NASA’s near space network enables PACE climate mission to ‘phone home’

The PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission has delivered its first operational information again to researchers, a feat made attainable partially by progressive, data-storing know-how from NASA’s Close to Area Community, which launched two key enhancements for PACE and different upcoming science missions.

As a satellite orbits in space, its methods generate vital information in regards to the spacecraft’s well being, location, battery life, and extra. All of this happens whereas the mission’s science devices seize photos and information supporting the satellite’s total goal.

This information is then encoded and despatched again to Earth through radio waves via NASA’s Close to Area Community and Deep Area Community—however not with out challenges.

One problem is excessive distances, the place disruptions or delays are widespread. Satellite tv for pc disruptions are much like what web customers expertise on Earth with buffering or defective hyperlinks. If a disruption happens, Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking, or DTN, can safely retailer and ahead the info as soon as a path opens.

NASA’s Close to Area Community built-in DTN into 4 new antennas and the PACE spacecraft to showcase the profit this know-how can have for science missions. The community, which helps communications for space-based mission inside 1.2 million miles of Earth, is consistently enhancing its capabilities to help science and exploration missions.

“DTN is the way forward for space communications, offering sturdy safety of knowledge that may very well be misplaced on account of a disruption,” mentioned Kevin Coggins, deputy affiliate administrator for NASA’s Area Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program. “PACE is the primary operational science mission to leverage DTN, and we’re utilizing it to transmit information to mission operators monitoring the batteries, orbit, and extra. This info is vital to mission operations.”

PACE, a satellite situated about 250 miles above Earth, is accumulating information to assist researchers higher perceive how the ocean and ambiance trade carbon dioxide, measure atmospheric variables related to air high quality and local weather, and monitor ocean well being by finding out phytoplankton—tiny vegetation and algae.

Whereas PACE is the primary operational science person of DTN, demonstrations of the know-how have been achieved beforehand on the Worldwide Area Station.

Along with DTN, the Close to Area Community labored with industrial companion, Kongsberg Satellite tv for pc Providers in Norway to combine 4 new antennas into the community to help PACE.

These new antennas, in Fairbanks, Alaska; Wallops Island, Virginia; Punta Arenas, Chile; and Svalbard, Norway, permit missions to downlink terabytes of science information directly. Simply as scientists and engineers continuously enhance their instrument capabilities, NASA additionally advances its communications systems to allow missions close to Earth and in deep space.

As PACE orbits Earth, it should downlink its science information 12 to fifteen instances a day to a few of the community’s new antennas. Total, the mission will ship down 3.5 terabytes of science information every day.

Community functionality methods like DTN and the 4 new antennas are the most recent enhancements to the Close to Area Community’s catalog of companies to help science missions, human spaceflight, and know-how experiments.

“NASA’s Close to Area Community now has unprecedented flexibility to get scientists and operations managers extra of the dear info they should guarantee their mission’s success,” mentioned Coggins.

Along with these new capabilities, the community can also be growing the variety of industrial antennas inside its portfolio. In 2023, NASA issued the Close to Area Community Providers request for proposal to hunt industrial suppliers for integration into the community’s increasing portfolio. With an growing capability, the community can help further science missions and downlink alternatives.