Mission Data Link Products & Power Amplifiers
Ensuring Communications From Space To Ground - Near Earth To Intertellar Space
General Dynamics has provided the critical communications link between Earth and space since the mid-1950s. In all, General Dynamics has produced over 400 space transponders including over 150 Deep Space, Near Earth and Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) transponders and transceivers for NASA missions. Examples include the Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, which carries two Deep Space Transponders that are still functioning, and the two first generation TDRSS user transponders flying on the Hubble Space Telescope that continue to operate trouble free after more than 19 years of service in space.
HRT150 Ku-Band High Rate Transmitter
General Dynamics' HRT150 Ku-Band Transmitter provides a solution for delivering large amounts of data from a spacecraft in one small package. Standard operation is TDRSS Ku-Band, with options available for X-Band and Ka-Band. The transmitter is compatible with NASA's TDRSS KuSAR high-rate return link receiving systems.
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General Dynamics Mission Payloads - Information from Space to the Warfighter
Our relationship with space has changed dramatically since the first words were heard from the Moon in 1969. Space above Earth is now a complex array of more than 2,200 satellites, not including space debris made up of spent rocket boosters, dead satellites and a wrench or two from space walks and repairs. And, more satellites, large and small, are launching all the time.
Last Call: General Dynamics Radio Sends Final Message from Cassini Spacecraft to Earth
In 1997, engineers at General Dynamics designed and built a transponder, or radio, that would travel aboard the Cassini spacecraft, the nation’s first full-scale mission to explore Saturn. After reaching Saturn, the Cassini mission was to last only four years. Almost twenty years after launch, the spacecraft crashed into Saturn’s gaseous surface after sending millions of images, and textbooks worth of scientific data to Earth, helping reveal the secrets of Saturn’s rings and moons.
NASA's Voyager Mission: Exploring the Unknown for 40 Years (And Still Going)
NASA’s twin spacecraft, Voyager I and II are exploring where nothing from earth has ever flown before. The initial goal of the Voyager mission was a 12-year effort to explore Jupiter and Saturn, but due to the success of the spacecraft and a planetary alignment that occurs about every 175 years it has been extended for the last 40 years to explore Uranus and Neptune and even to the outermost edge of the Sun’s domain, and beyond.
