Hello, my name is Amy Smith, and I work for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I'm an
engineer working for the Deep Space Network. The Deep Space Network runs the
very large antennas that talk to our spacecraft out in the solar system. Today I'm
going to be coloring one of those large antennas and telling you a little bit
about it. If you want to color along with me, have your parents go to go.nasa.gov/scanforkids
where you can find this antenna and others that you can color.
I'm coloring here along with my two sons, Myles and Orion. Myles, how old are you? I'm five.
And how about you, Orion? Seven. Nice, go ahead and color. So I am going
to color this antenna and tell you a little bit about it. My project right now is
building more antennas, more of these very large antennas, in order to have more
ability to talk to more spacecraft. So the very first thing we have to do is
build a nice strong base. For my color here I am going to color that gray because
we pour a nice strong concrete foundation to hold up this antenna.
It's about 34 meters long. Yeah it is, and these antennas have to be
able to point anywhere in the sky, so they can point right at the spacecraft
they need to talk to. So they're built on a big movable
structure. They move around in azimuth, and they move up and down in elevation. That
way they can point to any place in the sky. So I'm gonna color the big movable
structure on my antenna blue. You can color it like me like all different
colors. Absolutely. The real antennas are really mainly just
white, but I think it's fun to make them colorful, so I'm gonna use all different
colors. Momma, do you need stairs to get up to the top of the base?
You do need stairs. There's lots of stairs that zig zag zig zag zig zag zig zag zig zag
zig zag all the way up there. You can't just step on the base? So you start on the base, but if you need
to climb up here, there's lots of stairs.
So it takes several years to build one of these very large antennas. It's a lot
of concrete and rebar and steel and then like Myles says, you got all these platforms and
stairs. It's got lights on it so that you can see when you're out
there. The next part I'm gonna color is the reflector. That's the
big dish. So when our spacecraft are out there in the solar system they're very
far away, and you need a really big dish to listen for their signals. So think
about when you cup your hand around your ear it can help you hear a little
bit better because you've got a bigger area and that's what we're doing here
with these really large antennas. So the antennas that I'm building are 34 meters
across like Myles said and that provides a really big
listening surface. So they build up these reflectors on the ground and then they use
a really big crane to come put them on to the base structures.
So the last one that we lifted we had a six hundred ton crane which came and set
up and lifted this antenna into place. Well the top part of the antenna, the reflector.
Okay so now I'm going to add a little bit here to my reflector. So these
reflectors are built up with a whole bunch of steel beams put together to
support the reflective surface. So I'm gonna put a few ribs in here
to show the structure that actually goes into making this antenna. I made mine orange.
Okay so now you've got signals coming down from the spacecraft. They hit
this reflector, and the reflector actually focuses them up there at the top.
It's the apex or the sub reflectors where all the signals get focused up there and
then sent down into the antenna where they go into the electronics. And there it
can be turned into pictures and scientific data and engineering data that tells us if the
spacecraft is healthy or how it's doing today. Did you finish your picture Myles?
Yep! Great! I'm almost done, but I'm still working on the
top. Alright I'm gonna color the... I'm gonna color the apex part purple. Okay and then I got a
couple other things to add here. So if my spacecraft was... my antenna rather.
So if my antenna was talking to a spacecraft, it would be sending radio
waves out into space, so I'll draw some radio waves and then can I borrow this green one
here? I'm gonna draw a spacecraft up here. It's got some solar panels to give it energy.
And then it needs an antenna so it can talk back to our antennas on Earth. Okay here's my final product. I colored my whole
antenna, and I even added a spacecraft up here. If you want to share your picture
when you're done coloring have your parents post it on social media with the
hashtag #ColorWithNASA. Orion did you share yours? Look at that
it's rainbow colored, very cool! You can learn more about the Deep Space Network and
NASA and missions we talk to if you go to spaceplace.nasa.gov. Thanks
for coloring with me!