« Satellite Man »

CultureNow’s features offer eclectic articles from many different branches of today’s society. Everything from hipsters to satellites, there’s a little something for everyone.

This story takes place in a car

I’m kidding, of course - this story does not take place in a car but outside of it. It’s being told in a car, though, and this is important; just as interviews aren’t always conducted across tables, so satellite technology is not solely controlled by a geek sitting behind a computer desk.

The technicians who work on the satellites for the aptly-named Telesat are not computer geeks; far from it, in fact. Their jobs involve more than just pushing buttons, though button-pushing is involved. In the words of one technician, “I’ve always been interested in pushing buttons, and computers have lots of buttons.”

And the Telesat fleet must certainly have many buttons. There are three satellite fleets- Anik, Nimiq, and Telstar; the company’s first satellite, Anik A1, was launched in 1972. Now in 2010, 12 satellites are active and two are under construction, one of which is set to start working later this year.

What do these satellites do, you may ask? Well, a variety of things. The Anik satellites cover the Americas, providing coverage to even the most remote communities; the Anik F1 is one of three satellites serving the Latin American region, and is the preferred choice for government projects and long-distance learning. The next fleet, the Nimiq series, is used solely by Bell TV to provide services to North American consumers; appropriately, its name is Inuit, a word for “a thing or a force which binds things together.”  Finally, the third group, the Telstar fleet, was the first to deliver a live inter-continental between the United States and Europe; today, the fleet includes satellites over Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, as well as here at home.

With a variety of functions for these satellites to perform, you might ask - what kind of person does it take to maintain them? I can tell you one thing that they aren’t, and that is owners of pocket protectors. For consideration, I give you one such technician; he goes by the name of Peter, and he’s a regular guy, just like you or me. He’s 42, lives in Ottawa, has a goatee and drives an SUV - no pocket protectors in sight. In fact, his schedule has him so all over the place that his only availability for this interview was in his SUV, driving home after picking up his cats. See? Always on the move.

In the beginning…

When he was growing up, he wanted to be a mechanic; at the age of 4, he was folding sheet metal with the help of his grandfather, who he identifies along with his father as someone who has had the most impact on his career choice and its path. Even now, when asked if he could be anything else, he simply replies, “a mechanic.”

In school, Peter chose to major in Computer Technology because as he says, “computers have a lot of buttons.” And, of course, he has always been interested in pushing buttons; additionally, he likes what he does because he likes making machines do things for him; he also likes seeing results quickly.

He likes his current job’s versatility; after all, work on satellites doesn’t only mean mechanics. There’s theory involved, and programming, and things like keeping an eye on radiation measurements and observing the satellite orbits; and, if you get tired of one thing, you can always go to another. Peter was hired because he has mechanical abilities; since then, he says that working this job helps in becoming something more.

…And now

What does Peter do? Well, in his job, he might be doing something like finding a new orbital position for a satellite; and, once it’s launched, thanks to Peter’s help, that satellite will be performing duties that will include things like providing access to anyone above the 80^th parallel. Alongside that, the satellite will also be doing things like sending information to Environment Canada, on topics such as the thickness and movement of the ice shield. It might also be sending out data on the movements of the clouds or maybe it will be sending out transmissions that could be important to Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.

Due to the fact that some of Peter’s work involves such issues, there is a limit to how much we can find out and to how much someone like Peter can divulge. Things like ideas that have been had or implemented fall into the “hush-hush” category; all Peter himself can tell me about his ideas is that most of them have been in relation to cost-saving measures. But again, he can’t talk about specifics. What he can talk about turns out to be really cool, and he says it’s his proudest achievement: finding a new orbital position. Specifically, he found a position for a new polar satellite, something that gets put on a nationwide patent sort of scale. Ideas like his, he says, could and do save lots of money.

Peter says that his ideal would be that someone might tell him what to do, and that they would then leave him alone to work on it afterwards. When I ask him how he would feel about working for someone who knows less than he does, Peter’s first response is to tell me that that is a loaded question. Following that, he tells me that he wouldn’t have any problems working for someone who knows less, as long as that person is willing to accept his knowledge in turn. It is a team effort, after all.

Considering the question of what he might look for in someone he was interviewing for his position, Peter takes a minute before giving an answer. His eventual response is that not one person is right for the job; as such, he wouldn’t necessarily be looking for a set of exacts. Rather, he would be looking for a variety of qualities, multiple aptitudes, the most important of which would be the ability to learn quickly. Peter is of the mind that a person’s ability to learn and adapt is more important.

If you or I were the ones interviewing for a position like Peter’s, we might want to consider the example of someone already doing that job. But we wouldn’t be considering just clinical aspects; one question we would be asking ourselves might be ‘what kind of man is this Peter?’ If we were to ask Peter a question, it might be something like listing five words to describe his character. If the person we were interviewing is anything like the Peter in this article, he will list words like eager, resourceful, logical, independent, and even rebel. Eager means his eagerness to learn and resourceful speaks to his adaptability; logical speaks to his knowledge of anything technical and independent and rebel could mean that he has his own ideas and own level of creativity, both things that we could apply as assets if we were to hire him.

Maybe we would apply these things, and maybe we wouldn’t. All I know is, if the computer geeks apply for this job, they’ll get turned down, because this would be way out their league. Satellites involve much more than just computers and they need distinct individuals to work them.