NASA To Open Tracking Station
Future American missions to the international space station [pictured] launched from the US will be monitored by a new National Aeronautics & Space Administration tracking station located in Bermuda.
The US and Bermuda governments today [Mar. 7] signed a four-year agreement for the temporary mobile station to be erected at Cooper’s Island Nature Reserve, site of the old NASA tracking station opened in 1961.
Until NASA resumes manned space flights — which ended last year when the space shuttle programme was mothballed — the main objective of this latest initiative, as part of the NASA Research Range Services [RRS] Program, is to support US space mission objectives by providing tracking, telemetry, meteorological, optical, and command and control services for space flight vehicles including orbital and suborbital rockets, aircraft, satellites, balloons and Unmanned Aircraft Systems [UAS] vehicles.
Transport Minister Derrick Burgess said, “Today marks the culmination of two years of negotiations between NASA and the Department of Airport Operations.
“However, NASA and the Bermuda Government are certainly no strangers. During the 1960’s, NASA developed a tracking station at Cooper’s Island to support its national space program. The station was decommissioned in the mid 1990s and by the early 2000s, all remaining instrumentation was removed.
“While the former NASA site now forms part of the Cooper’s Island Nature Reserve, a temporary tracking station located on Airport land was set up in June 2008 to support the August launch of NASA’s Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition experiment. The station was disassembled in September 2008.
“We were approached again several years ago to set up the facility you see before you now. I will leave it to the experts to explain all the logistics and technical information involved in this exciting endeavour.
Technicians monitoring a NASA launch at Cooper’s Island in the 1960s
“However, I am in no doubt that this project will be of benefit to all involved – to NASA and to Bermuda. As an added bonus of having this tracking facility data collected will assist in our local study of shoreline erosion. Data will also be of vital benefit to The Bermuda Weather Service.
The Minister continued: “The agreement further proposes that NASA shall encourage joint educational and outreach activities involving teachers, students, media, and public outreach programmes associated with the NASA temporary tracking station.
“This will include such things as visits to schools and student visits to the mobile tracking station. More about this educational outreach will be explained later at the Clearwater Middle School by my colleague the Honorable Dame Jennifer Smith.
“So let me say how excited I and my colleagues are about our new relationship with NASA. Certainly, we have much to offer each other – and I hope this marks the start of another long and fruitful relationship.”
The original NASA tracking station in Bermuda played a pivotal role in the history of US manned space flight.
From the pioneering flight of Enos the “astro-chimp” who splashed down off Bermuda and was brought to the island to recover to John Glenn’s historic 1961 first manned oribital mission and right through the space shuttle programme, the Cooper’s Island was deemed an essential component of NASA’s tracking station system.
1960s “Life” magazine photo of original NASA astronaut Virgil [Gus] Grissom, the first American to go into space twice, pumping his fist in triumph as he masters a Bermuda moped during a visit to the Cooper’s Island tracking station
But when a new shuttle manoeuver introduced during a 1997 flight meant the Bermuda operation was no longer essential for the success of NASA launches, it was only a matter of time before financial considerations would lead to the closure of the local tracking station.
Cooper’s Island supported its last Shuttle mission launch on April 19, 2001 and the facility was shuttered later that year.
A Summary of the Bermuda/NASA Airport Satellite Tracking Station Agreement is below:
1. The agreement between NASA and the Bermuda Government for the Satellite Tracking station at the Cooper’s Island section of the L.F. Wade International Airport was negotiated for by The Department of Airport Operations over the course of the past two years. The agreement calls for NASA to share information developed by its Wallops Flight Facility on the use of sensors and data for determining the state of the atmosphere in selected locations with respect to variables such as temperature, moisture, wind velocity and barometric pressure. It also proposes that information on the study of shoreline erosion will be afforded to Bermuda. This data will be of vital benefit to The Bermuda Weather Service.
