Telemetry Team Helps Get QuikScat Launched

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (7/18/99) -- The Aerospace Corporation's STARS (Space Launch Operations Telemetry Acquisition and Reporting System) facility played a key role in the June 19 launch of the Titan II G-7 QuikScat mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The facility enabled company engineers to verify the health of the rocket's guidance system, which had been called into question one week before the scheduled launch date.

The Titan II rocket carried the Quik Scatterometer, or QuikScat, satellite into orbit for NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Personnel from The Aerospace Corporation's Western Range Directorate at Vandenberg supported several troubleshooting tests after irregularities in the guidance system's telemetry measurements were noted during final checkout and testing.

Dick Ligon, project engineer at the Western Range, worked closely with contractor personnel to acquire more insight into the problem.

Archived Data Reviewed

Margaret Sazani, STARS principal investigator at Vandenberg, and Lenny Hoops, project engineer, reviewed all historical Titan IVA and Titan II data archived in the STARS launch monitoring system to see if similar measurements had been recorded in previous flights.

Sazani and Hoops discovered similar telemetry measurement data recorded on a Titan II vehicle launched successfully in March 1997, indicating that G-7's irregular telemetry measurements were a by-product of the vehicle's instrumentation system and posed no threat to flight success.

The Western Range STARS lab was developed to provide launch-site engineers with the tools needed to analyze vehicle telemetry data and is used primarily for vehicle readiness assessment.

Launch vehicle engineers monitor the data during vehicle tests using the STARS graphic workstations, and perform detailed post-test data analysis using custom tools developed by the Engineering and Technology Group.

Titan, Delta, Atlas Launches Examined

Data from Titan II, Titan IV, Delta and Atlas/Centaur launch pads and from the Western Range receiving stations are processed in the STARS lab and transmitted to the Data Reduction Center for remote processing and distribution to the STARS lab at the company's headquarters in El Segundo, California, for analysis.

Sazani wrote the STARS requirements in October 1993, and the prototype system was deployed at Vandenberg the next February.

A proof-of-concept demonstration in May 1994 verified the feasibility of transmitting data from the launch site to workstations in El Segundo.

Since then both sites have been actively involved in analyzing launch vehicle telemetry data for Department of Defense missions.