[NOVAC] iridium sadness

[Frank Eliot]

Iridium flares are tabulated at   http://www.heavens-above.com
I watch for them now and then when they are bright.

Frank E

> On Aug 24, 2016, at 8:49 08PM, Mark Whittington <markwhi at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Interesting Iridium memories from someone in the local astronomy club, seems like something this list might also appreciate.
> 
> Cheers.
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Tom Finkenbinder via NOVAC
> Date: Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 8:02 PM
> Subject: [NOVAC] iridium sadness
> 
> 
> Sorry to hear the word is these little guys are going to be decommissioned.  I worked on contract with Motorola to test the radio components mounted on a Boeing bus when the network was being launched.  We did on-orbit testing to measure power output from the antennas, the multiplexers and frequency converters, modulators, etc.  Satellite-to-satellite routing of calls was actually on a wireless frame relay network. They piped video and audio in on the big screens for the Vandenberg launches.  We only had audio for launches from China (and I don’t speak Chinese but you could figure out the countdown and stage separation).
> 
>  
> 
> Imagine a cell phone tower with wings, and instead of driving and being handed off from cell to cell, the network is moving overhead and handing us off satellite to satellite.  The antenna gain pattern looks like a daisy projected onto earth, so with sixty some of them moving in six polar-aligned orbits, the whole earth was covered with these floating daisies, each completing an LEO in about 110 minutes.
> 
>  
> 
> It was the most James Bond work I ever had as an engineer.  Place was a lockdown facility with flight bay, no windows.  Huge bank of batteries (two stories high) for backup if the power supply went down.  It’s not classified or hush-hush anymore. The flight center for the whole network is tucked back into the woods off the 13th fairway of the original Lansdowne golf course.  We would spend 12 – 14 hour shifts any time of the day and night over there.  I’d drive home to and from Arlington and tell my wife that everyone and their brother would be moving out to Leesburg and Ashburn (and boy did they!).  My commute was on the new Greenway, probably less than $2.00 each way.  Just me and the deer at night, really no other cars and I got off at what was Waxpool Road at the time, Belmonte Ridge over to Route 7 past Partlows (now Carolina Brothers BBQ), picked up an egg and cheese sandwich in the mornings and in to work.
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>  
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> My kids were 6 mos and 2 years old.  We moved to Leesburg 12 months later.  Now you can guess my age!  I’d go out looking for those flares when the ephemeris was posted on line.  I haven’t gone out to look in awhile.  They are predictable if you know when and where to look and I’d go to our observing sites sometimes when I first joined NOVAC to point them out.  Someone in the club told me if we lived in Medieval times and I did that, I’d be branded a witch and burned at the stake!
> 
>  
> 
> cheers
> 
>  
> 
> tf
> 
>  
> 
> @TomFinkenbinder
> 
> 
> 
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