[HN Gopher] NASA officials sound alarm over future of the Deep S...
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NASA officials sound alarm over future of the Deep Space Network
Author : bpierre
Score : 195 points
Date : 2023-08-31 11:51 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| NKosmatos wrote:
| This is ridiculous from NASA point of view :-( They're shooting
| their self in the foot.
|
| They should fund the DSN and make sure that not only all antennas
| are operational, but build new ones at the 3 locations or even
| better create additional locations.
|
| A strike from DSN personnel would teach NASA to spend some money
| on dish antennas. It's insane to "throw" hundred of billions of
| USD for Artemis and not invest 1 billion for the comms
| infrastructure.
|
| I guess it won't be long until a "genius" manager comes up with
| the idea of DSNaaS (Deep Space Network as a Service) :-)
|
| Bonus link, live console/status of the DSN:
| https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html
| comrh wrote:
| INAL but I don't think they can strike
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Service_Labor-Manageme...
| rnk wrote:
| Sorry but you are pretty much missing the entire point, maybe
| you aren't in the us but this doesn't work like you expect.
| Nasa has really limited budget options. Congress points them
| toward specific things like Artemis and funds those. Nasa often
| has to use a tiny bit of money on the side for the
| irreplaceable things like voyager being continued and upgrading
| the DSN - all the money in the world can't replace them without
| decades of effort, for example.
| binkHN wrote:
| > ...live console/status of the DSN:
| https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html
|
| Very cool--you can even see the data rate for each one, AND the
| animation changes if the data rate is higher.
| secondcoming wrote:
| This is highly likely to be a dumb question, but can each
| dish only communicate with one object at a time?
| wl wrote:
| These are highly directional antennas that are pointed at
| the vehicles they're communicating with.
| bikezen wrote:
| Yes, though sometimes we use something called "bent pipe"
| where we communicate with something like MRO who is then
| communicating to an asset on the ground at Mars, so
| technically we're talking to two assets, but not "really"
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| The DSN stations can receive from multiple spacecraft at
| the same time, but can only transmit to one. If you look at
| the DSN status station and click on the details sometimes
| you will see them in "MSPA (Multiple Spacecraft Per
| Antenna) mode". Looks like they can do 4 at the same time
| [0]. You will typically see this for Mars spacecraft where
| there are multiple within the beamwidth of the antenna.
|
| It also looks like they have proposed some options to
| provide additional downlink by doing raw recording of the
| intermediate frequency with a high bandwidth receiver and
| doing the demodulation with additional processing to get
| telemetry/data for more spacecraft [1]. So they could
| support getting more data, but not necessarily "realtime"
| data.
|
| [0]
| https://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsndocs/810-005/206/206D.pdf
|
| [1]
| https://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-200/200B.pdf
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It's insane to "throw" hundred of billions of USD for Artemis
| and not invest 1 billion for the comms infrastructure.
|
| Perhaps, but that's largely not in NASA's control; Congress
| appropriates money for specific purposes. NASA can't legally go
| grab Artemis money and shift it over to DSN.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| I agree, but perhaps they should've included in the Artemis
| budget a small item for comms investment/modernization. Or
| even better spread out the DSN cost in all missions (JWST,
| Orion...) and also ask partners like ESA and JAXA to help
| cover the costs.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I fear that as soon as something becomes this controlled by
| politics, reasonable project decisions take the backseat to
| political concerns, no matter what any participant's
| motivations and reasoning is.
|
| They might have tried attaching this to Artemis, as you
| suggest, but gotten political pushback. They might have
| known that they can get Artemis approved without the DSN
| improvement and then hold Artemis hostage for DSN
| improvements. DSN money might have ended in the wrong
| Congress person's district. So many possible political
| reasons we might never know
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| The DSN has facilities located around the globe which is most
| definitely not in Congressional districts, so it's not
| capable of being a jobs program. That might help explain why
| it gets such little attention.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Call your Congressperson. Ask them to support an
| appropriation specifically for Nasa's DSN. It only takes
| 5-10 minutes.
|
| https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
|
| "Hello, my name is $name. I am asking you to either sponsor
| legislation or to support legislation sponsored by another
| memeber of Congress to increase funding for NASA's Deep
| Space Network to an appropriate level, which to my
| understanding is roughly $700M, about $500M more than
| current allocated. I'm sure you are aware of the enormous
| amount of value that we enjoy from space science [1], and
| therefore why it is crucial NASA has the capability to
| continue to operate this communications network in order to
| enable that ongoing science. Thank you for your time."
|
| They will ask for your zip code and possibly contact info
| to follow up (you'll usually get a letter or email from
| your rep on the topic).
|
| > The agency's internal watchdog said a project to upgrade
| the three DSN sites with more 34-meter antennas and higher-
| power transmitters is five years behind schedule, and the
| cost of the upgrades has increased to $706 million. That
| expense takes a long time to pay off for the DSN's budget
| account, which has fallen from an annual level of about
| $250 million in 2010 to about $200 million today.
