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Terra Back on Track
By Andrew Bridges
Chief Pasadena Correspondent
posted: 05:56 pm ET
21 December 1999
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Terra Back on Track The high-gain antenna on NASA's $1.3-billion climate satellite Terra has resumed tracking, ending fears that a glitch might mar the mission's otherwise picture-perfect launch and first few days in orbit. The antenna on Terra had stopped tracking late Sunday, just one day after the climate-monitoring satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. On Tuesday, a NASA spokesman said the momentary glitch has passed. "The high-gain antenna is working fine. It was some sort of transient event," said Mark Hess, a spokesman from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The antenna will play a crucial role in transmitting to Earth the 850 gigabytes of scientific data Terra is expected to gather on a daily basis during its six-year mission. The antenna, which communicates with the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS), is now in the normal program track mode. It tracks one of the four satellites in the TDRSS constellation used by Terra. The process to activate the satellite's five scientific instruments is now proceeding, with two of the group soon to be powered on, Hess said. NASA intends Terra to be the flagship of its Earth Observing System of satellites. It will use its suite of instruments to monitor in detail the interplay of the Earth's oceans, land and atmosphere to help researchers study how they act - and react - as a system. The satellite was launched Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California aboard an Atlas 2-AS/Centaur rocket.
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