Enhanced DSCS First Satellite Launched in 2000

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (2/7/00) -- "This is the very first government launch of the new century, and we're off to a good start," said John Willacker, vice president of Space Launch Operations, referring to the Jan. 20 launch of an Atlas/Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Station.

The rocket carried an enhanced military communications satellite, the Defense Satellite Communications System III (DSCS lll) B8. It was the seventh DSCS launched since 1992.

Willacker observed the launch from The Aerospace Corporation's Space Launch Operations Telemetry Acquisition and Reporting System (STARS) facility in El Segundo. The Atlas IIA arced through the clear Florida night against a full moon, just hours distant from a lunar eclipse.

Team at the Cape

An Aerospace launch support team from El Segundo, the company's headquarters, was present at the Cape. The team was led by Ray Johnson, general manager of the Launch Programs Division, and Dr. Robert Fillers, principal director of the Medium Launch Vehicles (MLV) program office.

MLV provided the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center with mission assurance support for the launch vehicle. An engineering team headed by Mike Pinnella in the STARS facility provided additional technical support during launch operations.

The company's Eastern Range Directorate (ERD), led by Mike Spence, principal director, and Ron Tom, MLV systems director, provided on-console launch systems expertise to the Air Force launch team.

ERD's Atlas team of Tom Duncan, Atlas systems manager, and project engineers Ike Eisenhauer, electrical systems; Bill Freed, Atlas propulsion; John Ligda, airframe; Ron Marchetti, Centaur propulsion; and Mike McQuaig, flight controls, lent support from the blockhouse 650 feet away from the launch site.

Frank Marcouiller, ERD DSCS spacecraft project engineer, supported real-time countdown operations from the DSCS Processing Facility control room several miles southwest of the pad. It was the final launch for Ron Tom, who directed the ERD Atlas and Delta teams through 77 launches and is retiring after 19 years with Aerospace.

RL-10 Engine Team

This launch marked the first Air Force use of the Pratt and Whitney RL-10 engines since the failure of a Delta III last May. Aerospace played a key role in the Atlas vehicle's return to flight and in assessing the flightworthiness of the two RL-10 engines for this mission. The company also assisted in clearing the RL-10 engines for Navy and NASA missions.

The team was led by John Brekke and Randy Williams of the MLV program office and by Dr. Jeff Emdee, director of the Propulsion Department, Engineering and Technology Group (ETG).

Critical to clearing the engines for flight was the extensive structural analysis by Dr. Stanley Chiu and his team in the ETG Structures Department. Space vehicle and launch vehicle structural loads concerns were raised because of changes in the vehicle and launcher. Tom Cole and Dr. Myun Kim of the Structural Dynamics Department, working with Lockheed Martin engineers, completed the required analyses under significant time pressures.

Larry Robinson of the MLV program office provided flight software mission assurance support and was aided by Jason Malburg, Guidance Analysis Department, ETG.

Enhancement Program

The 6,015-pound, $200 million DSCS B8 satellite is undergoing 90 days of on-orbit testing to calibrate a new and improved payload. The launch follows three years under the Service Life Enhancement Program (SLEP) and a year of system-level testing. A DSCS program office engineering team led by Craig Smith, with Dr. Joseph Chang and Richard Gerber, supported design and development of critical components and system-level environmental satellite testing at Sunnyvale.

The B8 SLEP satellite is the first of four improved vehicles that will enable a sevenfold increase in tactical communications. New payload electronics add more power per channel and allow ground mobile forces, ships, aircraft and submarines to communicate using smaller antennas.

The Aerospace Corporation has participated in the SLEP program from its inception, beginning with the architectural design. Significant contributions were made in the identification of commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) traveling wave tube amplifiers. When COTS GaAs (gallium arsenide) solar cells were selected for the power system upgrades, Dr. Robert Francis and Ernie Robinson in ETG conducted a nuclear survivability test program with the cells to ensure the commercial parts would satisfy strategic needs.

Colorado Operations

The launch was monitored from a new Launch and Early Orbit Operations facility in Colorado. Brian Kimsey, Al Silverman and Paul Vaughan worked with Space Command's 3rd Space Operations Squadron to coordinate the successful transition of the mission from Onizuka Air Force Station in Sunnyvale to Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.

The entire hardware and software capability of the system was rebuilt at Schriever and augmented with specialized Aerospace-designed engineering workstations to supplement capability.

Late this spring B8 will join the primary DSCS constellation in the Western Pacific Theater to provide secure and high-data-rate strategic and tactical communications to operational warfighters worldwide. It will replace satellite A1, which was launched aboard the maiden flight of -the Titan 34D in 1982.

"It has been almost four years to the day since the go-ahead was received for the SLEP program, but it has been time well spent," according to Ric Agardy, DSCS systems director. "Tactical warfighter support has been difficult with the older DSCS IIIs, particularly with the downlink power requirements of smaller terminals.

"With the new SLEP modifications, we will start transitioning the DSCS constellation from a mix of strategic and tactical users to a wideband system with focus on the tactical users. For example, we'll be able to support many more of the Army's mobile terminals and the Navy shipboard terminals."

Future Changes

The future holds other changes for the DSCS program. Three DSCS SLEP satellites remain to be launched, one last mission on the Atlas booster and two on the new Boeing Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV).

The DSCS program is part of the MILSATCOM Division, managed by Dr. Wanda Austin. Since the initial launch of A1 an additional 10 satellites have been launched, many with incremental improvements in performance. The five latest designs occupy the primary operating locations of the DSCS constellation. The other five are spares for the primary satellites and are also in use to augment the constellation's capacity.