The agency’s DSN provides critical communications and navigation services to dozens of space missions and is being modernized to support more missions.
On December 24, NASA’s Deep Space Network celebrated its 60th anniversary. DSN has been operating continuously since 1963, allowing NASA to communicate with spacecraft on and off the moon. The dazzling Milky Way images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, the cutting-edge scientific data sent back by the Perseverance rover from Mars, and the historic images sent back by Artemis 1 from the far side of the moon are all transmitted to the Earth’s giant planet through the Internet. Radio dish antenna.
By 2024, NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, which manages and directs the ground facilities and services provided by DSN, will celebrate these and other historic contributions over the past 60 years.
More than 40 missions rely on the network, and the network is expected to support twice that number in the coming years. That’s why NASA is looking to the future to expand and modernize this vital global infrastructure with new dishes, new technologies and new approaches.
Philip Baldwin, acting director of the SCaN Network Services Department at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said that DSN is the core of NASA and its important responsibility is to maintain the flow of data between the earth and space. But to support our growing portfolio of robotic missions, and now human Artemis missions to the moon, we need to advance the next phase of DSN modernization.
meet additional needs
Managed by SCaN at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the DSN allows missions to track, send commands to, and receive science data from distant spacecraft. To ensure that these spacecraft are always connected to Earth, DSN’s 14 antennas are spread across three evenly spaced complexes in Goldstone, California; Canberra, Australia; and Madrid, Spain.
To ensure that the network can maximize coverage for so many tasks, dispatchers work with DSN team members to ensure network support for critical operations. To increase efficiency, NASA also changed the way the network operates: Through a protocol called “Follow the Sun,” each complex takes turns running the entire network during the day shift, then hands over control at the end of the day Give it to the next complex. The region is essentially a global relay race that takes place every 24 hours. The cost savings, in turn, help fund DSN enhancements.
Meanwhile, NASA has been busy making improvements to increase capacity, from upgrading and adding dishes to developing new technologies that will help support more spacecraft and dramatically increase the amount of data that can be transmitted.
One such technology is laser or optical communications, which can pack more data into a transmission. Amy Smith, deputy project manager for DSN at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said laser communications could change the way NASA communicates with distant space missions.
After successfully testing the technology in Earth orbit and on the moon, NASA is now using the DSOC (Deep Space Optical Communications) technology demonstration to test longer-distance laser communications. Aboard the Psyche mission, DSOC has sent video to Earth via laser from 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away, aiming to prove that high-bandwidth data can be sent from as far away as Mars.
Smith said NASA is proving that laser communications are possible, so now we are looking at ways to build optical terminals within existing radio antennas. These hybrid antennas are still capable of transmitting and receiving radio frequencies, but also support optical frequencies.
Technology inheritance
NASA and DSN have embraced new technologies from the beginning. The network’s roots date back to 1958, when the U.S. Army contracted with JPL to deploy portable radio tracking stations to receive telemetry data from Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite built by JPL. Just days after the launch of Explorer 1 and before NASA was formed later that year, JPL was tasked with figuring out what would be needed to create an unprecedented telecommunications network to support future deep space missions from the early The vanguard mission begins.
After NASA was founded in 1958, the JPL ground station was named the Deep Space Information Facility, and until 1963, they operated largely independently of each other. At that time, the DSN was formally established, with the ground station connected to JPL’s new network control center, which was about to be completed. Finish. Known as the Space Flight Operations Facility, the building remains the center of the universe, with data from the three global complexes’ DSNs flowing through it.
“We have six years to drive technological innovation to support hundreds of missions that have made countless contributions to our planet and the universe in which it resides,” said Bradford Arnold, associate director for interplanetary networks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. discovery. Our talented team of employees continues to drive innovation today, laying a solid foundation for our next 60 years of space exploration and scientific advancement.
For more information about DSN, please visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/communicating-with-missions/dsn/
News Media Contact
Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov
2023-187
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