|
| [1]
| https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Benefits-
| Stem... (if you want specific value talking points)
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Sending a letter is probably more efficient and effective
| than making a phone call. But bear in mind that many
| sensible proposals are DOA if they don't fit neatly into
| the hyperpartisan agenda that obtains in Congress at
| present. Some lawmakers would be against any sort of
| proposal that involves increasing spending, and when one
| party has a razor thin majority such ideologues have
| leverage disproportionate to their numbers.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| For sure, but it only takes a few minutes to make the
| call versus asking folks here to write a letter. Default
| to action and all that jazz. A call is better than
| nothing.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Hi, 1999 called. Today, people are more along the lines
| of "What's a call?"
|
| The old rule was congress critters weighted a personal
| letter with highest weight over a form letter, over a
| call, over an email. Now, staffers are of younger age,
| and they are the gate keepers of what gets passed along.
| So that order of weighting may be different now. Then
| again, that's probably also highly dependent on the
| specific congress critter. AOC may be much more open to
| tweets/emails/etc vs Mitch McConnell or similar aged
| someone
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| A representative from the EFF's policy team I met at def
| con a few weeks back mentioned that calls are still
| weighted heavily. YMMV.
| Roark66 wrote:
| >I guess it won't be long until a "genius" manager comes up
| with the idea of DSNaaS (Deep Space Network as a Service) :-)
|
| Well, it doesn't seem such a bad idea considering the
| alternative is to do nothing. (now if the alternative was to
| build more sites and more antennas that would be great, but I
| think its unlikely).
|
| As for DSNaaS it could be provided by a number of competing
| companies just like intercontinental fiber links are today.
| [deleted]
| dmix wrote:
| > We're not going to have bits of data. We're going to have
| gigabits of data," said Philip Baldwin, acting director of the
| network services division at JPL. "I don't want 1080p for video
| resolution. I want 8K video."
|
| Is this a reason why India's moon craft had such low resolution
| images? I checked and the rover only has 2x 1 megapixel cameras
| for some 3d stuff. The pictures from the lander were the usual
| low res generic stuff we've always gotten.
|
| Why cant they put a 4k lense on these things? That has to have
| scientific value even for looking at their own rovers/landers for
| defects.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| > Why cant they put a 4k lense on these things
|
| Bigger focal plane means more power, more data
| processing/storage means more power. More power means more
| solar arrays/batteries. More solar arrays/batteries means more
| mass. More mass means larger actuators to move it around.
| Larger actuators means more power...all of the above means more
| money.
|
| I can't give a specific reason why, but there are likely
| cascading effects and system impacts to the mission. Its not
| like larger space rated focal planes, larger data storage and
| high powered amplifiers to get more data down don't exist. But
| at some point you do just have to call it "good enough" or
| "meets requirements" to avoid the system spiraling out of
| control.
| Salgat wrote:
| 4K cameras are tiny, and you could only turn them on for a
| brief moment to take a picture.
| squigaviator wrote:
| The problem with newer sensors and such is that they're not
| designed to handle the stress of going into space as well
| withstanding the greatly increased radiation exposure on Mars
| and the Moon. The missions to send stuff up into space is
| already expensive and so you'll have to reduce the chances of
| the gear you're sending up of failing. Unless you can afford to
| keep making trips to Mars until you get something there that
| works and then stays working long enough to do viable work.
| bozhark wrote:
| That seems so counter productive
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| It's all about bandwidth. Pictures are nice but command and
| control are vital, so more bandwidth is given over to that.
|
| The bandwidth depends upon the power levels, antenna size,
| signal strength and the noise level. See the Shannon-Hartley
| theorem for details.
|
| This means from a small lander on the moon all the way back to
| earth the bandwidth is small. Sure put a big camera on there,
| but it'll take weeks to send one picture in its entirety. The
| Indian lander only has like 2 weeks of life total.
| croutonwagon wrote:
| Sure but I would assume they would eventually have some type
| of relay, like lunar gateway. Allow the landers to sip power
| and send to the relay, probably more a series of satellites
| in more eccentric orbits, and let those use their bigger
| solar panels and higher power to transmit/recieve back to
| ground stations.
|
| I mean, how would we communicate with Mars colonies when the
| earth and mars are at opposite sides of the sun without some
| series of satellites in a elliptical orbit possibly at angle
| perpendicular to our general orbital planes?
| marsRoverDev wrote:
| Our connectivity to mars is on the order of 12kbps, presumably
| better for the moon.
|
| My other question would be whether this is due to the need to
| radiation harden stuff? We were developing for what effectively
| was equivalent to an arduino in terms of processing power due
| to the need for radiation hardening (and other legacy / slow
| moving reasons).
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| One of the key techniques for radiation hardening is big
| transistor geometries. Big transistors are less susceptiple
| to SEU (single event upset) caused by cosmic rays [0].
|
| Unfortunately big transistors are old transistors. Modern 7
| nm geometries are much too small to be rad-hard. Rad-hardness
| needs big 20-year-old geometries or even older. That also
| implies slower clock speeds.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-event_upset
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Surely redundant transistors would also be a useful
| technique. E.g. have an array of transistors at the current
| geometry, all doing the same function. The chance of a
| single event upsetting them all becomes unlikely.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Yes, the strategy IIRC SpaceX's Dragon uses is to have 3
| more modern CPUs tied together, such that they're all
| running the same operation and checking each other. It
| mitigates errors without as much of a performance
| penalty.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| > Our connectivity to mars is on the order of 12kbps
|
| It depends on the spacecraft. DSN is currently talking with
| the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at 1 Mbit/s
| (https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html, select MRO, click "more
| detail" in the bottom-left).
| standardly wrote:
| Wow, >46 minutes latency. IDK what I expected.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| It's not bad seeing as Mars is 225 million to 401 million
| Km away depending on where it is in its orbit.
| rtkwe wrote:
| 46 Light Minutes is pretty much the maximum, that's
| 827,427,184 Kilometers round trip which is a bit beyond
| the maximum distance to Mars so there's some processing
| delays thrown in there.
| squigaviator wrote:
| We can't really get rid of the latency but we can
| increase the bandwidth by throwing a bunch of higher-
| power communication satellites on Mars.
| falcolas wrote:
| We can certainly push more data from Mars, but the entire
| point of the article is that we probably won't have the
| bandwidth to receive it.
|
| Unless we can convince congress and NASA execs to
| increase the budget and get more dishes built pronto.
| squigaviator wrote:
| Yep. We could cover Mar's sky with something similar to
| SpaceX's Starlink (high availability from any location on
| Mars) but with large data buffers and transmission
| systems that can pump the goods all the back to Earth.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Three geostationary satellites should do fine for the
| number of data consumers on Mars.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| NAME Voyager 2
|
| RANGE 20.00 billion km
|
| ROUND-TRIP LIGHT TIME 1.54 days
|
| DATA RATE 160.0 b/sec
|
| Amazing.
| jsbisviewtiful wrote:
| > whether this is due to the need to radiation harden stuff?
|
| It's been a very long time since I read about it so I cannot
| provide my source but yes that is likely part of it. There's
| also the resilience of the components to trauma to consider.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The limit seems to be not the cameras, but the downlink.
| squigaviator wrote:
| I think they're pushing for funding to upgrade the bandwidth.
| More channels, more data we can get at once.
| dmurray wrote:
| You can trade off resolution for time, though. Surely high
| resolution photos would be useful for some purposes, even if
| it means you only get a few of them in a day.
| GrinningFool wrote:
| Seems like even that would come at the cost of other data
| that may be more critical (sensors, telemetry, etc).
| wolfram74 wrote:
| But if the network is as a whole pushing full capacity,
| spreading out the load won't help because there's barely
| any slack to spread it into. You could get 4x resolution,
| but you'll only get 1/4th the amount of footage.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Let's face it, we don't really need 24fps+ footage from
| the moon. Nothing is changing on a timescale that would
| be interesting. Even if the cameras are on a rover, take
| high quality panoramic 360 stereoscopic images every time
| the rover moves to a new destination. During the course
| of the next move, it can be uploading that data.
|
| But who are we kidding? A group of internet forum nerds
| coming up with something that the people at
| NASA/JPL/ESA/etc haven't already considered?
| justin66 wrote:
| > Let's face it, we don't really need 24fps+ footage from
| the moon. Nothing is changing on a timescale that would
| be interesting.
|
| NASA's funding problems would compound if they took an
| attitude this naive during what is largely a PR mission.
| kaliqt wrote:
| That doesn't make sense. Even if the speed is low right now, I
| don't see why you'd gimp the hardware. You can take higher res
| pictures and transfer them over longer periods of time.
| ye-olde-sysrq wrote:
| A big problem with computing in space is the radiation
| environment. To be quite frank, it's absurdly hostile. IIRC
| the voyagers have very little computing power (so, few things
| that can malfunction) and even then they run _three_
| processors that are already radiation-hardened, and each
| computation is run in parallel on each processor, and the
| outcomes are compared among the three to detect and throw
| away any computations that were altered by radiation-based
| bit flips.
|
| Such is space. Everything needs to be designed specially for
| it, especially for trips beyond LEO (where the magnetosphere
| is still providing you significant protection).
| squigaviator wrote:
| Hardware has to withstand the elements, including the
| radiation. On Earth we have the atmosphere to absorb a
| substantial amount compared to on Mars and the Moon.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| While in the article said "8k video", I suspect he meant 8k
| live streaming. Which means right now or lose it forever. You
| can do hybrid if you want. Local cache on hardware that
| records on 8k, and streams live to 1k, so bandwidth is not
| exceeded.
| irrational wrote:
| You might run out of local disk space while waiting for
| whatever is there to transfer. Assuming you are continuing to
| take more pictures/videos and want to save them until they
| can be transferred.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't buy that when you can buy 32gb of storage on a card
| the size of your pinkie nail for under $10.
| Arrath wrote:
| Sure but what does it cost for 32gb of space rated,
| radiation hardened memory?
|
| Maybe even in triplicate for a consensus system!
