🚀 go-pugleaf

> Is there anyone out there that knows details on the Space Telescope
> (ST)? My questions are :
> 
> (1)  Will the transmissions from the ST be PUBLIC DOMAIN? (free to
>      be recieved by anyone with the satellite equipment to pick them up)
> 
> (2)  Will the transmissions be scrambled or encrypted in any way to
>      prevent interception? (other than encoding necessary to send the
>      video data to earth)
> 
> (3)  What Image Processing equipment would be required to obtain a
>      suitable input to a PC or VCR.
> 
> (4)  If the answers to the above are favorable, does anyone have
>      projects in the works to do this?
> 
> I would be extremely grateful for any help. The ST is about the only
> thing going up that would make it worth getting a satellite reciever,
> Who needs HBO when you can watch the STARS!!!

I don't have any answers, but I have the following recollections (a bit
rusty) from working on a comm project for the Space Telescope Science
Institute.

Data from Hubble Telescope (LEO) sent to TDRS (GEO).

TDRS relays data to White Sands (New Mexico).

White Sands sends data via commercial satellite to NASA Goddard (Maryland).

Goddard sends data via terrestrial T1 circuit to Science Institute (Johns
Hopkins).

I don't believe that the TDRS traffic would be accessable, but possibly
the relay to Goddard would.  The data will be digital at very high bit rates.
The data volume will be huge (I seem to remember something like up to
10**10 bits/day).  Remember that the data will be things like multi-
spectral, high resolution images. As a hypothethical example, a single
3 color 1024X1024 image with 8 bit pixel resolution would be over 3
megabytes of data.  It will take some sophisticated image processing
equiptment to turn the data into photographs or video images.

I would suspect that the data will be handled somewhat like the LANDSAT
info, tapes of specific data could be bought and somebody (NASA maybe)
will probably sell finished photographs.  Also, remember that a small
amount of observing time is being given to qualified amateurs.

I would be very interested if someone has any current information about
all of this and if the Telescope has been assigned a new shuttle launch
date.
					<Art@ACC.ARPA>

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