Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM 

Monday, March 29, 1999 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium 

Hugh O'Donnell

ABSTRACT -- In the summer of 1997, a joint NASA/National Science Foundation (NSF) project at the South Pole was initiated.  The South Pole TDRS Relay (SPTR) is a low cost project designed to use an aging TDRS Satellite along with a newly designed remote controlled relay terminal.  Operating over the Internet and over wide band domestic satellite links in the USA, the project connects the South Pole science and astronomy observatories with the outside world, in real time.  This capability has never before existed and now gives the NSF researchers who "winter-over" at the South Pole not only Internet voice and E-mail but also simultaneously a 50 megabit per second wide band data link for relaying science data to P.I.'s at universities and NASA Centers all over the U.S.  This talk will describe the technical challenges and the logistical adventures of engineering and implementing this project in the hostile Antarctic environment. 

SPEAKER: Hugh O'Donnell has worked at Goddard since 1963, first as a contractor and then as a civil servant (since 1974).  He is a graduate of the University of Maryland (BSEE 1973) and has worked as an Antenna and RF Systems Engineer in the old Codes 810 and 830 (Spaceflight Tracking and Data Networks) and then in the Mission Operations Division, Code 510.  His training and experience are in ground stations, large aperture antennas, and tracking and data systems.