#128 | Wednesday 19th of April 2023, 01:09:41, GMT +1 | Mark Fellhauer
On your website comments about Space radio monitoring stations you mention the SOHIO Satellite monitoring station. You credited an article in Popular Mechanics from July 1966, paraphrasing the words of Facility Director Robert Thompson. The article you mention was actually published in the magazine "Science & Mechanics," July 1966 (Vol. 37, No. 7).
Anyone looking for this article in Popular Mechanics will be greatly dissapointed. I have yet to secure a copy of this issue of Science and Mechanics, but I have found a photo of one of the pages of the article on Etsy.
#127 | Tuesday 3rd of January 2023, 16:15:38, GMT +1 | Anders Ulfvarson
Hej Sven, roligt att följa en del av vad du gör inom "space science". Jag har ett brorsbarnbarn Niclas Ulfvarson som ägnat sig åt samma vetenskap som du. Han är redan vuxen. Vet inte hur stor kretsen är och om du stött på honom.
#126 | Friday 2nd of December 2022, 04:01:33, GMT +1 | John Morgan
hi sven-
how are you?
i love your site very much! it's wonderful. my father worked for NASA in the 1960s, he made documentaries for them.
i'm working on myself and was trying to determine the answer to this: do you know if any of the vostok capsules could be visible from the ground as it passed overhead with the naked eye during the 1960s?
are they like satellites today where you would could see them moving overhead?
thanks so much for this information if you know it. i've been looking all over the web and I found your site and thought you might know the answer.
cheers from los angeles!
john morgan
#125 | Sunday 28th of August 2022, 22:03:58, GMT +1 | Warren Pearce
Just looking at your list of Air Force tracking station. KTS, CSOC, and IOS Sehchelles sites are closed. KTS closed in the 1970s Take a look at http://www.kadiak.org/ for a lot of KTS history. Take a look at https://trackingstation1.angelfire.com/1.html for a lot of IOS history
#124 | Wednesday 17th of August 2022, 14:56:33, GMT +1 | charles
Hi Mr Grahn. I hope you are well.
A musician we work with has asked me if its possible to use some of your Sven Grahns Space Place “ Sounds” , that is, audio recordings from soviet space program i.e voices of cosmonauts, satellite telemetry and a recording of "the international" theme played from orbit. in one of the musicians songs. http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/sounds/sounds.htm
The group believe it "would be timely homage to achievements of soviet-russian space science and exploration so often overlooked/ignored (especially now.)"
We would appreciate you allowing our musicians to use a few minutes of your soviet space program sounds in their song.
Please let me know
Thanks
#123 | Wednesday 23rd of February 2022, 20:26:29, GMT +1 | Warren Pearce
This is the folklore of the Discovery 2 problem story that I heard in the old days when I was at NHS between 1968 and 1972.
As those satellites did not have any encryption on the command/telemetry links, every thing going to/from the bird was clear text. To protect the bird from bad things being sent to it, the punch tape on the bird had commands to turn the telemetry receiver on and off. During a routine pass, when the folk in the Ground Station saw an item in the telemetry indicating that the timer reset command could be sent, they would say “Timer Reset Enable” over the local comm system. We would send a command to adjust the tape drive motor speed to accommodate the actual orbit. After the command was implemented, the telemetry would have a command verify pulse to indicate that the command had been executed.
The folk lore is that HTS sent a command to adjust the motor, but the did not get the verify pulse. The ops controller said to send the command again and there was no verify pulse. After the command was send several time, they got the verify pulse. However, each command was executed that really changed the tape motor speed!! So the receiver never turned on over a tracking station. The end of the tape initiated the reentry sequence which worked OK!!!!
#122 | Tuesday 4th of January 2022, 17:14:12, GMT +1 | Gerhard Spitz
Hello Mr. Grahn,
regarding your article about Voskhod 3: It seems there was indeed some consideration mounting a manoeuvring engine on a Voskhod. Christian Lardier's monography "L'astronautique sovietique" claims (p- 151): Kaminine préférait monter un moteur de manoeuvre pour élever l'orbite du Voskhod. So, this may have been a demand by the armed forces which was turned down later by the developers.
With best regard Gerhard Spitz D-89075 Ulm
#121 | Thursday 22nd of April 2021, 13:11:21, GMT +1 | Vincent Plousey F0GXR
Hello M. Grahn,
It has been over a year since I last revisited your fabulous website !!
Does the Kettering group still exist in the form of a discussion group on the internet?
Regards, best 73 !
Vincent F0GXR
ex founder the experimental small project SAB Space Group in 2005.. Monitoring group from 28 MHz - 2.2 GHz all modes voice/data.
#120 | Sunday 10th of January 2021, 03:03:34, GMT +1 | Victor Biederbeck
Hi! Just came across your site, and it's full of good info! Only wish I could cite it for my paper :'(
#119 | Tuesday 28th of April 2020, 17:18:39, GMT +1 | BLOT Coline
Mr Grahn,
Currently working for the Observatoire de l’Espace of the National Centre for Space Studies in France (CNES), we are running an inventory project of space photos from 1940 to 1980.
The Observatoire de l'Espace is a cultural laboratory whose purpose is to study aerospace history from a cultural and anthropological standpoint.
Specifically, we are looking for photographic archives, or plans related to the German company OTRAG (1975-1987), that planned to develop an alternative propulsion system for rockets (in Africa, and Esrange Space Center).
I am writing to ask for informations about the photographs on your website :
Could you tell us if you know where these archives could be? Or if you have photographs of this period in your personal collection?
Indeed, we are very interested in these photographs, and we would be happy to share more informations with you about this subject.
Thank you for your help,
Regards,
Coline Blot
Photography project manager Observatoire de l'Espace Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales 2 place Maurice Quentin 75001 Paris http://www.cnes-observatoire.fr/ 06 62 30 39 31
