MSX

Telecommunications Description

The operations center at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory provided support for command uplink (2 kbps) and reception of science, health and status telemetry (16 kbps, 1Mbps, and 25 Mbps) using a 10 m dish antenna.

The combination of eleven optical instruments, five contamination experiment instruments, and the telemetry associated with the spacecraft bus required an on-board tape recorder capable of rates of 5 Mbps and 25 Mbps. The X-band transmitter on the spacecraft was capable of data modulation rates equal to the higher tape recorder playback speed, providing for rapid transmission of data without excessive ground station contact time.