When I was asked
to do this
I wondered why was I picked,
because there were six
project managers in Nimbus,
I was the last,
and then I checked
out and found that
there were only
two of us living;
and Harry Press is out in
Oregon, so that left me.
So what I am going to do
today is cover three areas;
one is the
Nimbus background,
the history of the start;
second would be some First,
but I think Chuck has done a
better job of covering First,
so I'll go through
that really quickly;
and third will be
my observations
during the period of time
that I was the Project Manager
for Nimbus and Landsat.
And the Nimbus story
begins with the first
US meteorology satellite
at the Army Signal Corps
up at Fort Monmouth,
when Bill Stroud
proposed an instrument,
a cloud cover measuring
instrument for Vanguard.
It was one of the five
or six instruments
that were chosen for Vanguard;
it was flown over
the various nations.
It did fly in April...
February of '59
and operated for 20
days on a battery.
It was not a solar
cell satellite.
That was the forerunner
of TIROS, that program,
and that was a
part of the IGY,
International Geophysical
Year that started in '57.
So it was selected in
'57, flew in '59
and then the first TIROS flew
of course in April of '60.
Well, that crew,
the Bill Stroud
and company
transferred to Goddard
when Goddard was being formed,
various groups came together,
were brought in mass;
first one being the
group from NRL,
which was the
Vanguard Group,
I came in after that.
And the next one was the
group out of Fort Monmouth;
it was about 14 or 15
engineers and scientistss
and they came to Goddard
in April of '59.
That team that came down from
Monmouth consisted of Stroud,
John Licht, Rudy Hanel,
Rudy Stampfl,
Bill Nordberg
and Bill Bandeen;
they actually
did the design
and architecture for Nimbus,
so they were key in
getting it started.
And I am sure
there are others,
but I got this history
from some of Ralph's stuff
and some talking
to few individuals.
So if I left anybody out, it
was no intention to do that.
Soon after that became,
Stroud and Ed Cortright,
who was in headquarters,
did a tour of the
United States
finding out what
the interest was
in follow-on satellite,
a research satellite,
and they then came back
and developed the specs
and the objectives for it.
So that was later in '59.
By '60, fiscal year '60,
which would have
been midyear of '59,
it was...
Nimbus was established as
an R&D program to serve
as a TIROS replacement.
There were going to
be three satellites;
one of them paid
for by NASA
and two by what was then ESSA,
the Environmental Satellite
Services Administration.
I knew Ralph would
get me straight.
And that got us started,
there was a kick...
I am sorry,
I was worried about
going backwards,
I didn't go forward.
Okay.
All right! Well,
we're with it now.
Well, problems developed,
as always happens on
satellite programs,
none of us have been
on one that didn't,
certainly in the beginning,
and these problems caused
ESSA to drop out in '63.
So Nimbus at that point
then became an R&D platform
for satellites
with remote sensing.
It was originally conceived
as an in-house project,
and some of you around
here in those days,
there was a lot of
in-house activity going on.
There were in most times
three or four explorers
being worked on
and one or two
observatories,
either parts or all
being worked on.
So it wouldn't be
unusual to bring...
to make Nimbus as an
in-house program.
But it wasn't,
and of course it was contracted
out with General Electric.
It was... that design
that was developed
by the Stroud team was really
a 5 foot diameter ring,
which would hold
the electronics
and the base then would
hold the instruments.
So as you've seen in
the models around here,
the instruments pointed
down from there.
It was mentioned
earlier also,
the sun-synchronous
orbit was selected
to provide observation,
continuity,
and repeatability
about a 1,000 kilometers
circular orbit.
Launches were from
Vandenberg to ensure
we would get the
sun-synchronous orbit
and the midnight...
launch at midnight to
get to noon equator,
ascending node orbit.
The first four Nimbuses
were on the Thorad-Agena;
the last three, 5, 6, 7 were
on augmented Thor-Delta
or Delta as we
call it in those days.
As you've heard already,
that each mission was
progressively higher resolution,
more complex;
if Nimbus-1 had
three instruments,
Nimbus-7 had nine.
Nimbus-7 was designated as
environmental monitoring
satellite.
I remember when I was
brought on board
that was something that
was pointed out to me
was a difference from
the previous missions,
they hadn't used
that terminology,
but it really was a predecessor
to the earth
observation satellites
and the iSat that
is ongoing today.
As you've already heard,
there has been...
over the 30 year period
33 instruments
have been on board the
Nimbus-7 Nimbus satellites.
The operating lifetimes
are kind of interesting;
the first mission,
and I find this surprising,
but that's what Ralph's
history tells me,
had a six month lifetime.
It did not meet
it of course;
it had the problem with the
solar ray drive locked up.
But 4, 5, 6, and 7 had
five year lifetimes
and they all went beyond
that, all the way out,
and as far as the
Nimbus 7, 15 years.
So a lot of good data was
gathered out of those
seven missions over
that 30 year period,
which would have
only provided you
with a dismantled
mission lifetime,
far less good use of this.
The Nimbus-1, and Chuck
has touched on some of these,
Nimbus-4 was
the first one
with an onboard computer
using TI integrated circuits,
and it was the first
civilian satellite
with three-axis stabilization
to one degree accuracy.
There probably
were satellites
that they don't talk about
in open forum that had a
greater pointing capacity,
but this was the first
in the civil satellite.
And the first RTG
that was on Nimbus 2,
then of course was lost,
and then recovered,
as was mentioned earlier.
Thank you.
Okay.
Continuous operations, and
continuous means ongoing,
began with, at least on
these three instruments,
the IRIS, the
BUV and the TOMS.
The IRIS started
in April of '69,
the BUV on April of '70
and in October of
'78 the first TOMS,
the ozone
mapping instrument.
