FWD from Wilfred at Cryogen.com: NSA abandons wondrous stuff

[James B. DiGriz]

On Fri, 5 Jan 2001, James B. DiGriz wrote:

> 
> I highly recommend anyone go see it if they get the chance. I also welcome any 
> corrections or additions to 30-year old schoolboy memories. 
> 
> jbdigriz 
> 

Ok, I'll correct myself then. It never was a commercial satellite
communications center, but the 85 ft. VHF dishes sure could pick up commercial 
traffic. It did do telemetry for a lot of vital birds, too. 

It was the 2nd of NASA's STDN (Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network) VHF
telemetry stations, opening in 1963. The first was outside Fairbanks,
Alaska. Mostly for unmanned LEO satellites like GEOS-3, but also used when 
needed on manned missions like Apollo-Soyuz. Data could be routed in real-time 
to other NASA telemetry stations like Wallops Flight Center for digitizing and
processing, or taped and mailed. So there were some serious phone lines 
running into the place even then. 

It was mainly used for NASA missions, then, and some DOD stuff. I'm
sure some other TLA's had some presence, as well. You can easily
see why the NSA would be interested in it, at any rate, given what we know
about Echelon now. And it was already built to the nines, isolated,
secluded, and crawling with security systems. 

Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute has a website at
http://www.pari.edu that has more informatation and lots of pictures. See
especially http://www.pari.edu/ToursHistory.htm.

jbdigriz