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The ARIA Antenna Shop provides maintenance and operational support for the 83 inch parabolic dish found on the Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft. The Antenna Shop personnel perform the required maintenance and operation of the ARIA antenna system in support of various telemetry missions from our airborne platform.
The mechanical drive system that we maintain consists of uni-directional electric drive motors, coupled through electro-mechanical clutches to a gear reduction system. Commands are given by a control assembly and sent through an amplifier to the clutches that in-turn drive the antenna. The antenna shop repairs the electronic components and also rebuilds the mechanical components.
Mission support in operation of the antenna is provided by some antenna shop personnel whom are also on flight status. These personnel are responsible for the pre-mission calibration and operational checkout of the antenna subsytem prior to mission support. This calibration usually takes anywhere from 2 to 4 days. During this time we verify our different modes of control for the antenna and that the proper signal strengths are being received. These include manual, auto-track (our primary means of tracking), and computer trajectory mode based on a pre-recorded diskette containing the trajectory information of the vehicle that is being tracked. It is the antenna operator's job to ensure that the antenna stays trained on the vehicle being tracked in order to obtain the maximum signal strength and data quality possible during the required interval that the customer specifies.
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