In the vastness of space, communication is key – ensuring our astronauts and spacecraft
can communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center on Earth.
Today, and for more than 30 years, that web of connectivity is made possible by the Space
Network and a fleet of nine orbiting communication satellites known as NASA’s Tracking and
Data Relay Satellite project- or TDRS.
-- Meet TDRS-M, the third replacement satellite
in a series of advanced, third-generation spacecraft manufactured by Boeing.
Standing more than 26 and a half feet tall, and stretching more than 69 feet from the
tip of one antenna to the other, TDRS-M is enclosed in the emblematic payload fairing
of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket – stowed away in safety for the extreme
journey ahead.
More nations are gaining access to space.
Congestion across frequency bands is inevitable.
But with the help of TDRS, NASA is operating a robust program to improve the efficient
use of radio frequency bands and develop advanced communication technologies.
TDRS-M will carry NASA’s space communications into the mid-2020s, with years of world-class
communication and navigation services.
But first, the agency and United Launch Alliance must get it into orbit.
-- Preparing to launch a seven-hundred-and-fifty-one-thousand-pound
rocket may sound intimidating to some, but United Launch Alliance engineers at NASA’s
Kennedy Space Center in Florida have it down to a science.
Each piece is methodically lifted and fixed into place with the utmost precision and strict
adherence to procedure.
-- It will take the Atlas V an hour and 53 minutes
to deliver TDRS-M to one of Earth's most distant orbits – a geostationary transfer orbit.
Atlas must carry TDRS-M twenty-two thousand miles straight up, where the spacecraft’s
speed matches the Earth’s rotation.
Atlas V has a one-hundred percent mission success rate, and we’re all eager to see
another perfect launch today.
To do so, Atlas will deliver more than eight-hundred and sixty thousand pounds of thrust at liftoff,
at times traveling eleven thousand miles per hour and burning more than sixteen-hundred
pounds of propellant per second.
When successful, the Centaur second stage will release its payload over the Indian Ocean–
and once operational, TDRS-M will be renamed for service to TDRS-13.
If all goes according to plan, the constellation of satellites will be restored for at least
the next decade, keeping the communication lines open as NASA continues to study the
universe and astronauts take the next giant leap in deep space.
(Launch Polling) LAUNCH!