Advanced Communications Satellite Soars Into Night Sky
by Susan Hendrix for Kennedy Space Center
NASA's third Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-J, TDRS-J, lifted off from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. at 9:42 p.m. EST aboard an Atlas IIA
rocket. Spacecraft separation from the Centaur stage occurred at 10:12 p.m.
Boeing controllers made initial contact with TDRS-J at 10:41 p.m. EST as the
spacecraft passed over NASA's ground station in Canberra Australia.
"We couldn't be more pleased with this evening's launch," said Robert
Jenkens Jr., TDRS Project Manager at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, MD. "Controllers have already made contact with TDRS-J
and all seems well. My congratulations to everyone who helped make this
launch a success."
During the next eight days, a series of orbit raising maneuvers will boost
the 7,039-pound (3,196-kilogram) satellite into a geosynchronous orbit
22,300 miles above the Earth's equator.
Boeing Satellite Systems of El Segundo, Calif., which built the trio of
enhanced satellites for NASA under a fixed-price contract, will command
TDRS-J through completion of transfer orbit maneuvers, appendage deployments,
acquisition of Earth pointing in geostationary orbit and pre-acceptance
testing using NASA's Deep Space Network.
TDRS-J will provide users with improved multiple access, S-band single
access, as well as a new Ka-band service. This second generation TDRS
will help replenish the original six TDRS, which have provided reliable
communications support to the Space Shuttle and numerous Earth-orbiting
science missions since 1983.
For additional information about TDRS-H, -I and -J, go to:
http://tdrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/Tdrsproject/
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