The Deep Space Network is aging and needs to be replaced. Our ability to travel to Mars will depend on a reliable communications system. Can lasers do the trick?
It’s easy to take communication infrastructure for granted, right up until the moment you need to make an important call and don’t have cell service. But if you think that’s bad on the ground, then imagine how much worse the problem is in space.
but also from international partners like the European and South Korean space agencies. The network carries data from spacecraft as distant as the Voyager probes, currently exploring interstellar space, and the New Horizons mission, which is out beyond the orbit of Pluto. It also includes major science missions like the Mars rovers Perseverance and Curiosity and even telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope.
official who oversees the agency’s space communications and navigation program, Jeff Volosin, acknowledged the challenges of balancing competing needs on the DSN, such as trying to maintain data communications from science missions like James Webb during the Artemis I mission. “The need to cover that Artemis mission with our 34-meter antennas did affect our ability to do science mission support at the same time,” Volosin said.
exploring the possibility of using options like SpaceX’s Starlink network for low Earth orbit communications . For deep space missions, however, government-run facilities are the only realistic option. ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said. The current DSN infrastructure already exists for functions like moving the antennas and data routing. That could make adapting existing hardware to use optical rather than building new facilities considerably cheaper. “We think it’s maybe half the cost of building a standalone optical receiver,” Smith said. Designing a hybrid system Adapting an antenna designed for radio for optical use isn’t as simple as slapping a new box onto a big dish, though.
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