Near Fairbanks
ALASKA'S BIG EAR-WORLD'S LARGEST SATELLITE STATION
Ill the heart of Alaska, near
Fairbanks, is located the largest,
most sophisticated GSFC satellite
ground station in the world—-the
Gilmore Creek Data Acquisition Fa
cility.
Alaskans know it by two nick
names. tlie "Big Dish" and the
"Big Ear."
Built at a cost of between $5 and
$6 million, it can receive, amplify,
and record radio signals from satel
lites that are 10.000 to 100,000 times
weaker than radio signals that can
be received on a standard AM
radio.
The station is owned by the Navy
and Goddard Space Flight Center.
Greenbelt. Maryland, of the Nation
al Aeronautics Space Administra
tion. It is operatel by the Geophy
sical Institute of the University of
Alaska under contract.
The Gilmore Creek station is the
first of four such stations to be
constructed on the North American
continent. The other stations, now
in various stages of planning and
construction, will be located as fol
lows: a second facility near Fair
banks: a facility at Rosman. N.C.;
and a facility in eastern Canada.
"The Big Ear” station was built
in a valley sheltered on all sides
by hills and mountains.
"We took a great deal of time
and care in selecting this site,”
said Richard Coan, NASA director
of the station. “We wanted to have
a place that would be relatively
quiet, where we wouldn’t pick up
so much regular ground noise.”
Operational
Although the Gilmore Creek Data
Acquisition Facility has yet to re
ceive and install a large roomful
of equipment, it is tentatively
planned that the station will be
come operational this summer to
receive data on a routine basis
from the TIROS satellites. Right
now TIROS VI is orbiting and send
ing earth cloud cover pictures.
Later it will receive data from
the NIMBUS polar satellites as well
as many of more than 70 satellite
scientific projects planned for the
next several years. ,
The polar satellites are important
because they have so much cover
age and are apt to become even
more important as the space pro
gram accelerates.
Satellites are usually placed on
one of two principal paths—either
around the equator or around the
poles. If they are placed on paths
around the equator, they see and
are able to pick up data directly
beneath them. In other words, they
continue over the same path. How
ever, if the satellites go from pole
to pole, as the satellites make in
tervals, they will see and pick up
data on different areas each time
so that eventually such satellites
will see every spot on the surface
of the globe.
Polar orbiting satellites are very
important because they have the
most coverage of any of the satel
lites that go around the earth.
The United States needs satel
lites which are polar orbiting and
because of Alaska's geographic lo
cation, it is an important and stra
tegic place to establish tracking and
data acquisition stations.
With one tracking and two data
i acquisition stations, Fairbanks has
Rampart Woman Completes
Beauty Course in Hollywood
THELMA MAYO
Miss Thelma Mayo, 20 years old,
formerly of Rampart, recently came
■ back from Los Angeles, to visit her
i family in Fairbanks after complet
ing a 1,600 hour course in Beauty
Culture. She received her Califor
nia license after completion of her
training.
She is returning to California to
work as a beautician. She is not
yet qualified to work in Alaska
that requires 2,000 hours for a li
cense. After working a year, or
less, in California she will automa
tically qualify for a license in Al
aska. which she can get for $25.
She said she was lonesome to see
her family so she decided to visit.
She likes California. “After I get
enough hours working in Cali
fornia, I may come back to Alaska
to work,” she said.
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more important space stations than
anywhere else on the face of the
globe.
The second data acquisition facil
ity to be used for gathering data
for the TJ.S. Weather Bureau will
be located about a half mile from
the present station. The founda
tions for its large antenna and the
building were constructed last sum
mer. As soon as the weather breaks
and the Alaska construction season
begins, the building and antenna
will be speeded toward completion.
Two Programs
At present NASA has two major
programs: one is the glamorous and
glittering Project Mercury or Man
in Space program, the other is the
Scientific Satellite Program, per
haps not so interesting, but wdiich
makes the Man in Space program
possible.
The research program is import
ant because it is designed to get
information of environmental con
ditions in the space surrounding the
earth—information vital to the
maximum protection of the U.S.’s
astronauts when they leave earth
for space exploration.
Space science must be extremely
precise. Satellites zoomed thousands
of miles from earth into unknown
conditions must send back exact
information and this information
must be accurately recorded, then
through special systems of rapid
communication whisked to Wash
ington, D.C., and other centers in
our country to be rapidly broken
down, analyzed, and assimilated.
