Automated ground terminal reduces satellite tracking costs

17 Jun 2002

A new fully automated, miniaturized antenna station built from off-the-shelf electronic components will significantly reduce the cost of tracking low-Earth-orbit satellites. The station, called a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Terminal, was built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA, and tested to track and command NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite without operator intervention.

Development of the terminal was carried out in two phases by a small team of engineers at JPL and SeaSpace Inc., a satellite ground terminal manufacturer in San Diego, CA. In the first phase, JPL upgraded a commercially available weather satellite-tracking terminal and developed a receive-only terminal to gather telemetry from NASA satellites.The terminal can receive telemetry at rates up to 1.2 million bits per second. Uplink commands can be sent at up to 2,000 bits per second. Those rates and the operating frequency can be modified with replacement equipment. Equipped with a 10-foot (3-meter) antenna dish, the terminal is capable of providing telemetry and command support to up to 55 percent of NASA's current and planned LEO missions. A 16-foot (5-meter) dish could extend coverage to 70 percent of the missions.