Operations
The squadron supports DoD-assigned space missions by operating, maintaining and providing logistical support for the common user resources of the AFSCN. The 21st SOPS Network Operations Center at Onizuka AFS is the prime AFSCN resource for fault isolation/detection for the primary and additional operational switch replacement communication links. It monitors, maintains and updates the status of AFSCN communication resources; and provides status, configurations and readiness of controlled resources to multiple users and command centers. It also manages communications systems for network operations and maintains and operates base communications. Further, the squadron provides base support to some activities on Moffett Federal Airfield.
21st SOPS provides access to the worldwide AFSCN and specialized support to the international space community by providing network communications. The unit is also responsible for maintaining Onizuka AFS' two 60-foot (18 m) satellite communication antennas and one 33-foot (10 m) Data Link Terminal.
Its sister unit, 22nd Space Operations Squadron at Schriever AFB, schedules tracking station usage for satellite operators at Schriever AFB and other locations, which ensures users can communicate (through the tracking stations) with the satellites for which they are responsible. A standby system at Onizuka AFS mirrors the scheduling area at 22nd SOPS, providing back up for this important mission.
21st SOPS provides resources to operate and maintain the Onizuka AFS facility and to provide limited administrative and support services to base units and agencies, including security, civil engineering and safety. A small Services contingent is also maintained, including the Space Place snack bar, fitness facility, Moffett Field golf course, and support of in-home family child care.
The 21st SOPS commander was designated the installation commander for Onizuka AFS until its closure.
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Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“You can’t have operations without screams. Pain and the knife—they’re inseparable.”
—Jean Scott Rogers. Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)