Sunday, November 15, 2009

STS-129 TAL Support Nets Up and Misc Milsatcom

At the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, STS-129 Commander Charles O. Hobaugh and Pilot Barry E. Wilmore practice touch-and-go landings in a Shuttle Training Aircraft. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Those of you with Milsatcom monitoring capability and RF visibility over the Atlantic might want to keep an ear cocked towards the TAL Support net on UHF Milsat frequencies. These folks will be supporting the launch of Atlantis on the STS-129 mission to the ISS tomorrow. Launch time is scheduled for 2:28 p.p. EST (1928 UTC).

Latest information indicates that a 261.575 MHz downlink is in use. Callsigns monitored include:

DoD Cape - DoD Support Operations Center, controls launch contingency forces Cape Canaveral AFS, FL

Guardian Angel - Unknown

Maintenance 1/2

Wolfden - US EUCOM Stuttgart, Germany


Now some non-related Milsat stuff:

Geoff near Belfast has reported on the Hearsat newsgroup that 253.650 MHz.

Unidentified callsign (possibily Linebacker?) female US accent calling Blacksmith 102. No response heard, then she called 'any Blacksmith element' followed by secure transmissions.