Roy Anderson recalls the story of tracking Pioneer 4:
Three tracking stations demonstrated the ability to track Pioneer 4 to the great distance: Jodrell Bank in England with its 150-foot diameter antenna, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at Goldstone Lake, California with its 85-foot antenna, and a temporary setup at the GE Research Laboratory, Schenectady [where Roy worked], with an 18-foot diameter parabolic antenna.
…There was immense media interest in our effort. Pioneer 4 was the first object to escape Earth’s gravity. We were besieged with phone calls at all hours of the day and night. With our small antenna we were seen as David against Goliath. On the morning of 6 March, the signal was weak and intermittent. Finally, search as we could, we could no longer get a lock on it.
In mid-morning, a reporter called and said, “JPL announced that they lost a signal. Do you still have it?”
“No.”
“When did you lose it?”
“I don’t know exactly?”
“Can we say that at 10:25 you said that you lost the signal?” It was 10:25.
“Yeah.”
By 10:27 the whole world was informed that GE had tracked the space probe farther than JPL. I went to a newspaper office and asked them to publish a disclaimer. They were not interested. JPL was not pleased.
Here’s an interview with Roy who was a remarkable man. And yes, I knew him.
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