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At least 631 records · Page 35
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1994

Status of frequency and time support for NASA systems

NASA has frequency and timing systems at many facilities and centers. Timing systems with specifications tighter than several microseconds are covered. These ground based systems support scientific experiments and spacecraft tracking for the following programs; NASA Satellite Laser Ranging (NSLR); Network Mission Operations Support (NMOS); Kennedy Space Center (KSC); Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI); Tracking Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) Ground Terminal Network; and the Deep Space Network (DSN). Major equipment assemblies, specifications, performance, and requirements, both present and future, are presented.

Kuhnle, Paul F.↗
NASA NTRS1980

DSN system performance test software

The software support group of the Deep Space Network support section is continuing the development of system performance test (SPT) software for the Deep Space Network. During the past two and one-half years, test software was developed for a new system, Radio Science, and many new features were added to existing software. Plans are underway for implementation of test software for the very long baseline interferometry system and the network data processing area. A description of the elements of the SPT software is provided.

Leppla, F. B.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Office of Space Tracking and Data Systems

A brief overview of the Office of Space Tracking and Data Systems support functions is given along with a description of the Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network and the Deep Space Network. Preparations for upcoming missions, wideband communications, and Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Systems are discussed.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2012

NASA Integrated Network COOP

Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, civil unrest, and other events have the potential of disrupting mission-essential operations in any space communications network. NASA's Space Communications and Navigation office (SCaN) is in the process of studying options for integrating the three existing NASA network elements, the Deep Space Network, the Near Earth Network, and the Space Network, into a single integrated network with common services and interfaces. The need to maintain Continuity of Operations (COOP) after a disastrous event has a direct impact on the future network design and operations concepts. The SCaN Integrated Network will provide support to a variety of user missions. The missions have diverse requirements and include anything from earth based platforms to planetary missions and rovers. It is presumed that an integrated network, with common interfaces and processes, provides an inherent advantage to COOP in that multiple elements and networks can provide cross-support in a seamless manner. The results of trade studies support this assumption but also show that centralization as a means of achieving integration can result in single points of failure that must be mitigated. The cost to provide this mitigation can be substantial. In support of this effort, the team evaluated the current approaches to COOP, developed multiple potential approaches to COOP in a future integrated network, evaluated the interdependencies of the various approaches to the various network control and operations options, and did a best value assessment of the options. The paper will describe the trade space, the study methods, and results of the study.

Continuity of Operations (COOP)↗
NASA NTRS1984

Inversion Algorithms for Water Vapor Radiometers Operating at 20.7 and 31.4 Ghz

Eight water vapor radiometers (WVRs) were constructed as research and development tools to support the Advanced System Programs in the Deep Space Network and the Crustal Dynamics Project. These instruments are intended to operate at the stations of the Deep Space Network (DSN), various radio observatories, and obile facilities that participate in very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) experiments. It is expected that the WVRs will operate in a wide range of meteorological conditions. Several algorithms are discussed that are used to estimate the line-of-sight path delay due to water vapor and columnar liquid water rom the observed microwave brightness temperatures provided by the WVRs. In particular, systematic effects due to site and seasonal variations are examined. The accuracy of the estimation as indicated by a simulation calculation is approximately 0.3 cm for a noiseless WVR in clear and moderately cloudy weather. With a realistic noise model of WVR behavior, the inversion accuracy is approximately 0.6 cm.

Resch, G. M.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Publications of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, January - December 1973

Five classes of publications are included in this bibliography: (1) Technical Reports in which the information is complete for a specific accomplishment and is intended for a wide audience. (2) Articles from the bimonthly Deep Space Network Progress Report. Each volume's collection of articles presents a periodical survey of current accomplishments by the Deep Space Network. (3) Technical Memorandums, in which the information is complete for a specific accomplishment but is intended for a limited audience to satisfy unique requirements. (4) Articles from the JPL Quarterly Technical Review. Each article summarizes a recent important development, interim or final results, or an advancement in the state of the art in a scientific or engineering endeavor, This publication has been discontinued, and the issues indexed in this bibliography are the last to be published. (5) Articles published in the open literature. The publications are indexed by: (1) author, (2) subject, and (3) publication type and number. A descriptive entry appears under the name of each author of each publication; an abstract is included with the entry for the primary (first-listed) author.

