Obtaining Data from Space

IN ALL space flight programs, it is vital that data about the space craft and its environment be obtained and made available to experimenters for study and analysis. Control from the earth and transfer of information between the environment of space and the laboratory are necessary if scientists are to succeed in abstracting new knowledge from space. NASA has provided ground instrumentation throughout the world to accomplish the functions of tracking, telemetry, and command. Complementing this instrumentation are (1) controlcenter facilities to direct operations both on the ground and in space and (2) facilities for data processing. A discussion of these functions will give an insight into the ground instrumentation in support of the NASA