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Goonhilly – Yesterday, Today + Tomorrow

November 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment
November 2011 SatMagazine Cover

SatMagazine Cover November 2011

Having been involved one way and another with the Goonhilly satellite earth station for some 35 years, imagine my delight at being asked by Satnews Publishers to write an Insight Feature about it for their monthly SatMagazine. I viewed this as a real honour, since Satnews Publishers is a long-established and arguably the market-leading source of news and in-depth articles about space and the satellite communications industry.

The timescale was very tight and over a weekend, but so what. The only problem was that I needed to gather and verify all sorts of facts, and that meant ruining the weekend of a few colleagues in the UK. They were brilliant and went out of their way to help me. I disturbed one person at 9:00pm UK time on the Saturday night while he was out with his family at the Blackpool Illuminations.
He was good about it but I don’t think his wife will ever speak to me again!

To view the Insight Feature at SatMagazine click here:

“Goonhilly – Yesterday, Today + Tomorrow”

If, after reading the Feature, any of you are interested in the details [Read more…]

Filed Under: Books, Earth Stations, Organisations

Watch Dramatic NASA NPP Launch

October 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Prior to presenting the launch video itself, the following video link gives a real, behind the scenes look at the launcher integration and final launch preparations. Viewing this 6 minute video will put the launch itself into perspective => NPP Launch Preparations

Right, the “quick” version of the launch itself:

NASA’s National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) spacecraft was launched aboard a Delta II rocket at 5:48 a.m. EDT today, on a mission to measure both global climate changes and key weather variables. Just watch the above live NASA video of today’s NPP launch from Vandenberg.

For those who want to watch more of the launch, including the 2nd Stage 1st burn (for me the most interesting) then watch this 16 minute video => More of the NPP Launch. Just watch the telemetry data, listen to the commentary and see the vehicle exceed 17,000mph!

Now here’s a coincidence. It’s only a few hours ago that I published [Read more…]

Filed Under: Earth Observation Satellites, Launch Sites, Launch Vehicles, Organisations

LA Confidential – X-Band & Artichokes

October 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment
The Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles

The Westin Bonaventure Hotel

I’m the sort of person who likes to plan, but despite my best intentions life always seems to be event-driven. Such is the case today, which is why I’m writing this. Let me explain:

I’m on LinkedIn and am a member of some 30+ Groups relating to satellite communications. Being a helpful sort of guy I try to answer questions posed by Group members if they relate to a topic that I know something about. Such was the case today when I saw that someone had posed the question along the lines “What is the difference between the use of a Klystron and a TWTA in an earth station transmitter”?
Well, that’s right up my street. I remembered writing a paper related to this way back in 1981. Even though that was 30 years ago and technology evolves, the underlying physics remains the same.

The paper was entitled “Design of a High Power Earth Station Transmitter for the Band 7.9 to 8.4 GHz”. As you’ll all know that is one of the main uplink bands (X-Band) used for military satellite communications and the paper arose out of some work I did on a contract for a particular Government [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cities, Launch Sites, Launch Vehicles, Military Earth Stations

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