The TWERLE RAMS, which we'll
hear more about later on,
was first to do... for the
forerunner of international
search and rescue.
They never called it that,
but actually the Nimbus
basic spacecraft
was what I would call the
first multipurpose spacecraft.
There were ten of them;
three of them for Landsats
and seven for Nimbus.
And in those days I don't
know of any other program
that had that length of missions
using the same spacecraft,
same basic spacecraft design.
The Nimbus-7 measures sea
surface temperatures;
I am not sure whether
Chuck mentioned that one,
but I am sure
it's on his chart,
and one I'll talk to a
little bit later is
we did the first field
disassembly on Nimbus G
or Nimbus-7 later.
Now to some of my observations
as a Project Manager;
it was obvious when I was
asked to join the project,
and I had never worked on
earth-pointing mission,
I had been involved
with missions
that were
science missions,
looking at either
astronomy,
high-energy
astrophysics or fields
and particles in
situ measurements.
The team I determined very
quickly was a very competent,
very good team,
and I learned something
from a fellow named
Edwards Deming,
who was an expert
in... efficiency expert.
He is the guy that
went to Japan
and straightened out
their auto industry
right after World War II.
He said the willing
worker will always do
the right thing if management
doesn't screw them up.
And I had determined
not to screw them up.
And this gang of folks,
some of them which are here,
were outstanding.
There was no problem
they couldn't tackle
and they had worked it
from the basic design,
to getting data products
out in a timely manner.
Something else I found out
joining that project is
you had at that point
four satellites on orbit,
plus two, that would
be three Nimbuses,
one Landsat, and one Landsat
and one Nimbus in
the assembly stage
in preparation for launch.
So it was like a
whole new ballgame,
not only did you have
to be concerned with
getting the ones on up at Valley
Forge built and launched,
but you had to worry,
is Ralph going to call me in
the middle of the night
and say that tape recorder
stopped or something,
but he knew it wouldn't
do any good to do that
so he didn't do it.
Another thing we found
that this mission,
Nimbus-7 didn't have
principal investigators,
like earlier missions had,
and certainly like...
not like the science
missions I'd been used to.
Instead, they were
the experiment teams
and they defined the
estimate requirements,
they defined how it should
be built and tested,
and they also defined
the algorithms
for taking the radiances
and for converting it
into useful information.
So they went
cradle to grave.
And those were very, very
good competent teams,
anywhere from three to
seven people per team.
Also found that you can never
please all the scientists,
certainly with giving
them enough calibration.
I had an occasion
on Nimbus-7
when it was going
into thermal vacuum,
final thermal vacuum test as
an integrated observatory,
got a call from our guys,
who were up
there working it.
They said, we cannot
satisfy one scientist,
he will not say we're ready
to start thermal vacuum,
because he has not
had enough calibration.
So I grabbed a car and
a bottle of Scotch
and I went up there
to talk to him.
It was an interesting
conversation,
and I thought I was going
to have a rebellion,
but after about half
the Scotch was gone,
they were convinced that
we'll make it work,
because I said, we're
going to thermal vacuum
and we'll tell the scientist
that's the way it is,
you'll fly or
you don't fly.
And I said, by the way,
if he were to give
you a rough time,
he could pretty much
chamber with it,
but it's probably
not a good idea.
Well, it turns out
that instrument
operated for 15 years.
So I guess he had
enough calibration
because he had put out a
lot of good information.
Another interesting one
that... I guess it better
I got a call one day from
Center Director Bob Cooper.
We had already
shipped Nimbus G
out to the Western Test Range
and preparing it for
meeting to the Delta,
and he said, solder
balls had been found
in the tape
recorder at RCA
and those tape
recorders are just like
the ones on board here
in the spacecraft.
So disassemble them,
take them out and
have them inspected.
So I go to GE and say,
I've been directed that
we need to take out those
three tape recorders
and inspect them.
And their reaction was
you've got to be kidding?
We don't do field
disassembly.
We never have done
field disassembly.
And therefore, it will have to
be taken back to Valley Forge
and disassembled up there
and then subjected to a whole
new series of tests,
and oh, by the way,
that's big bucks and
whole lots of time.
I said, nope,
it won't work.
Develop me some procedures
for taking apart in the field,
we will review
those procedures,
our team will review
them with you.
If we're satisfied,
we will proceed
and do it that way.
Well, we did,
took them out,
all three tape recorders.
No solder balls
were found.
Put it back together and
just did functional testing,
no environmental testing,
and we flew.
And it operated
for 15 years,
so I guess that
was all right.
Another interesting phone
call was one morning phone rang
and this
gentleman says,
I am calling from
Bar Harbor, Maine.
My name is Max Anderson
and I am getting ready
to fly a balloon
across the Atlantic
and I hear you guys
got something
that might be of use to
me if I have problems.
And I knew the right guy
to call, Chuck Cote.
And I called Chuck,
and he'll tell you the
rest of the story later.
This is one that probably
most people don't believe,
but we actually did come in
under budget on Nimbus-7.
I don't know that any
other mission can say that,
and it wasn't massive
amounts of money,
but it was something
around a million dollars,
which in those days was
still decent amount of money;
I don't know
about today though.
One last thing
I'll close with,
after I took over TDRS,
I went down to
Johnson Space Center
and was talking
to the Deputy Director,
and he was asking me what had
I done before I came on TDRS?
And I said, well, most recent
experiences with Landsat
and Nimbus, launched
them last year.
He said, oh, that's nice,
but that's not really NASA.
I mean, I think the
scientific discoveries
and the technological
advancements
that we've seen from Nimbus,
and still seeing today
with programs here at Goddard,
that's real NASA.
Thank you!