The satellites are remarkable in
their capabilities. They can be
commanded to transmit data to the
station here, for instance, of a pic
ture of the cloud cover over Alas
ka. Or if the station personnel are
busy, and the information is not
urgently needed, personnel at the
Gilmore Creek station can command
a satellite to take a picture of the
cloud cover and store the data
within itself for later transmission.
If the information is urgently
needed, the satellite can be com
manded to transmit it directly
down to earth and then it can be
transmitted from Fairbanks to
Washington, D.C., immediately.
There are also many other al
ternatives in handling the informa
tion. It can be taken directly from
the satellite and recorded, then it
can be passed on over the micro
wave system several hours later
or it can be recorded on magnetic
tape and shipped by air to its des
tination.
When a satellite takes informa
tion or pictures and transmits them
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INSIDE DATA ACQUISITION FACILITY—Here technicians are
busy at work inside the Gilmore Creek Data Acquisition station at
Fox, Alaska. These technicians receive telemetered data from scien
tific satellites in space through a giant 85-ft. parabolic antenna lo
cated near the station.
—Tuntra Times Photo
directly to a station on earth, this
is what is called “Real Time.” When
the satellite takes information and
stores it for transmission to earth
at a later time, this is called
“Stored Data.”
There are primarily two types of
scientific stations, minnitrack sta
tions. those whose main function is
to track satellites so that the posi
tion of orbiting satellites will be
known with a high degree of pre
cision at any particular time.
The other type of station is a
data acquisition facility. Its chief
function is to acquire and record
from satellites coded information.
The information gathered by
minnitrack stations, the precise
whereabouts of satellites or the
satellite’s orbits, is called “orbital
information. Minnitrack stations
work on the interferometer princi
ple, measuring interference. The
stations have discs or dishes with
antennas precisely oriented on their
axes.
A data acquisition facility, on the
other hand, primarily is concerned
with gathering information from
the satellite itself, information
called “telemetry.”
Satellites are, in reality, robots
each capable of making observa
tions and carrying on experiments
through delicate instruments con
tained within them. Satellites are
also capable of sending back in
formation to each on how each of
its parts are making out.
If a part of the satellite breaks
clown, other parts in the satellite
flash this information back to
earth. Satellites usually get their
power from the sun through solar
cells on the satellite’s outer shell.
If the power starts getting low,
the robot will telemeter the in
formation back to earth, and per
sonnel on duty at acquisition fa
cilities will refrain from com
manding the satellite to send back
much data—at lease until its power
supply is built up from tv.
tion -* '• -wu.a
- -i xr.C SUn.
How does the satellite send back
information from so far away? It’s
simple. Through radio waves. The
waves are received, magnified, and
recorded on what is called “wide
band” tape.
Of course the information is
coded, and positioned in such a
way that as many as 60 different
Piece* at intonaatioa oau be re
ceived and recorded on a single
frame of tape.
Now we have explained the main
difference between a minnitrack
station and a data acquisition sta
tion. To review, we said the Mini
track station primarily tracks the
Satellite. To be perfectly correct, it
is capable of receiving telemetered
data this is a secondary function.
On the other hand, we said a
data acquisition facility’s main
function was to receive telemetered
data. That is true, but it is also
capable of tracking satellites—in
fact it must do this first in order
to receive the data.
Phone System
Although telephone lines go near
the Gilmore Creek data acquisition
station at Fox. the station does not
use them. It has a special system
to pass on its valuable information
gleaned from outer space.
It has a special microwave sys
tem by which it communicates
with Fairbanks ACS center. The
microwave system can carry wide
band data! a regular telephone line
cannot.
From Fairbanks the space data
is sent by the White Alice com
munication system to Seattle and
from there to Washington, D.C.,
and other places. In the lower
states, the information is relayed
on a special coax cable or micro
wave system.
The Gilmore Creek station also
has its telephones incorporated into
the microwave system from Fox to
Fairbanks. When personnel there
call Fairbanks, only 11 miles away,
or Fairbanks persons call the Gil
more station, their calls are not
going over telephone lines but
through the air by microwave.
The Gilmore Creek station is not
fully instrumented but hopes to
become so this summer. $42.O0Q
worth of Western Electric w u
ment will b" j ' .
-called especially to
••'•'’die the “wide band” data re
ceived from space.
The scope of the data that ha#
been received is simply amazing
and through the satellites of recent
vears. knowledge about outer space
has mushroomed. One scientist told
Tundra Times that more had been
found out in the last five year#
about space, than all the centuries
before and that more was apt ta
be learned in the next two year#
than has been the previous five
years, .
• m