Dave Littmann, the TDRS Project Manager, here at Goddard Space Flight Center
responsible for the development of the TDRS satellites. I've been with
TDRS, this program TDRS K, L, M, for about ten years.
It was put together in 2000, started 2006, I joined 2007 and I've been with the project,
this project, ever since. There's like a lot of things that I could think that
are amazing about TDRS just from what it does in terms of how it provides
communication from deep within the, within the, within the universe to kind
of take data back from the Hubble Space Telescope and relay it back here to Earth for
us to appreciate as well as to what it does with communicating with our
orbiting astronauts today. The project was born, born here out of Goddard during
the Apollo days the communication with missions as well, as well as humans
where were done with ground stations as the vehicles orbited the Earth and you
only had so many minutes before the vehicle was out of, out of touch and so
there was a vision that if we put the capability of a ground station of ground
capability and space to communicate with that it could see a much wider time in
terms of coverage for, for the missions and we wouldn't have to kind of populate
the Earth with all the ground stations. The TDRS team, it's kind of amazing, I
mean it, the whole project, you know, was started back in the early 80's. This will
be the 12th to 13th satellite, you know, that now we will have launched.
The team varies in terms of the length of time they've had on TDRS but it,
it grows to be a family. They're committed, and they're dedicated, passionate you know
they're really amazing. I guess, you know, if you're going to sum it up in one word
maybe phenomenal. I think phenomenal would work, yeah, that, that probably is a good one.
TDRS-M is ready. The entire team is ready. It's on track, it's yeah, we're ready to
rock.
Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep