COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND ASTRONAUTICS GEORGE P. MILLER, California, Chairman NOTE.-The chairman of the full committee and the ranking minority member, Hon. Joseph W. Martin, Jr., are ex officio members of all subcommittees. Buckley, Edmond C., Director, Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition, accompanied by Gerald M. Truszynski, Deputy Director; and David Williamson, Jr., Chief, Program Coordination, Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition, National Aeronautics and Space Administration_ 2773, Charyk, Dr. Joseph V., President, Communications Satellite Corp--- Jaffe, Leonard, Director, Communications System, National Aeronautics Rubel, Hon. John H., Assistant Secretary of Defense, Office of Defense Re- search and Engineering, Department of Defense. ; accompanied by Brig. Gen. Paul T. Cooper, Assistant Director, Range and Space Ground Support, Department of Defense. Seamans, Dr. Robert C., Jr., Associate Administrator of National Aero- 3018, 3128, 3228 -; accompanied by Albert F. Siepert, Director of the Office of Admin- istration; De Marquis D. Wyatt, Director of the Office of Programs; Don D. Cadle, Deputy Director of the Office of Administration; John D. Young, Director of the Office of Administration as of April 15; Robert J. Lacklen, Director of the Personnel Division; Melvin S. Day, Director of the Office of Scientific and Technical Information; George J. Vecchietti, Jr., Deputy Director of the Procurement and Supply Division; Shelby Thompson, Director of Educational Program and Services, National -; accompanied by Dr. George L. Simpson, Assistant Administrator for Technology Utilization and Policy Planning; Alton B. Moody, Indus- trial Applications and Advanced Applications; and Leonard Jaffe, Direc- tor, Communications Systems, Office of Applications, National Aeronau- tics and Space Administration... ; accompanied by Dr. Morris Tepper, Director, Meteorological Systems, Office of Applications, National Aeronautics and Space Ad- Simpson, Dr. George L., Jr., Assistant Administrator for Technology Utilization and Policy Planning, National Aeronautics and Space Admin- 3070 Singer, Dr. S. Fred, Director, National Weather Satellite Center, Depart- 3023 Welch, Leo D., Chairman, Communications Satellite Corp- 3297 BIOGRAPHIES 1964 NASA AUTHORIZATION TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 1963 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON APPLICATIONS AND TRACKING AND DATA ACQUISITION, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to call, in room 214-B, New House Office Building, Hon. Ken Hechler (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. HECHLER. The subcommittee will come to order. The subcommittee with the longest name, the Subcommittee on Applications and Tracking and Data Acquisition, is meeting this morning to consider the authorization. In order to make the maximum use of the talent in this subcommittee, I am asking Mr. Roush to chair the portion of the authorization hearings concerned with tracking and data acquisition, Mr. Ryan of New York to chair the portion concerned with communications, and Mr. Davis of Georgia to chair that portion concerned with meteorology. Without further ado, I will turn the chair over to Mr. Roush. Our first witness today is Mr. Edmond C. Buckley, Director, Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition. We are very glad to welcome you here today, Mr. Buckley; we are looking forward to your testimony. I believe the questions which will be asked by members of the committee will perhaps be more indicative than my statement of the interest, but we are interested in the requirements of NASA and the relationship of these requirements to the other military and defense establishments. I believe you brought with you some of your assistants. For the record would you introduce these gentlemen and indicate to the committee their area of responsibility. STATEMENT OF EDMOND C. BUCKLEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF TRACKING AND DATA ACQUISITION, NASA; ACCOMPANIED BY GERALD M. TRUSZYNSKI, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, AND DAVID WILLIAMSON, JR., CHIEF, PROGRAM COORDINATION Mr. BUCKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Mr. Gerald M. Truszynski, the Deputy Director of my office, the gentleman on my right, and I also have with me Mr. David Williamson, Jr., Chief of Program Coordination, and there may be a few questions, particularly in the fiscal area that he may be able to help on. Mr. ROUSH. I am sure there will be questions. I hope that he might be able to help. You have a very long statement, Mr. Buckley, and this statement has been distributed in advance to the members of the committee and we are going to ask you, because they have had the opportunity to read and study the statement, to summarize your statement. Are you prepared to do that rather than to read it in detail? Mr. BUCKLEY. Yes, sir, I have a summary of about 10 minutes, perhaps 12 minutes. Mr. RousH. All right, you may proceed, Mr. Buckley. Mr. BUCKLEY. Thank you. In my prepared presentation I describe the overall task that is imposed on my office, the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition by the various NASA flight programs and I have described the way we intend to go about meeting that support task. Now this morning we are going to take up that portion of our required new resources that falls within the research, development, and operations area. The direct or program costs here total $231.5 million. The personnel salaries and field center operations costs associated with the execution of this program bring the total to $261.6 million. I will confine my remarks to the direct program that is under my jurisdiction. The research, development and operations area covers three sections, three areas of effort in the tracking and data acquisition program. The first is the procurement and installation of new and replacement equipment at all of our NASA tracking stations, in the Wallops Island launch area, and in the field centers that handle the data processing function for the data that comes in from the various stations. The second area of effort is the operations of the network stations (which is done by contract); the operations of a communications system that ties the various stations together and to the control centers, both the control center that watches over the network itself to insure reliability and proper operation and the mission control center such as the one at Cape Canaveral, Fla., where the mission people have the proper displays and information in order that they can make the project decisions; and the operations of the data processing lines. The third area of effort is in the development and test of new or improved equipment, systems, and techniques required by the flight programs. In the first area I mentioned, that of equipment and components, we estimate $134 million in fiscal 1964. The unmanned satellite program requires major changes in telemetry because of the fact that, as Dr. Newell has told the committee, we are going into a new generation of space vehicles and of satellites that will make many more measurements. In order to make these measurements efficiently and in order to bring the data down in a form that allows automatic computation, the spacecraft are going over to a new telemetry system which has to be matched by corresponding changes in the ground stations. There also will be improvements in the data handling and in the tracking equipment provided at certain stations. For highly elliptical orbits and for the more precise data needed at injection and insertion, we are going to put in a special tracking system at a few of the stations. |