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| I've got a quote in front of me right now for a ~1 TB
| data recorder for just shy of $4 million.
|
| Also keep in mind this isn't even for the highest class
| parts, this is more in line for something like a NASA
| Explorers program level [0]. Something you would get for
| a JWST or an Artemis level of program would be even more
| $$$
|
| https://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html
| manwe150 wrote:
| That card would be dead (non responsive or short
| circuited) by the time it made it to Mars. Rough rule of
| thumb I have heard is add 2 zeros to the cost of every IC
| for space grade stuff.
| rtkwe wrote:
| You're forgetting just how inhospitable space is to
| consumer grade electronics. If you watch non-live videos
| from the space station or check out some of their
| pictures you'll see loads of dead or stuck pixels on the
| cameras. That's from radiation damaging the components
| and those are essentially still completely protected by
| Earth's magnetic field. As you venture beyond LEO the
| situation gets much worse and an unlucky hit could kill
| your $10 storage ending your $74 million dollar Moon
| mission.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I think disk space is cheap as well.
|
| Radiation hard electronics are not.
|
| And you don't have to send everything high quality. But at
| least some shiny pictures would be nice.
| i-use-nixos-btw wrote:
| I always wondered the same thing. But my theory wasn't
| bandwidth, it was power, cost and (perhaps) weight.
|
| I had no idea that we still monitored these things from the
| ground.
| dmix wrote:
| The power/weight thing is largely solved thanks to cell
| phones.
|
| But they probably can't just buy it from industry, it has to
| be custom made for the project, with some gov-heavy
| regulation no doubt.
|
| But surely they could do far better than 1 megapixel.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Lots of space stuff is 10-20 years behind what we use on
| the ground because of radiation hardening. Both because
| volume is so low that radiation hardened electronics have a
| very slow update schedule, and because older technology is
| inherently more radiation tolerant (higher voltages, larger
| process nodes, etc).
|
| The ISS has off-the-shelf notebooks, but apart from that
| the uptake of regular non-hardened hardware is relatively
| recent and quite slow. I think the Falcon 9 has a couple
| non-hardened systems, and of course Ingenuity has lots of
| regular off-the-shelf hardware. That was one of the big
| reasons the predicted lifespan of Ingenuity was so low, but
| software mitigations (like the ability to reboot mid-
| flight) have proven very effective.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So you take the miniaturization gains from cell phones, and
| then replace the size/weight by encasing it within a sphere
| of water to protect it.
| rnk wrote:
| do you think the wavelengths used by phones are going to
| work through space and the atmosphere, are they focused
| on short length transmissions (higher freqs). The answer
| appears to be yes ;-)
| dylan604 wrote:
| wavelength is just a requirement for an antenna which
| doesn't need to be shielded. i wasn't specifically saying
| use COTS phone chipsets, but the fact that the
| miniaturization is now possible. however, the little
| helicopter on Mars running Snapdragon chip (irc?) shows
| that COTS is possible
| dotnet00 wrote:
| The helicopter has a Snapdragon, and then IIRC one of the
| experiments on the rover has two Intel Atoms, plus using
| ethernet to talk to the cameras.
| falcolas wrote:
| You'll need a ton (well, probably several tons) of water.
|
| https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1336/what-
| thicknes...
|
| ^^ Interesting read on this very topic.
| xwdv wrote:
| Ok so where do we donate money?
| mattkrause wrote:
| irs.gov
| xwdv wrote:
| I can't believe no one but the IRS wants all this money.
| mminer237 wrote:
| It's actually part of the BFS, not the IRS:
| https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/708094624
| kaliqt wrote:
| If you want it to go straight into the shredder, sure.
| westurner wrote:
| AMZN! Because they have AWS Ground Station
| https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/ :
|
| > _AWS Ground Station Easily control satellites and ingest data
| with fully managed Ground Station as a Service_
|
| But that doesn't solve for limited availability of regulated
| spectra or spectra regulation.
|
| Can ionizing radiation affect trapped ions in crystal lattice
| quantum sensors, for fiber optics?
|
| FWIU degree of collinearity _is the_ degree of quantum
| entanglement for photons and probably also phonons in a vacuum?
