Silver Anniversary for Northrop Grumman TDRS 1 Satellite

Pop open the champagne! A celebration is in order for the first of six Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) system spacecraft built by Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) that has now completed 25-years of successful, on-orbit operations, setting a new standard for long life and reliability. Through a communication signal relay system, TDRS transmits voice, TV, and digital and analog data between users’ satellites and control centers on Earth. The system is capable of transmitting and receiving data from customer satellites over their entire orbit, greatly enhancing the productivity of space assets. This satellite has been furthering earth-to-space communications for a quarter of a century through tracking and communicating with low-Earth-orbiting satellites. In fact, it gets better: Altogether, TDRS-1 provided more communication coverage to the Shuttle mission it serviced in 1983 than the entire network of NASA tracking stations had provided in all previous Shuttle missions! In total, the six Northrop Grumman-built TDRS spacecraft have logged more than 40,000 mission days on orbit, delivering more than 800,000 hours of service (and not a single cup of coffee required to stay awake)—Redondo Beach, California