TELEMETRY TRANSMITTER ACCEPTANCE TESTING AT WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE

Abstract

White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is the largest overland test range, operated by the Department of Defense, in the United States. It encompasses approximately 4000 square miles of south-central New Mexico. WSMR supports various missile, weapons system, and instrumentation development tests of the Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, and other agencies, and controls the airspace and electromagnetic (EM) radiation on and around WSMR. Due to the large number of users at WSMR, the EM spectrum has become increasingly crowded and EM radiation control has become extremely important. For this reason, WSMR Regulation 105-10 (Telemetry Radio Frequency (RF) Spectrum Utilization) was adopted and states that all TM transmitters proposed for use at WSMR must be approved. These transmitters are approved upon determination that they meet the requirements set forth in the current Range Commander’s Council (RCC) Inter-Range Instrumentation Group (IRIG) Document titled “Telemetry Standards”. (NOTE: This document will hereafter be referred to as RCC Document 106). This determination is performed by the White Sands Missile Range Director of Information Management (WSMR-IM) in the form of acceptance testing and analysis. This acceptance testing consists of the verification and analysis of the transmitter’s frequency stability, output power, and spurious and harmonic emission levels, in order to prevent EM interference between the many range users. The current test methodology will be explored in sufficient detail so that potential range users will know the procedures used to qualify TM transmitters for use at WSMR. Past methods and future testing considerations will also be briefly examined.