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| TRW Space Systems Division |
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This company started out as an automotive supply and manufacturing company and an aerospace technology company and combined them into one major corporation employing some 150,000 people. The aerospace arm, the Space Systems Division, had about 25,000 employees. TRW Inc. was located in Cleveland, Ohio and the aerospace arm in Redondo Beach, California
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TRW Space Systems Division, Redondo Beach, CA
I was recruited from Cal Tech into TRW to join their Program Management staff in Washington, D.C. The function of that office was to deal with the government agencies that were building satellites to be used for intelligence gathering. There were also large data collection efforts and data analysis efforts on-going within the Department of Defense (DOD) that we operated for the DOD.
I had a lot of contact with TRW when we were developing the requirements for the building and ultimate operation of the Tracking and Data Relay satellites for NASA. TRW was the builder of these satellites.
TRW out of Redondo Beach, CA also built most of the DOD's intelligence satellites and they (now under Northrup/Grumman's name) still are the lead builder of these orbiting data collection devices.
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| The TDRSS (Trackiing and Data Relay Satellite) built by TRW for both NASA and the DOD doing away with many of the ground-based tracking radars and telemetry systems that had been the mainstay of space flight operations since their beginnings. |
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My relationship with TRW began long before I actually accepted a position with the company. While working for NASA in Houston, there were many TRW people involved in supporting Flight Operations in many different aspects of the job that was to be done there. During that time, the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland was developing a brand new concept in tracking systems, satellite based, which would allow for tracking and data transfer to occur in space and not be restricted to ground tracking sites. Their contractor, a builder of all kinds of satellites, and the provider of most of the intelligence gathering satellites for the military, was TRW, a contractor based in Redondo Beach, California. I had many opportunities to work with TRW people during this time, for I was responsible for trackiing and data relay for manned flight operations using ground tracking facilities. This new technique would be a major improvement in this area of technology.
TRW also was the leader in providing many software support items for both manned and unmanned flight.
When I was ready to talk to TRW near the end of my commitment to the JPL, they offered me the opportunity to become a member of their technical marketing staff, working with both NASA and the Department of Defense in their needs for software and satellite support systems. I was to be based initially at Redondo Beach, California.
During the first year with TRW, the company offered me the opportunity to transfer to their Washington, D.C. office where the marketing effort was located near the GSFC and the DOD in the Pentagon. This was a major step upward in my exposure to large-scale marketing efforts involving complete systems, the control centers and their supporting software and hardware, the transmission system, and the tracking and data collection systems. TRW also ran under contract to the USAF, the massive command and control center in Cheyenne Mountain which was the center for all Air Force Space Program control. I would be associated with that center in this new position.
I was in and out of TRW twice during the oncoming years as I was offered new and exciting opportunities, most of which I didn't seek, but where I was directed to go. It is a long story, and I don't want to go into it here, but I finally ended up retiring from TRW at age 65 with almost 20 years with the company. TRW is now a part of Northrop-Grumman Corp.
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