My name is Tom Williams; I'm a systems engineer working on the TDRS program
since 1975. I was working at Goddard here doing,
ah, research in electric propulsion back in the, in the
late 60s and in 1975 they called me,
the TDRS project did ask if I would take on the engineering
job as a propulsion engineer for that program that was just getting started.
Well the launch of the first TDRS, We had an anomaly with the launch vehicle
and normally they're supposed to drop us off and we immediately
go into configuring the spacecraft and deploying all
the appendages and instead we were spinning end over end at 30
rpm and we weren't in the right orbit. So, what happened then we tried
to figure out what we could do about it and eventually figured out a way we could
actually get in the correct orbit with the small thrusters that we had
on board. We did a burn every, every day and it took us 30 days and we eventually
got there and that spacecraft lasted 27 years. I think the biggest thing
about TDRS and I don't know why this is true and it's probably true to other programs too.
But it really did turn into like a family. We had a lot of
picnics for the families, parties. Our working relationship in those
days you could argue face to face with people and then go have lunch. It was,
I think kind of unique for a big program like that it was a very close
relationship with all those employees.
Beep, Beep, Beep..