Range Systems Development, Operations and Maintenance

ASD employees provide engineering, maintenance and operations support for range activities. Support includes:

• Tracking RADAR engineering, operations and maintenance. ASD employees support local range tracking as well as low Earth orbit tracks, (e.g. Space Shuttle, Mir, and Hubble).
• Long-range Optical Tracking operations and maintenance. ASD employees support local optical tracking operations, video processing and test data archival.
• Telemetry engineering, operations and maintenance. ASD employees support local range telemetry downlinks, front-end processing and data distribution and archive. They also support command uplinks to Space Shuttle and Flight Termination Systems.
• Communications engineering, operations and maintenance. ASD employees support all Center-wide ground and airborne radio communications. ASD employees also support Space Shuttle and Mir radio downlinks and retransmissions.
• WATR Mission Control Center engineering, operations and maintenance. ASD employees design, operate and maintain Mission Control Centers, Telemetry/RADAR Acquisition and Processing Systems, and Spectral Analysis Facilities.
• Mobile Facilities engineering, operations and maintenance. Mobile facilities designed, operated and maintained by ASD employees provide extended range support for the WATR and Air Force ranges. They provide localized telemetry, communications and data processing capabilities at remote locations. Data can be retransmitted through RF and land links to the WATR or DoD ranges. These systems are currently deployed in Nevada, Utah and Texas.