ARIA Aircraft Program
In the early 1960's, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration realized that the lunar mission of the Apollo program would require a worldwide network of tracking and telemetry stations, many positioned in remote regions of the world. The Department of Defense was also faced with similar considerations for its unmanned orbital and ballistic missile reentry test programs. Since land stations are limited by geographical constraints, and instrumentation ships cannot be moved quickly enough to cover different positions during the same mission, it became evident that large gaps in coverage would occur. To fill these gaps, a new concept in tracking stations were developed, a high speed aircraft containing the necessary instrumentation to assure spacecraft acquisition, tracking, and telemetry data recording. The same aircraft could provide coverage of trans-lunar injection and recovery of NASA's manned space flight operation, as well as events of interest in the Department of Defense orbital or ballistic missile reentry tests. The airborne station concept became a reality in the Apollo Range Instrumentation Aircraft, known as ARIA. This highly mobile station would operate worldwide to receive and retransmit astronaut voices, and to record telemetry information from both the Apollo spacecraft and other NASA and Department of Defense unmanned space vehicles.
The Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft 61-0328 was one of the original eight Apollo Range Instrumentation Aircraft. The original eight A/RIA aircraft were EC-135s constructed by Boeing Aircraft. The EC-135 aircraft were modified KC-135 aircraft. The KC-135 was derived from the prototype Boeing model 367-80.
In 1975 the Apollo Range Instrumentation Aircraft were re-designated Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft, and provided service to our country until 24 August 2001.
The Apollo/Advanced Range Instrumentation Program originated at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. In 1975 the program moved to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, 4950th Test Wing, Ohio. In 1992 the program relocated to Edwards Air Force Base, California.