By Dr. Henry Richter
The topic will be how NASA/JPL communicates with satellites and space probes, particularly with the Voyager spacecrafts at 13,000,000,000 miles away. A deep space net (DSN) was established in the early satellite days, and had its 50th anniversary last year. The DSN consists of three stations spaced about 120 ° around the earth, at Goldstone, CA, Madrid, Spain, and Canberra, Australia. Each has a large tracking antenna with 230 foot-diameter, and a number of smaller antennas. The facilities will be described. They handle the command and control of scores of satellites and space probes including the two Voyager spacecraft, the Mars rovers, the Mars orbiters, the lunar orbiters, the mission to Pluto, the Cassini spacecraft circling Saturn, the comet missions and many others. These will be briefly enumerated.
Dr. Richter has a PhD from Cal Tech in Pasadena. (Chemistry, Physics, and Electrical Engineering) Then he went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which became part of NASA. While there, he headed up the development of the America’s first earth satellite, Explorer I.
The photo is of the 182 ft (now it’s 230 ft across) dish antenna that was taken by Glenn Morrison (WB6RLC) in 1968 at Goldstone. If you look closely, you can see people standing at the base of the antenna. The long flat object to the lower right is a school bus, just to give you some scale of the antenna.
Dr. Henry Richter was born in Long Beach, California, and served a short tour of duty in the U.S. Navy in World War II. From there he received a BS and PhD (Chemistry, Physics, and Electrical Engineering) from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena California. Then he went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which became part of NASA. While there, he headed up the development of the America’s first earth satellite, Explorer I. He then oversaw the scientific instrumentation for the Ranger, Mariner, and Surveyor Programs. From JPL, he went to Electro-Optical Systems becoming a Vice President and Technical Director. Next was a staff position with UCLA as Development Manager of the Mountain Park Research Campus. He then owned an electronics manufacturing business, and afterwards became the Communications Engineer for the L.A. County Sheriffs Department. Since 1977, he has been a communications consultant to Public Safety organizations, now retired.
