Scenario 3 - First Shift

Shift Package

Date: Sunday 7 November 2027, 1800 Local (0200Z Monday) Site: SANDSTORM (SS-01), transportable X-band EA site, high desert Operator on Console: You - contractor, first shift (referred by 9 EWS on the strength of an attribution report) Crew Chief: MSgt Delgado (maintenance tent, radio on channel 2) Mission Direction: 9 EWS ops floor, callsign RAMPART

Welcome aboard. Tonight is not a jamming shift. The primary MILSATCOM terminal is down for a scheduled maintenance window and SANDSTORM covers TALON-2’s 0210Z contact - telemetry on the monitor aperture, one housekeeping dump on the TX chain, hand back to RAMPART.

TALON-2 is the bird behind the protected band in every tasking order you will ever read here. Tonight you are the station keeping it alive, not the one keeping clear of it.

The monitor dish is parked at 90/10. Receiver 3 is already on the 1625 telemetry IF. The exciters still carry the jam tune - retune modem 1 to 1200 before you key anything, and do not key anything until the window.

• Delgado (turnover, 1740)

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TALON-2 Reference

The unit’s X-band MILSATCOM relay at 110.0 W. From SANDSTORM it sits at azimuth 166, elevation 50 and does not move on your timescale. GEO: no Doppler compensation on the command carrier.

Signal	RF (MHz)	LO (MHz)	IF (MHz)	Notes
TT&C uplink	8,200	7,000 (BUC, low-side)	1,200	H-pol; inside the 8,175-8,225 protected band - because this is the bird it protects
Telemetry / beacon downlink	7,300	8,925 (LNB, high-side)	1,625	V-pol CW carrier; receiver 3, monitor chain
Contact window	-	-	-	T+10:00 to T+40:00 mission elapsed

Reading a Spacecraft

Telemetry is grouped by subsystem. Each channel has a nominal value, a yellow band and a red band. A limit is a distance to harm, not a fraction of scale.

Subsystem	Channels	What they tell you
EPS (power)	Bus voltage, battery state of charge, array current	Whether the regulator holds the bus, where the battery sits, whether the sun is on the panels. The number to watch is the battery at the bottom of the next eclipse
TCS (thermal)	Battery temperature, TWTA baseplate	The battery has tight limits because a cell above 32 °C ages fast and above 40 is a fire risk; the TWTA is designed to run hot. Slow channels with tight limits are the ones you write down
ADCS (attitude)	Reaction wheel speed, sun sensor error	Wheel speed is stored momentum - how hard the bird works to hold still; its trend across contacts says when a momentum dump is due. Sun error says the pointing is good
COMM	Transponder output power, command receiver AGC	The payload is alive and hearing you
OBC	Processor load	The computer has headroom

Caution

Nominal is a claim about fresh frames inside limits, made after reading them. No red badges is not a state of health. The link badge must read LIVE and the frame counter must be climbing before any channel means anything; a STALE stream is frozen history.

The Contact

Step	Where	What you see
Jam strings cold	TX Chain	HPA output disabled, JAM-A and JAM-B un-keyed
Monitor onto TALON-2	ACU (antenna 2)	Az 166 / el 50
Telemetry	Telemetry tab	Link LIVE, frames climbing, state of health NOMINAL
Read each subsystem	Telemetry tab	Every channel green on fresh frames
State of health	The decision	RAMPART logs your call
Modem 1 to 1200 MHz	TX Chain	8,200 MHz RF through the 7,000 LO
Window open at T+10:00	TT&C console	HPA up, modem 1 keyed, HK-DUMP ACK
Safe the chain	TX Chain	Modem 1 un-keyed, HPA disabled - before the log entry

Note

One command, inside the window, on the right carrier, and the chain back to cold before you write anything down. The jam antenna does not move tonight.

TALON-2 Contact Log 2027-312-01

Section	Line
Contact	Where the telemetry came from, the stream state, what was read subsystem by subsystem, the call, what was sent and what came back, how the chain was left

The next operator reads that line before they touch anything.