & Data Systems Directorate through ’94, when she chose to retire.

FROM THE GODDARD ARCHIVES – IT HAPPENED IN AUGUST: On August 21, 1996, a Pegasus XL rocket launched the Fast Auroral SnapshoT Explorer (FAST) successfully from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA, into its intended orbit. The spacecraft investigated the plasma physics of auroral phenomena at extremely high time and spatial resolution using the full complement of particle and field instruments. FAST is the second spacecraft (SAMPEX was first) in the Small Explorer (SMEX) program at NASA-GSFC. SMEX was established to provide rapid (3-year development mission opportunities (1 per year) and low cost ($35M development) to the space science community using a single designated Principal Investigator. The FAST electric field instrument stopped providing meaningful data around 2002; however, all other instruments and systems continued to function normally. Although the FAST mission duration was intended to be a year, operations did not end until May 4, 2009.

TREASURER'S REPORT: Treasurer Jackie Gasch received tax-deductible donations from Helmut Cline, Alberta Moran (in memory of Priscilla Struthers), Thomas Underwood, and Charles E. White (in memory of William Witt).