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I'm Jeff Gramling, 

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I was the TDRS project manager 
until November of 2015

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I first got involved with the 
TDRS project when I came on

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as a subsystem engineer 
in January of 1992

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That was about a year before we 
launched F6 on the space shuttle.

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I think my favorite memory of working on TDRS was when we started the TDRS-K

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program in 2006 we 
were given a pretty tight

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timeline, the project was down to just a few people and we had to staff up

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very quickly, form a team, 
write specifications and get a

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procurement out and awarded, we had made commitments to other

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rganizations and we were 
fortunate in assembling a great 

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group of that really jelled, 
and we hit all of our timelines and

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came together as a team 
and did a fantastic job and

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it was just a fabulous experience. 
I think there are a couple of things I find

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unique about the TDRS system. 
It's clearly

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dramatically different from 
commercial communication satellites

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primarily we have large gimbal 
antenna's that track orbiting

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assets I'd say would be the main thing that's unique about the TDRS system and the data

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rates that we operate at. 
So being apart of the TDRS team has been a 

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phenomenal experience for me, 
I came on I got to work two shuttle

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launches and then I got to 
work two development programs from

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generation specifications 
to through launch, so its

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been a tremendous experience. 
For the TDRS-K program I had the

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pleasure of being the project 
manager from the beginning through launch

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of TDRS-K, and L 
and being able to 

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participate in the whole 
program and the feeling that

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you enabled the success along 
with a great team of people is a 

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tremendous experience.

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Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep