posted 01-01-2022 02:48 AM               

Space Cover 634: Ariel-1 satellite tracking ship

Happy New Year 2022.

In space field communication is ALL.

Any satellite, interplanetary probe, spaceship, crew capsule… should be constantly communicated with Earth. If communication is temporarily interrupted then we speak of failure and if communication is lost, then the space mission is listed as lost. Even if we see in our screens as all scientific instruments, data, etc are working normally but we cannot contact the ship.

Currently, communication Earth-space is provided by many ground stations worldwide as well as many satellites than act as relay for others.

However, in the beginning of space era, communication Earth-space was not so easy. For this reason, some unusual platforms were used as tracking stations.

Ariel 1 or UK 1, first British satellite was launched aboard of a Thor-Delta rocket (although a Scout was the planned rocket) from Patrick Air Force Base on April 26, 1962.

As Jodrell Bank observatory, installed in 1945, was not able to track the trajectory of Ariel 1 satellite, another way was developed by UK government.

HMS Jaguar located in South Atlantic Ocean tracked the Ariel 1 satellite on April 26, 1962. Ship was positioned 103 nm east of Tristan da Cunha.

HMS Jaguar did not have post office onboard. For this reason, when ship arrived to port Simonstown, South-Africa the cover was posted and cancelled May 01, 1962 as this can be shown on top of this post.