Downlink Desk – Safety statements
Warnings
None. Downlink Desk runs on an ordinary computer and only receives data, so no task in this manual can cause injury or death.
Cautions
These cautions apply throughout the manual. Read them before you operate the console.
Do not use Downlink Desk alerts or limits to make decisions about real spacecraft hardware. Downlink Desk cannot command a spacecraft, it is not the mission team's own system, and its limits are provisional.
Check the time of a reading before you act on it. Telemetry arrives minutes to hours after a pass, so a value on screen is the latest one received, not the spacecraft's state now.
Enter your own call sign before you acknowledge, shelve, change limits or sign a handover. Every action is signed with the call sign at the top of the console, and an incorrect call sign makes the record name the wrong person.
Review limits suggested from data before you save them. They come from the satellite's own recent history, so if that history already contains a fault, the suggested limits will hide it.
Notes
A shelved alert does not appear in the main alert list until the shelf expires. Always give a reason the next operator can act on, and shelve for the shortest time that makes sense.
The audit trail is tamper-evident, not tamper-proof. Someone with access to the server's files could rebuild the chain.