Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!n3dmc!gronk!johnl
From: johnl@gronk.UUCP (John Limpert)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: S-Band Beacon on Moon
Message-ID: <565@gronk.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jul 89 20:52:19 GMT
References: <481@gronk.UUCP> <5951@stiatl.UUCP>
Reply-To: johnl@gronk.UUCP (John Limpert)
Organization: BFEC/GSFC Greenbelt, Maryland
Lines: 26

In article <5951@stiatl.UUCP> john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) writes:
>The question at hand is did NASA leave the transmitter on the moon running?
>You could probably answer this as well as anyone.  I read a new report in
>the local yellow rag that the transmitter had been left on and that only
>the tracking station had been shut down.

The usual procedure for mothballing a spacecraft is to shut off the
transmitter and non-essential systems.  The receiver and command decoder
are left on so the spacecraft can be reactivated later.  I suspect this
is what happened to ALSEP.  The tracking stations were _not_ shut down.
There were plenty of other activities to keep them open.  The ISEE
(International Sun Earth Explorer) spacecraft replaced ALSEP in the
"track it and record telemetry for many hours a day" category.  There were
a pair of instrumentation recorders at Ascension that had been dedicated
to supporting ALSEP.  After ALSEP was shutdown, quite a bit of effort was
needed to repair all of the circuit boards that hadn't been used in
the ALSEP recorder configuration.

With the advent of an operational TDRS system, the ground tracking network
is finally being reduced to a minimal number of stations.  Bermuda and
Merrit Island (KSC) are being kept open for launch support.  The rest are
going to be shutdown, turned over to JPL's Deep Space Network or the
Air Force.

-- 
John Limpert		johnl@gronk.UUCP	uunet!n3dmc!gronk!johnl