2. The main objective of this latest initiative, as part of the NASA Research Range Services (RRS) Program, is to support NASA’s mission objectives by providing tracking, telemetry, meteorological, optical, and command and control services for space flight vehicles including orbital and suborbital rockets, aircraft, satellites, balloons and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) vehicles. This ensures that real-time display and capture of mission-specific flight, payload and scientific data is provided for research purposes.
3. During the 1960’s, NASA developed a tracking station at Cooper’s Island to support its national space program. The station was decommissioned in the mid 1990’s and by the early 2000s, all remaining instrumentation was removed. While the former site now forms part of the Cooper’s Island Nature Reserve, a temporary tracking station located on the Airport land being sought after for this mission, was set up in June 2008 to support the August launch of NASA’s Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition experiment. The station was disassembled in September 2008.
4. The agreement further proposes that NASA shall encourage joint educational and outreach activities involving teachers, students, media, and public outreach programmes associated with the NASA temporary tracking station. This could include such things as visits to schools and student visits to the mobile tracking station. In addition, NASA has more than 1,200 free, non-copyrighted elementary, secondary, and higher education learning materials available on its website that it would review with local educators to identify areas of interest and learning content that could be used in the classroom. Separately, NASA encourages students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics through amateur radio communications opportunities with on-orbit crews from the International Space Station (ISS). Local schools can schedule a radio downlink with the ISS crew while additionally; in direct cooperation with NASA, Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (EarthKAM) can allow Bermuda’s students to photograph the Earth by using the Internet to direct a digital camera on ISS.
5. The customer base for the RRS Program includes a variety of NASA Programs and spans all four of the Agency’s Mission Directorates, namely Science, Space Operations, Aeronautics Research and Exploration Systems. The program enables and supports the safe and successful execution of the Agency’s Sounding Rocket, Space Shuttle and UAS programs through critical involvement of RRS fixed and mobile range assets, services and capabilities.
6. The RRS Program also supports the U.S. Department of Defense and civil agency programs and missions. In supporting these activities, the Program benefits a diverse group of customers and requires the successful collaboration of the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the National Weather Service (NWS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and others.
This is excellent news. Well done Minister Burgess. This must be the third leg of the economy that has been talked about. Odd that no estimates of how many jobs will be created, or how much revenue it will produce. Come on, release this important information. Must be a lot bearing in mind Bermuda will receive a fee for each rocket that is tracked and each orbit taken by a satellite that passes through our airspace.
Please NASA, can you send our deputy leader to another planet? and if there is enough space(and you will need a lot of space) to include our so called Premier .
Although I consider this good news, I’m wondering if it must be located at Cooper’s Island. Government has done a lot of work there to turn it into a nature reserve, while the public has made good use of the many beautiful beaches located there. Is this now going to return to the way it was prior to NASA leaving elevan years ago when Bermudians could only go as far as Turyle Beach while the rest of Cooper’s Island remained off limits?
I meant Turtle Beach!
hope that the Govt/BLDC attract more high tech projects, bio med, research park, instead of wasted prime realestate for unecessary public housing
No money in it , just data and educational opportunity. What jobs will be created? Two years and this is it.
Lots of politcal fluff. Very little substance. It is a mobile unit parked in storage someplace when not in use.
Nice to have NASA back but be honest about what it is for a change Minister.
good news. a tenant is a tenant and this is a good tenant.
one prospect might include a couple of rocket rides for a select few.
Looks like the most beneficial things for Bermuda will be ‘educational outreach’ and ‘monitoring of shoreline erosion’.
That doesn’t cut it, frankly. After all the boondoggle trips to shuttle launches and Paris Satellite Confernces, we deserve a better return on the financial investment.
As recently as last September, PLP Minsters were touting this as a something that would become a “pillar of the economy, creating revenue and jobs”. I’m quoting Roban, September 8, 2011. As he was leaving for his all-expenses-paid trip to Paris, Roban said space was a $168bn market, and Bermuda could be a ‘one-stop-shop’ for space services.