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NASA NTRS2002

The JPL Resource Allocation Planning and Scheduling Office (RAPSO) process

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Resource Allocation Planning and Scheduling Office is chartered to divide the limited amount of tracking hours of the Deep Space Network amongst the various missions in as equitable allotment as can be achieved. To best deal with this division of assets and time, an interactive process has evolved that promotes discussion with agreement by consensus between all of the customers that use the Deep Space Network (DSN). Aided by a suite of tools, the task of division of asset time is then performed in three stages of granularity. Using this approach, DSN loads are either forecasted or scheduled throughout a moving 10-year window.

RAPSO Resource Allocation Planning and Scheduling ↗
NASA NTRS2003

Transmitting Data from Space at Higher Speeds

The CICT Program's Space Communications (SC) Project is responsible for developing technologies that deliver data quickly between Earth and space, and directly to users. To achieve this ambitious goal. the SC Project is providing technologies for building the Space Internet, which will require back-bone networks that pass data from one infrastructure to another. These infrastructures include the Earth-based wide-area and local-area networks. NASAs Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) that provides links between low-earth orbiting spacecraft, and the ground planetary networks, and the Deep Space Network (DSN).

Laufenberg, Lawrence↗
NASA NTRS2008

Regionalized Lunar South Pole Surface Navigation System Analysis

Apollo missions utilized Earth-based assets for navigation because the landings took place at lunar locations in constant view from the Earth. The new exploration campaign to the lunar south pole region will have limited Earth visibility, but the extent to which a navigation system comprised solely of Earth-based tracking stations will provide adequate navigation solutions in this region is unknown. This report presents a dilution-of-precision (DoP)-based, stationary surface navigation analysis of the performance of multiple lunar satellite constellations, Earth-based deep space network assets, and combinations thereof. Results show that kinematic and integrated solutions cannot be provided by the Earth-based deep space network stations. Also, the stationary surface navigation system needs to be operated either as a two-way navigation system or as a one-way navigation system with local terrain information, while the position solution is integrated over a short duration of time with navigation signals being provided by a lunar satellite constellation.

Welch, Bryan W.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Message Mode Operations for Spacecraft: A Proposal for Operating Spacecraft During Cruise and Mitigating the Network Loading Crunch

The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a world-class spacecraft tracking facility with stations located in Spain, Australia and USA, servicing Deep Space Missions of many space agencies. The current system of scheduling spacecraft during cruise for multiple 8 hour tracking sessions per week currently leads to an overcommitted DSN. Studies indicate that future projected mission demands upon the Network will only make the loading problem worse. Therefore, a more efficient scheduling of DSN resources is necessary in order to support the additional network loading envisioned in the next few years: The number of missions is projected to increase from 25 in 1998 to 34 by 2001. In fact given the challenge of the NASA administrator, Dan Goldin, of launching 12 spacecraft per year, the DSN would be tracking approximately 90 spacecraft by 2010. Currently a large amount of antenna time and network resources are subscribed by a project in order to have their mission supported during the cruise phase. The recently completed Mars Pathfinder mission was tracked 3 times a week (8 hours/day) during the majority of its cruise to Mars. This paper proposes an innovative approach called Message Mode Operations (MMO) for mitigating the Network loading problem while continuing to meet the tracking, reporting, time management, and scheduling requirements of these missions during Cruise while occupying very short tracking times. MMO satisfies these requirements by providing the following services: Spacecraft Health and Welfare Monitoring Service Command Delivery Service Adaptive Spacecraft Scheduling Service Orbit Determination Service Time Calibration Service Utilizing more efficient engineering telemetry summarization and filtering techniques on-board the spacecraft and collapsing the navigation requirements for Doppler and Range into shorter tracks, we believe spacecraft can be adequately serviced using short 10 to 30 minute tracking sessions. This claim assumes that certain changes would have to he made in the way the Network traditionally services missions in Cruise. Furthermore, limiting spacecraft to short sessions will free up larger blocks of time in the tracking schedule to help accommodate future tracking demands soon to be placed upon the Network. This paper describes the key characteristics and benefits of MMO, the operational scenarios for its use, the required changes to the ground system in order to make this approach feasible and the results of two simulations: 1) to determine the effects of MMO on projected mission loading on the DSN and, 2) to determine the effect MMO has on spacecraft orbit determination.

