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TDRSS ground station expansion?
I was looking at the original TDRSS ground station (32.502 N, 106.611 W) in Google Earth historical imagery and noticed that a substantial addition was made to the existing building between 2005 and the last available imagery in 2007. There's also a new big (19 m diameter) round thing just south of the TDRSS antennas, but I can't tell if it's a water tower, dish or what. In addition, quite a bit of additional parking was added, which is curious because a) the existing parking was greatly underused, at least in the period of available imagery (1998-2007) and b) the ground station is advertised as highly automated, so what's going to be the need for so many people? Does anybody here know what the expansion is for? I have a WAG, but would rather get Ye Readers' inputs before saying what it is. ======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT: This may end up tending towards policy than actualy technical issues, but let's see where it goes. GdM |
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TDRSS ground station expansion?
On May 25, 9:18 am, Allen Thomson wrote:
I was looking at the original TDRSS ground station (32.502 N, 106.611 W) in Google Earth historical imagery and noticed that a substantial addition was made to the existing building between 2005 and the last available imagery in 2007. There's also a new big (19 m diameter) round thing just south of the TDRSS antennas, but I can't tell if it's a water tower, dish or what. In addition, quite a bit of additional parking was added, which is curious because a) the existing parking was greatly underused, at least in the period of available imagery (1998-2007) and b) the ground station is advertised as highly automated, so what's going to be the need for so many people? Does anybody here know what the expansion is for? I have a WAG, but would rather get Ye Readers' inputs before saying what it is. ======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT: This may end up tending towards policy than actualy technical issues, but let's see where it goes. GdM My personal experience with NASA and it's contractors has been excellent, in that I've emailed questions and have received excellent replies and had some good discussions. Usually NASA is separate from the military, but in some cases things may overlap such as in this TDRSS at White Sands, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TDRSS#M...y_Applications and NASA may not respond. You can ask them, but I think that info is classified. Ken |
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TDRSS ground station expansion?
There's also a new big (19 m diameter) round thing just south of the TDRSS antennas,
There's another one at the northern TDRSS site, 32.542 N, 106.612 W, that appeared in the same period of time, so I think it's also an antenna. Interestingly, in the last available imagery (27 May 2007) of the northern site, it looks as if the foundations for two more antennas had been started. This starts to look like a non-trivial expansion of relay satellite capability. Thanks to Ken Tucker and OM for the advice on contacting NASA. I'll do that and see what they say. |
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TDRSS ground station expansion?
Considering the present threat of cyber-spying, I wonder if the DOD is
going to be using TDRSS for transmitting classified data point-to-point on the Earth so as to avoid any use of the internet or landlines, which could be compromised. I'm sure that they are assuming any comms, whatever the actual technical means, are potentially compromised. That's why you use end-to-end encrpytion (e.g., SSL/TSL). Denial-of-service would be another matter - that might conceivably motivate using an alternate path. Jan |
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