| DonnyV wrote:
| [flagged]
| jmondi wrote:
| We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
| MR4D wrote:
| I don't understand why one of the first priorities for NASA and
| the moon isn't a satellite communications systems designed for
| the moon.
|
| I truly believe that NASA would fare much better if they focused
| on regulation, deep space research, and communication. They
| already do the first 2, but for some reason, they neglect
| communication.
|
| They build these fantastic probes, but then don't build out a
| communication network. This *despite the fact that they have
| people like Vint Cerf at their disposal !! This just boggles my
| mind.
|
| Once they build out for the moon, they could have a blueprint for
| deep space, while still being easy enough to iterate on designs
| (the moon being a much closer and easier to reach target, thereby
| reducing the development/test/feedback loop, as they wouldn't
| have to wait 6+ months for travel time.
| wduquette wrote:
| > Once they build out for the moon, they could have a blueprint
| for deep space
|
| It's the other way around, actually. JPL and others, including
| Vint Cerf, have been working on the blueprint for a couple of
| decades, and the spacecraft in orbit around Mars have been
| acting as relays for the landers (e.g., Perseverence) for
| years. It's a question of bringing something similar to the
| Moon.
| MR4D wrote:
| Fair point on design - I was thinking more of implementation,
| and should have worded it more clearly.
| mabbo wrote:
| I think you over-simplify the challenge.
|
| Satellites have limited lifespans. You can build them bigger,
| better, stronger, to last longer, but inevitably they break
| down and cannot be serviced. One micrometeorite in the wrong
| place, and the entire investment is gone. Even the day to day
| wear and tear from the radiation of space slowly breaks them
| down.
|
| What's more, they can't change orbit once launched. If you lose
| one, you can't reposition another to make up the difference.
| It's just a gap, so you need high redundancy.
|
| You would need very well-built satellites (expensive) with high
| powered transmitters (expensive because they need lots of
| power/solar panels) in a large network (lots of them) to
| provide high redundancy. They'd also each need to be launched
| with an expensive rocket (maybe when Starship is operating?).
|
| The DSN using dishes on the ground on earth is the cheaper
| option, because you can fix things that break. It's
| maintainable with a low ongoing cost instead of a super high
| up-front cost.
| MR4D wrote:
| I agree with everything you say. However, as we move beyond
| near-earth space, we will need better communications systems.
| The moon provides an ability to work out things like
| replacing/repairing/ decommissioning a satellite beyond
| earth's orbit but much easier & quicker to get to than
| anywhere else in the solar system.
|
| Also, satellites _can_ last a long time. There are GPS
| satellites that are a quarter of a century old and still
| functioning [0]. I didn 't check about other satellites, but
| I'm sure there are older ones.
|
| If we are to become a space-faring species, then we will need
| to learn how to do this. Original sea-faring peoples did this
| millenia ago, and today we ship all sorts of things to every
| corner of the globe.
|
| Building a shared communication infrastructure is a logical
| next step. Otherwise we are going to build oversized devices
| with larger batteries almost like making a walkie-talkie
| trying to communicate between countries - it's not a good
| approach. Build out the infrastructure and then the devices
| (probes/satellites/spacecraft/etc) can leverage the shared
| infrastructure.
|
| [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_satellite_blocks
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It is one of their priorities.
|
| https://tempo.gsfc.nasa.gov/projects/LCRNS?tab=overview
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Mission_Suppo...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LunaNet
| MR4D wrote:
| The first two words of your NASA link are "In 2022.." they
| established it.
|
| NASA started way after artemis, which strongly suggests this
| is an afterthought. The documents are design and planning of
| the architecture, - nowhere near rollout.
|
| Further, STMD doesn't even mention anything close to
| communications on it's home page (correct me if I missed it).
| It's also not listed on their Spacetech page [0]. Also, teh
| LNSS project only goes so far as a demonstration scheduled
| for 2028 that will test whether they can pick up earth-GPS
| signals on the moon. [1]
|
| Communications is essential to growing work outside of earth
| orbit. Nowhere do I see that NASA has this as a "priority".
|
| Now, it's possible that NASA has 1,000 priorities, but that
| just means they have none.
|
| I appreciate the ESA link - glad to see they are doing
| something about this, but I was referring to the article
| about NASA and NASA priorities. I get that we share things,
| but really, there is nothing significantly there regarding
| NASA.
|
| [0] - https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/programs
| [1] - https://www.gps.gov/cgsic/meetings/2022/murata.pdf
| [deleted]
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It's a priority for NASA, but it isn't a priority for the
| snakes in Congress, who don't really care about anything beyond
| their approaching graves and thus only see NASA as a jobs
| program.
|
| Satellite communications systems aren't as easy of a jobs
| program as giant outdated rockets, thus they'll only allocate
| funding to SLS at the cost of everything else.
| MR4D wrote:
| I respectfully disagree (well, ok, Congress sucks, sure). But
| NASA has too many priorities (which means they really have
| none).
|
| If they can't make space-internet sexy, then they should hire
| a marketing firm. Heck, insurance companies (insurance!!!)
| are able to raise millions from VC firms, then space-internet
| should be able to raise something from Congress.
|
| My belief is that it's not really important to NASA, and they
| aren't really trying to sell it to congress. My bet at this
| point is that the Chinese have internet access on the moon
| before we do (albeit they're firewalled version).