Obviously, all those promises came to nothing, as usual with this lot. More years and expensive trips wasted.
Absolute rubbish.
No jobs will be created. Well maybe a few cleaning personel.
Who would they hire from local standards. Half of BIAW?
The area is not secure. Period.
Another fenced in?
Put it on Morgans Island. Sh!t there.
More crap from expired land owners.
Even if a few cleaning jobs are created, I’m sure they’ll have to hire expats if they want the job done properly.
Two years of negotiations so this is why they cleaned it up not for the people of Bermuda but for NASA. Another example of a not so transparent government. I am not surprised.
Wake up little expandible desparate island of Bermuda. You are being blindly lead down a road that your gov. Knows nothing about or the possible repecussions and conseqences of.
You are one again being used by the deamonic US gov that seek to exploit your location and your desparation once again.
This is the same american gov that will stop at nothing to destroy the economic pillar of international business-that we are not good enough for in their eyes. Now its pretending to create a false flag economic pillar with this dangerous and sad excuse for economic cooperation. To them cooperation is layin down and taking it which ever way they decide to feed it to you.
Just like they did with the pollution at the annex US base and refused to pay for cleanup. Even rejecting court order to clean up. Now that piece of land is perpetually inaccessible to be used by bermudians…as if we have land to spare. The only people that benefited then was the uk and the us.
When nasa was here before they had weapons and equipment on island that could have potentially destroyed this entire island.
Now, look at types of gov organizations out of the us they intend to involve…MDS-missile defence? Unmaned arial vehicles? Orbital and suborbital rockets. And this is just what they choose to disclose…if america goes to more wars, which many more they will start in the next few years… Bermudas missile defence and unmaned arial vehicle aka drone sites and rocket control sites will be one of the easiest most accessible targets for her enemies. Bermuda with be cought in a cross fire of a war that it knows nothing about. To the usa we are simply collateral damage and an early warning signal that trouble is coming to us mainland. Jokes…these people that signed this have no idea of the evil they have welcomed our way.
The us is already destroying the fabric of our society with deliberate infiltration of guns and drugs in an effort to undermine our international business section systematically.
This is a bad idea…the the bad of this far out weight the good in this…a very bad trade off. Our politicians can’t see this because they have tunnel vision and will try to put anything in place right away without thought just to save face of their party…what’s the moto? Party before country…always. The have their heads stuck in a dark hole. Essentially blinding them and ultimately the whole island as they rep us; from the bigggg picture of world politics. We are living in dangerous times in the world. Bermuda is in this clear and present dangerous state right now due to lack of vision and due diligence from our so called blind leaders. Verily verily, I say on to you. Think I’m bsing? That’s ok. But time will tell. Just wait n see.
Time to wake up. Get real. The nightmare is coming.
Very sad.
Nice try gov. But this is a desparate move in my eyes.
You want rocket scientist but ur school system is in trouble ,d yo spend more on prisons than you do on education=destruction.
@bewildered—with respect to satalites-there is no such thing as air space in orbit. That is all free space.
We can now watch the, “low cost housing” land rape on South Shore erode into the ocean, nice.
An era of 30-40 golden years of Bermuda are OVER!! Just look at the declining population of students in schools and record number of expats leaving.
Maybe once the people of BDA wake up and smell the coffee they will stop being so rude.
Bermuda is not Done. Maybe you should consider leaving Bermuda if you have such lack of hope for our island. The declining population of students in school and record number of expacts leaving is just a sign of a temporary shift of people having to make some difficult decisions and Bermuda is not the ony country affected
@Civilization, you can try to convince yourself of that, but you’re whistling past the graveyard. This is not temporary, and it’s not about the global economic downturn. It’s about other, better options being discovered and pursued. The overwhelming majority of those jobs and companies leaving are not coming back. Ever. Time to wake up and smell the coffee, unless it’s already too late.
That’s not Gus Grissom in the photo…………..