up the stairs, where she caught the CalTech jitney bus to JPL. Sawlinski’s name moved her swiftly through the administrative maze and she shortly was assigned to Donald Niven, one of the JPL project managers.
When she walked into the office she had been directed to, she saw a chunky young man with neatly trimmed dark hair and the slacks, sports coat, and tie that seemed to be the professional uniform of the engineers at JPL. She guessed that he was in his late twenties. She had thought that a project manager would be someone older, but as their conversation proceeded, she could tell from his cool, calm, methodical questions that, despite his age, he had acquired years of experience in the Deep Space Network organization. Their discussion was half technical, half financial.
“So the length or complexity of the command has almost no bearing on the cost?” she asked.
“That’s right,” Donald said. “So that groups likeyours could plan their expenditures, we worked out a standard rate for each command cycle.”
“Suppose a command has a series of steps in it?” she asked.
“As long as the steps are something for the spacecraft computer to go through and do not involve us, then the charge is the same for one or ten steps,” he replied. “What do you have in mind?”
Jacqueline got out her program sheets. Donald swung his computer console around so they could both look at it. He typed in the code for the OE spacecraft operations manual.
“The first thing I want to do is to increase the low frequency radio data digitalization rate to its maximum,” she said. “Then, after a week of high rate data collection, I want to have the data taken alternately with the four antennas, each one taking data for one minute at a time. After that, I want to have the X-ray telescope reactivated. It has a one-degree field of view, and I want it to scan between these two angles at a rate of one degree per day.” Jacqueline handed over the sheet of paper and he took it.
“I see these are in spacecraft coordinates,” he said, his opinion of the young woman increasing with every second. “Thanks for taking the trouble to convert them for me.”
“It was no trouble,” she replied calmly. “I have been living with that spacecraft so long that I practically think like it.”
Together they worked out the command procedure, and Donald transferred it to the programming section. The computer would actually do the programming, but the programmers had to take the computer result through several tests to make sure that some bugs had not crept into the computer simulation in the decades since the spacecraft had been launched.
“I’ll give you a call when the command is ready,”Donald said. “It’ll be a few days before the formal procedure is finished. Fortunately, I don’t think we will have any trouble getting permission from the sponsoring agency. Although the experiment package was built by ESA, the spacecraft itself was built by the Russians, so the authority for command changes rests with the Soviet Academy of Science, and Professor Sawlinski’s name should be good enough for them. Do you have a telephone number where I can reach you?”
TIME: FRIDAY 1 MAY 2020
As the days passed, Jacqueline and Donald spent many hours poring over the command time line. It was a long sequence, with even longer delays in it.
“Why can’t we leave the low frequency radio on high digitalization rate while the X-ray telescope is scanning?” Jacqueline asked. “That way, if the X-ray telescope picks up something unusual, we can check the low frequency radio to see if the scruff is active.”
Donald paged the screen to the section describing the operational characteristics of the low frequency radio digitalization block. “The X-ray telescope uses a lot of power, especially when it is in the scanning mode,” he said. “I’m afraid that, because of the age of the radioisotope power generators, the voltage on the power bus will drop
When she walked into the office she had been directed to, she saw a chunky young man with neatly trimmed dark hair and the slacks, sports coat, and tie that seemed to be the professional uniform of the engineers at JPL. She guessed that he was in his late twenties. She had thought that a project manager would be someone older, but as their conversation proceeded, she could tell from his cool, calm, methodical questions that, despite his age, he had acquired years of experience in the Deep Space Network organization. Their discussion was half technical, half financial.
“So the length or complexity of the command has almost no bearing on the cost?” she asked.
“That’s right,” Donald said. “So that groups likeyours could plan their expenditures, we worked out a standard rate for each command cycle.”
“Suppose a command has a series of steps in it?” she asked.
“As long as the steps are something for the spacecraft computer to go through and do not involve us, then the charge is the same for one or ten steps,” he replied. “What do you have in mind?”
Jacqueline got out her program sheets. Donald swung his computer console around so they could both look at it. He typed in the code for the OE spacecraft operations manual.
“The first thing I want to do is to increase the low frequency radio data digitalization rate to its maximum,” she said. “Then, after a week of high rate data collection, I want to have the data taken alternately with the four antennas, each one taking data for one minute at a time. After that, I want to have the X-ray telescope reactivated. It has a one-degree field of view, and I want it to scan between these two angles at a rate of one degree per day.” Jacqueline handed over the sheet of paper and he took it.
“I see these are in spacecraft coordinates,” he said, his opinion of the young woman increasing with every second. “Thanks for taking the trouble to convert them for me.”
“It was no trouble,” she replied calmly. “I have been living with that spacecraft so long that I practically think like it.”
Together they worked out the command procedure, and Donald transferred it to the programming section. The computer would actually do the programming, but the programmers had to take the computer result through several tests to make sure that some bugs had not crept into the computer simulation in the decades since the spacecraft had been launched.
“I’ll give you a call when the command is ready,”Donald said. “It’ll be a few days before the formal procedure is finished. Fortunately, I don’t think we will have any trouble getting permission from the sponsoring agency. Although the experiment package was built by ESA, the spacecraft itself was built by the Russians, so the authority for command changes rests with the Soviet Academy of Science, and Professor Sawlinski’s name should be good enough for them. Do you have a telephone number where I can reach you?”
TIME: FRIDAY 1 MAY 2020
As the days passed, Jacqueline and Donald spent many hours poring over the command time line. It was a long sequence, with even longer delays in it.
“Why can’t we leave the low frequency radio on high digitalization rate while the X-ray telescope is scanning?” Jacqueline asked. “That way, if the X-ray telescope picks up something unusual, we can check the low frequency radio to see if the scruff is active.”
Donald paged the screen to the section describing the operational characteristics of the low frequency radio digitalization block. “The X-ray telescope uses a lot of power, especially when it is in the scanning mode,” he said. “I’m afraid that, because of the age of the radioisotope power generators, the voltage on the power bus will drop
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