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding something, the DSN isn't
| space-internet.
|
| It's the system needed to talk to specifically deep space
| satellites and space probes. It's the thing talking to the
| Voyager probes all the way out past the heliosphere. It has
| trouble raising funding because it has to be spread around
| the world and thus doesn't result in as many jobs across
| different states.
|
| Such a system doesn't really have commercial value (yet)
| because there aren't really any deep space privately
| operated probes. Privately owned things are close enough
| that they can either talk directly to the ground using
| their own much smaller base stations, or hitchhike on other
| networks (eg TDRSS, geostationary relay sats or Starlink).
|
| The problem is also especially bad with these small
| satellites. The big crewed vehicles would be less
| problematic since they can have larger more powerful
| transmitters, which therefore won't require as much DSN
| attention.
| MR4D wrote:
| I understand exactly what it is - I was simply trying to
| show that NASA has no game plan for this. Their plan is
| basically to have everything beam back to earth across
| these dishes (I know, I'm probably simplifying too much
| here).
|
| If there were a long term plan (which I simplistically
| termed "space internet"), then there would be a way to
| address this. Instead, it appears as if they are trying
| to keep old equipment going rather than investing in a
| new, upgraded communication system that could be
| leveraged not only by future missions, but also added to
| by private companies in the future.
|
| Congress would much prefer that NASA ask for money to
| fund a new system that creates new technologies than just
| fund old dilapidated tech. That's the issue, and NASA
| doesn't seem to get it. Is it dumb? Sure. But that's
| politics, and as a government entity (my personal
| favorite, in fact) they just aren't doing a good job
| here.
|
| One last thought...I envision 100 years into the future
| that there are communication nodes all over the place,
| such as a big transmit/receive array physically on the
| moon, at various lagrange points across the solar system,
| all based on lasers, quantum tech, or whatever the
| futuristic long-term thing needs to be. Frankly, my
| concern is that we'll still be doing the same old thing
| 100 years from now. And while you may scoff at that (and
| I hope you're right!), remember that NASA does not
| currently have the technology to do something we last did
| 50 years ago (put a man on the moon). So I think those
| fears of a stale and stagnant NASA not knowing how to
| move forward are at least somewhat valid (even if I can't
| express it as well as I'd like).
| westurner wrote:
| Loophole-free solutions that do not violate Bell's; entanglement
| communication: Entangled satellites and QKD repeaters do exist.
|
| Godel had a few interesting spacetime solutions that may be
| helpful for Deep Space Communications.
|
| Evolved Antenna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_antenna
|
| Rogue wave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave
|
| Can DSN be scaled? Or would it be best to use quantum radio?
|
| Hawking radiation:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation
|
| Perhaps if Hawking radiation is in all the things, Hawking
| radiation could be used for DSN-like communications.
|
| When phenomena in the quantum foam "dissolve", is there an
| ~ejection fraction? Couldn't there be +-t per minimally
| perturbable effect in the quantum foam, though? Maybe
| internet/p2p-like routing algorithms, or, which field/wave/fluid
| perturbations are omnidirectional?
|
| Rydberg antenna / Rydberg sensor:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rydberg_atom
|
| > _The Rydberg sensor can reliably detect signals over the entire
| spectrum and compare favourably with other established electric
| field sensor technologies, such as electro-optic crystals and
| dipole antenna-coupled passive electronics.[59][60]_
| westurner wrote:
| Additional methods that could potentially be useful if Godel-
| like wormholes and massless particles are still considered
| infeasible:
|
| Ambient backscatter:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_backscatter
|
| Backscatter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter
|
| Passive W-Fi: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_Wi-Fi
|
| LiFi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li-Fi
|
| With ambient backscatter, passive WiFi is already implemented;
| and maybe someday backscatter LiFi could achieve very high
| signal efficiency at low-energy in deep space, too?
|
| .
|
| Could there be deviations from stable patterns in the CMB:
| Cosmic Microwave Background?
|
| Quantum navigation maps such signal sources such that
| inexpensive sensors can achieve something like inertial
| navigation FWIU?
|
| .
|
| "Smaller, more versatile antenna could be a communications
| game-changer" (2022)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37337628 :
|
| > _LightSlingers use volume-distributed polarization currents,
| animated within a dielectric to faster-than-light [FTL] speeds,
| to emit electromagnetic waves. (By contrast, traditional
| antennas employ surface currents of subluminally moving massive
| particles on localized metallic elements such as dipoles.)
