posted 06-20-2008 03:54 AM               

"Read You Loud and Clear!" The Story of NASA's Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network

By Sunny Tsiao

(Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-2007-4233), pp. 481 + xlii, hardcover, with some black and white photos.

At the height of the space race, 6,000 men and women operated NASA's Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network at some two dozen locations across five continents. This network, known as STDN, began its operation by tracking Sputnik1, the world's first artificial satellite. Over the next 40 years, the network played a crucial role on every near Earth space mission that NASA flew. Whether it was receiving the first television images from space, tracking Apollo astronauts to the Moon and back, or data acquiring for Earth science, the STDN was that intricate network behind the scenes making the missions possible.

Read You Loud and Clear! is an historical account of the STDN starting with its formation in the late 1950s to what it is today in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The story spans the early days of satellite tracking using the Minitrack Network, through the expansion of the Satellite Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STADAN) and the Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN), and finally, to the Space and Ground Networks of today.

Written from a nontechnical perspective, the author has translated a highly technical subject into an historical account told within the framework of the U.S. space program. Sunny Tsiao conducts aerospace research for the ITT Corporation.