Hi, I'm Alan Rich, space systems integration engineer and one of the newest members of Team Stellar. I'm blogging in with great news!
A North Carolina non-profit radio astronomy organization has just agreed to partner with us to provide telemetry and signal collection with one or more of their large radio astronomy dishes in western North Carolina.
Using a large dish for receiving our rover's telemetry from the Moon means we can greatly minimize the mass of the lunar rover's radio hardware and power supply.
This organization is in operation "24 - 7," however, so they can't send outgoing signals for us. They're currently providing us with technical assistance so we can perform that function ourselves, perhaps using a 5 watt transmitter with only a 12-inch dish at STELLAR Mission Control.
Dick Dell, Team STELLAR's Executive Director, said, "This provides an interesting backdrop to the evolution of space activity, from Cold War government competition to international commercial competition. What was once a former National Security Agency facility is now part of humanity's commercial lunar outreach."
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