Greenberg, Ed↗
NASA NTRS1975

Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition

The Office of Tracking and Data Acquisition (OTDA) and its two worldwide tracking network facilities, the Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network and the Deep Space Network, are described. Other topics discussed include the NASA communications network, the tracking and data relay satellite system, other OTDA tracking activities, and OTDA milestones.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1981

Ground-to-ground communications for mission support

The objective of the NASA Communications Division is to provide operational communications in support of NASA projects and mission activities. Nascom is a generic term referring collectively to a global system of circuits and switching and terminal facilities established and operated by NASA to provide longhaul operational communications support for all NASA projects. Aspects of network evolution are discussed, taking into account the integrated Nascom network. A description is presented of the present Nascom network, giving attention to the Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network (STDN), the Deep Space Network (DSN), the voice network, and the Teletypewriter (TTY) Network. Concepts and techniques for the 1980's are also considered. It is pointed out that the Nascom Network will extend the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) forward- and return-link services to users of the TDRSS by providing ground-to-ground data communications links between the NASA Ground Terminal at White Sands, New Mexico, and major user spacecraft control centers and data capture/data processing facilities.

Dickinson, W. B.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Automated Operations for Galileo Communications

Following the deployment failure of Galileo's high gain antenna, the downlink had to be redesigned so as to effectively use the low gain antenna. The downlink was redesigned to maximize the data return and increase the reliability which required the reconfiguration of the onboard software and the deep space network. The revised downlink features: data compression; antenna arraying; the recoding and reprocessing of telemetry; suppressed carrier tracking, and error-correction coding. The deep space network Galileo telemetry (DGT) subsystem was developed and deployed at three sites in Australia, Spain and the U.S. The DGT was designed as an automated system that continuously monitors and adjusts its parameters and environment in response to either pre-loaded sequences or changes in the internal status.

Statman, Joseph I.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Pattern-recognition techniques applied to performance monitoring of the DSS 13 34-meter antenna control assembly

The results of applying pattern recognition techniques to diagnose fault conditions in the pointing system of one of the Deep Space network's large antennas, the DSS 13 34-meter structure, are discussed. A previous article described an experiment whereby a neural network technique was used to identify fault classes by using data obtained from a simulation model of the Deep Space Network (DSN) 70-meter antenna system. Described here is the extension of these classification techniques to the analysis of real data from the field. The general architecture and philosophy of an autonomous monitoring paradigm is described and classification results are discussed and analyzed in this context. Key features of this approach include a probabilistic time-varying context model, the effective integration of signal processing and system identification techniques with pattern recognition algorithms, and the ability to calibrate the system given limited amounts of training data. Reported here are recognition accuracies in the 97 to 98 percent range for the particular fault classes included in the experiments.

Mellstrom, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Application of inertial instruments for DSN antenna pointing and tracking

The feasibility of using inertial instruments to determine the pointing attitude of the NASA Deep Space Network antennas is examined. The objective is to obtain 1 mdeg pointing knowledge in both blind pointing and tracking modes to facilitate operation of the Deep Space Network 70 m antennas at 32 GHz. A measurement system employing accelerometers, an inclinometer, and optical gyroscopes is proposed. The initial pointing attitude is established by determining the direction of the local gravity vector using the accelerometers and the inclinometer, and the Earth's spin axis using the gyroscopes. Pointing during long-term tracking is maintained by integrating the gyroscope rates and augmenting these measurements with knowledge of the local gravity vector. A minimum-variance estimator is used to combine measurements to obtain the antenna pointing attitude. A key feature of the algorithm is its ability to recalibrate accelerometer parameters during operation. A survey of available inertial instrument technologies is also given.

Eldred, D. B.↗
NASA NTRS1982

A history and analysis of hydrogen maser reliability

Hydrogen masers an integral part of the Deep Space Network, provide extremely accurate navigation about the outer planets, as well as precise location of tracking stations. Reliability of equipment over extended periods of time was considered. The Deep Space Network has a number of hydrogen masers deployed and in the test cycle, which enabled an analysis of reliability of several generations and breeds of construction. A history and analysis of hydrogen maser reliability over a three-year period was compiled several types of masers.

Curtright, J. B.↗