| Owing to the superluminal motion of the radiation source,
| LightSlingers are capable of "slinging" tightly focused wave
| packets with high precision toward a location of choice. This
| gives them potential advantages over phased arrays in secure
| communications such as 4G and 5G local networks_
|
| .
|
| /? Curved photon beams:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=curved+photon+beam
|
| .
|
| Newer Waveguide approaches;
|
| - "Experiment demonstrates continuously operating optical fiber
| made of thin air" (2023)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35812168
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408561
|
| - https://phys.org/news/2023-06-trillionths-photon-pairs-
| compr... :
|
| > _The physicists chose the incidence angles and frequencies so
| that the co-propagating electrons, which fly through vacuum at
| half the speed of light, overlap with optical wave crests and
| troughs of exactly the same speed_
|
| .
|
| PROMPT: Read/write nonlocal spacetime with minimal
| perturbations at _safe_ energy levels for high-throughput data
| transmission over astronomical-scale distances
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| For near-earth communications, I don't see why they can not use
| the SpaceX network or similar instead. Tracking these tiny
| CubeSats with only 3 DSN dishes are insane! DSN should really
| work for deep-space missions only.
|
| I believe that NASA recognized the problem and potential
| solutions, but they moved slowly probably due to their clunky
| bureaucracy.
|
| > NASA relies on commercial ground stations for more than half of
| its ground station support for the agency's satellites in low-
| Earth orbit. NASA last year selected SpaceX, Amazon, Viasat,
| Telecast, SES, and Inmarsat to begin developing commercial
| capabilities to replace the government-owned Tracking and Data
| Relay Satellite network, which is used for near-continuous
| connectivity with the International Space Station and other
| satellites closer to Earth.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Those CubeSats _were_ a deep-space mission. Out near the Moon.
|
| The TDRSS is separate from DSN. Expanding low-orbit options
| won't do anything to help here.
| JCharante wrote:
| I didn't realize Cubesats could go that far. That's really
| great.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Cubesats have been out as far as Mars. There were two which
| hitched a ride along Perseverance and deployed prior to
| Mars entry to serve as relays and collect data on the
| entry, descent and landing phases of the mission.
| PaulGaspardo wrote:
| CubeSats have gone all the way to Mars even
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Cube_One
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| Ukraine has been having trouble with the Starlink because Putin
| & Musk are pals. It isn't safe for our country to depend on
| someone that flaky.
| westurner wrote:
| DSN: Deep Space Network:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Deep_Space_Network
| ourmandave wrote:
| Do the good people at the Flat Earth Society have _any_
| response to 'splain this away? =D
| engineer_22 wrote:
| The last time a Flat Earther tried to do science they proved
| the earth was curved. [1]
|
| [1] - Flat-Earther accidentally proves the earth is round in
| his own experiment
| https://youtu.be/GFqmDazwb6Y?si=4umT9XKG6ZCdJWKU
| notRobot wrote:
| You cannot logic someone out of a position they didn't logic
| themselves into.
| westurner wrote:
| The Holographic Principle says that spacetime is 2D.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
|
| (Indeed, though, all of the other rotating bodies in n-body
| gravity fluid spacetime which are visible from here appear to
| have assumed the shape of a sphere probably like ~fixed-point
| attraction; and there's no way to swim to the edge)
| Filligree wrote:
| Not so much that it _is_ 2D, as that there's a mathematical
| transformation you can do that lets you calculate its
| evolution in a 2D space. Which can be useful.
|
| The "is" question is harder to evaluate, but to the degree
| it's a meaningful question I'd say "probably not".
| lisper wrote:
| The DSN is just part of the conspiracy. Those antennas don't
| actually exist. The images are CGI, and the people who claim
| to work there have been brainwashed.
| westurner wrote:
| But how did they write the simulation for the game on all
| of their screens?
| lisper wrote:
| AI technology provided by aliens who are being held
| captive in area 51.
|
| Honestly, don't they teach you kids anything in school
| these days?
| bmitc wrote:
| Flat Earth and other such fringe theories are rarely about
| the thing itself. So explaining why they're wrong will rarely
| help because it doesn't answer the questions or resolve the
| problems that led them there in the first place. The theories
| are basically a symptom for other things, such as
| socioeconomic and psychological dynamics.
| [deleted]
| navels wrote:
| The problem of intergalactic communication is a plot point in
| this fantastic sci-fi novel I am currently reading
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep) cannot
| recommend enough although it doesn't really inform the current
| conversation :-)
| datavirtue wrote:
| Why are we just hearing about this? Should have been trickling
| this out because I can't see the citizens jumping to provide
| funding for this. They are trying to figure out how their
| teenagers can afford food, car, and college while taking care of
| grandma. Sounds like a first world problem and the message to
| struggling citizens has been: make do.
