Rosman Tracking Station Supports The Apollo XI In Indirect, Important Way

This week’s Picturing the Past article is from a July 24, 1969 Transylvania Times story titled, “Rosman Tracking Station Supports The Apollo XI In Indirect, Important Way.” 

Construction of the Rosman Satellite Tracking and Data
Acquistion Facility in January 1963.

     Transylvania County has not been just a bystander in all the recent excitement of man’s first landing on the moon.

     The Rosman National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STADAN) station had a part in that historic accomplishment.

     “We’ve had no direct responsibility to Apollo XI,” said Gary Dennis, Station Director, “but we have been involved indirectly through the Applications Technology Satellites and the other scientific observation satellites we have been working with for the last several years.

     “Sometimes,” said Mr. Dennis, “there are problems in communications with space missions such as Apollo.  The usual High Frequency Link is with the communications ships strategically located for this purpose.  But when this link is broken for any reason we serve as back-up using the ATS satellites we are working with as relays.”

     The 200-employee Rosman facility is primarily concerned with earth orbit scientific exploration and experimental satellites.  These are many and of prime importance to the entire space effort; the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO); the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO); the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO); the NIMBUS weather satellite; the IMF solar radiations satellite; and the Applications Technology Satellites for testing new ideas in space meteorological observations, new camera systems, and new communications systems.

     It is these new communication systems which have helped the space flight program in the past and which have earned the Rosman Facility a place when the history of the spectacular Apollo XI flight and moon landing is written.

     ATS-I, for example, has relayed television pictures of the moon landing to the millions of people who watched this feat in South America.  The pictures, relayed from the satellite high above the Pacific, enabled a large part of the world to view the landing that could not have done so otherwise.

     In more direct support of the Apollo XI flight itself, the Rosman Facility began a full watch on Tuesday afternoon as a part of the VHF communications link for the recovery of the space men in the Pacific.  With one other STADAN installation, the one at Mojave, California, and the Aircraft Carrier “Hornet”, Rosman constitutes part of the critical communications link which operates until the spacecraft has splashed down and been recovered.          

     This more direct type of assistance is actually of much less importance than a less-noted type of support the Rosman Facility has given the entire space flight program over the 6 years of its operation.

     By tracking and reading out weather satellites, the Roman Facility has contributed heavily to the meteorological knowledge that has made launch and recovery possible.  Space date, on solar radiation, on many geophysical measurements, read out by the Rosman Facility have contributed materially to the safety and the astronauts and the success of the many space flights.

           

The complete article is included in a small display on the 2^nd floor at the Transylvania County Library.  A presentation on the role North Carolina played in the space race will be held in the Rogow Room on August 15 at 6:30 pm.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.  For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-3151 X242.