TDRS history

NASA satellite boasts many communication firsts at the poles

Compiled from NASA news report

Posted April 10, 2009

NASA’s  original Tracking and Data Relay Satellite  (TDRS-1) launched from the Space Shuttle  Challenger in April 1983.

TDRS-1 began life by opening a new era in NASA satellite communications. It tracked low Earth-orbiting satellites, enabling NASA to issues commands and receive telemetry through most of their orbit.

Working solo, TDRS-1 provided more communication coverage in support of the September 1983 Shuttle mission than the entire network of NASA tracking stations had provided in all previous Shuttle missions.

TDRS-1 firsts include:

• First satellite used to support Kennedy Space Center launches in the early 1990s, returning real time telemetry.
• Closed the zone of communications exclusion over the Indian Ocean, providing 100 percent coverage of the Space Shuttle and low inclination orbiting satellites via the TDRS constellation.
• First connection to the Internet, and the first live Web cast from the North Pole, using TDRS-1 (recorded in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not).
• First Pole-to-Pole phone call using TDRS-1 to connect to the South Pole and Iridium for the North Pole (recorded in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and Guinness World Records in April 1999).

Due to increasing orbit inclination, TDRS-1 was the first satellite able to see both Poles. In cooperation with the National Science Foundation (NSF) , an uplink/downlink station for TDRS-1 was installed in January 1998 at South Pole Station .

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