| Ultimatt wrote:
| Why would a teenager bother going to college, if the society
| they live in is decaying and doesn't even maintain capabilities
| it held three generations prior. Especially if the communicated
| focus from their parents is to only ever worry about feeding
| grandma and driving a car.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| _You 're_ just hearing about it because it's now in pop-sci.
|
| _Congress_ has been hearing about it forever. DSN has been a
| constrained resource for a long, long time.
| tetris11 wrote:
| The cynical way I interpret this: "We need private enterprise
| to step in to fill this gap, because the public infrastructure
| is failing".
| excalibur wrote:
| Problems with the DSN? This is bad! Let's launch a bunch of
| CubeSats to fly over the antennae and monitor them for issues!
| eterevsky wrote:
| Aren't missions paying for the usage of DSN? How come a small
| cubesat gets the amount of time on the network comparable to
| JWST?
|
| Could this be commercialized? If there's high demand it should be
| profitable to build new dishes to increase bandwidth.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Yes and no. There are usage cost times for DSN stations [0].
| That link is old and says it is on the order of $1000/hr in
| 2009. Inflation adjusted it would be more, but I think costs
| have actually risen to closer to a $5000/hr. Theoretically each
| of the eight cubesat missions would be paying this cost, so
| that would come out to $500k that each of them would be paying.
| Not a lot for larger space missions, but may be a lot for a
| cubesat mission. However, I doubt that they are all paying for
| this and is was just part of the usage agreement to host their
| mission on Artemis. Some of the cubesats are also NASA
| sponsored so they would just be paying themselves.
|
| It likely is somewhat profitable, but would require a huge
| investment. Some have suggested (can't find the source) that
| the DSN should be charging closer to $35,000/hr to cover costs
| of maintenance and building new dishes to expand the network,
| but NASA themselves can't be a for profit company. So if there
| was someone providing commercial ground services for deep
| space, lets say with commercial efficiency they get services to
| cost $20,000/hr. Great! But why would I do that if I can still
| go to DSN and pay $5000.
|
| But as the article indicates there were probably be a reckoning
| soon because I've already heard people describe scheduling and
| allocation of DSN time at JPL as a battle royale.
|
| https://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/files/6_NASA_MOCS_2014_10_01_...
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I don't think missions are individually billed for DSN time,
| rather DSN time is allocated according to NASA internal
| priorities. Which is a classic resourcing problem in
| bureaucracies.
|
| That also explains the challenge for private investment. If
| none of the missions are budgeted to buy bandwidth, then you
| would have no customers for a private DSN service.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| TL;DR the quantity is killing the quality. There are so many
| small cubesat-style missions that we're actually losing
| communications time with James Webb to keep track of them all.
| And Artemis is going to swamp everything with downlink data
| rates.
|
| I worked at JPL, sometimes with the folks mentioned in this
| article. I suspect this is a money problem, not a technology
| problem. IIRC, everyone knows optical (laser) comms are going to
| carry a lot more load, and the DSN build-out plan already specs
| more ground-stations with smaller radii (better for closer
| tracking) vs larger dishes (better for voyager / juno style
| missions). There's also been commercial support (e.g., Amazon[1])
|
| These folks know how to do it effectively and efficiently (and
| cheaply) just need the resources and permission.
|
| 1. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/amazon-
| launches-a...
| PaulGaspardo wrote:
| The Psyche mission launching in October (to the asteroid of the
| same name) will include a laser-based communication system
| technology demonstration, the first beyond the Moon.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Optical_Communicati...
|
| And here on Earth there's a new DSN antenna currently under
| construction at Goldstone (California) that will be capable of
| handling both radio and optical signals.
|
| https://www.peraton.com/news/meet-dss-23-the-112-foot-wide-a...
|
| So nothing operational yet, but stuff is happening.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| If You think it's bad now, wait until Starship starts dumping
| hundreds of tons of space probes all over.
|
| The obvious solution is more big antennas on Earth and network if
| store-and-forward relays all over the Solar System.
|
| I predict they'll get cheap instead of fixing it.
| palata wrote:
| > The obvious solution is more big antennas on Earth
|
| Or sending less crap in space...
| kaliqt wrote:
| Wellp, at this rate they should just ask SpaceX to do it for Mars
| and piggyback off it for everything else.
| pro-kythera wrote:
| So the DSN has some properties of cooperative multitasking ...
| what could go wrong?
|
| > "When Artemis comes online, everybody else moves out of the
| way, and it's an impact to all the science missions, even the
| flagship science missions," Dodd said.
|
| > What makes CubeSats appealing to NASA and research scientists
| is what makes them unappealing to the Deep Space Network, Dodd
| said. ... "When your DSN is oversubscribed, I don't think it's a
| good use to put throwaway missions on the same set of antennas.
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