Satellite 'in orbit tests' - The measurement of satellite performance with the TMS 1 station at Redu/Belgium

The test procedures used by TMS-1, the ESA facility located at Redu, Belgium, for automatic monitoring of the on-orbit performance of the communications payloads of the ECS series of satellites, are explained and illustrated with flow charts and printouts of tests on ECS-1. The checks performed by TMS-1 include receiver sensitivity, input-power flux density, group delay, EIRP, and gain adjustment; most testing can be carried out by TMS-1 alone, but some operations require interaction with remote ground stations or the telemetry and command center. The data-concentration and command-distribution computer has facilities permitting a number of degrees of manual control over the test execution.