This coming Saturday, Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 3:49 p.m. EDT on a mission to the International Space Station.
The fight, desiginated STS-121, is the first mission in almost one year and while Florida is the launch site and Houston is home to Mission Control, critical flight support activities will happen locally at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
From liftoff through landing, the astronauts aboard Discovery along with the thousands of people supporting the flight at ground stations will depend on Goddard personnel to manage complex communications to both Discovery and the space station. The system, known as the Spaceflight Tracking Data Network, allows NASA to monitor shuttle systems, send flight commands and navigation instructions, relay scientific data, support voice communications from astronauts to mission control and send video and television feeds.
As the shuttle and space station orbit the Earth, the Goddard team monitors and continually adjusts the communication pathways to ensure that command, tracking, telemetry, video, and voice communications are clear and secure.
Communication antennas don’t just automatically lock on the shuttle and follow the spacecraft where it goes. Goddard’s Flight Dynamics Facility updates the network regularly on the shuttle’s location.
News media representatives wishing to do interviews with NASA personnel or wanting to be at Goddard for the launch or during the mission, should contact the Goddard public affairs office as soon as possible at 301-286-8955 to arrange accreditation and access.
