NASA is bracing for a flood of radio signals as more than 25 spacecraft exploring the solar system all phone home. And with Japan, Europe and the United States all launching probes to Mars and other destinations, the stress on the web of antennas tuned to space will only increase, scientists say. The crunch time will be during late 2003 and early 2004, when many of the missions reach crucial points in their journeys, according to NASA.
June 13th, 2001
NASA’s Deep Space Network Extends its Reach
For worldwide webaholics a glitch-free, fast and powerful computer along with unlimited speed and access to the Internet is a dream come true. You can reach anything and anyone with the right amount of bandwidth and the correct software. Fast communication has never been easier. In space, however, no one can hear you Instant Messaging. For the computer console jockeys that monitor humanity
June 6th, 2001
The Deep Space Network
NASA’s traffic control system for interplanetary spacecraft is bracing for a flurry of activity in deep space. “We’re getting ready for a crunch period beginning in November 2003,” said Rich Miller, head of planning and commitments at JPL. That’s when the U.S., Europe and Japan all will have missions arriving at Mars. These include NASA’s 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers, the ESA Mars Express Mission, and the Japanese Nozomi spacecraft. And, of course, other ongoing missions will have continuing communications needs.
June 3rd, 2001
How long till you can send e-mail to Mars?
To reach colonists on Mars, you might attach “mars.sol” to the e-mail address. For retrieving images from one of Jupiter’s moons, a file transfer from a “europa.sol” site might be in order. The space missions making that possible may be years or lifetimes away, but initial steps toward extending the Internet’s reach are already in the works. The first component, a short-range transceiver, hitched a ride on the Mars Odyssey, which was launched in April and is due to reach the Red Planet in October.
May 24th, 2001
You’ve got mail–from Mars! ZDNet News
Described as a “work in progress,” the proposal to the Internet Engineering Task Force–the group that sets standards for the Net–calls for terrestrial testing of interplanetary Internet protocols later this year, with a live test onboard the NASA Mars mission in 2003. “What we are fundamentally about is deploying as much re-usable, standardized communications infrastructure as we can afford around the solar system, so that future missions don’t have to take it all along with them,” said Adrian J. Hooke, manager of the DARPA InterPlaNetary Internet (IPN) Project and co-author of the proposal. “They can use capabilities put in place by other missions.”
May 10th, 2001
Deep Space Network Upgrading For Planetary Jam
Preparing for the communication needs of an expected population boom in interplanetary spacecraft, NASA has selected a builder to add an advanced dish antenna, 34 meters in diameter (112 feet), near Madrid, Spain, one of the three sites of the agency’s Deep Space Network. The Deep Space Network is a global system for communicating with interplanetary spacecraft.
February 28th, 2001
Interview: Building the interplanetary Internet
Mars, with its wind-sculpted surface and possibilities of ancient life, has always held deep fascination for humans. Ever since the first Viking spacecraft landed there a quarter century ago and sent back the first pictures of the martian landscape, that fascination has only deepened. In 1997 the Mars Pathfinder became the latest visitor to land there successfully, enchanting the public at home with a series of visually stunning panoramic shots that have whetted the appetite for future and more extensive exploration of the red planet. What the public didn’t know was just how difficult those shots were to engineer and to get back to Earth. The Pathfinder could send data at an average of only 30 megabits a day, meaning one panorama could take many days to relay.
December 4th, 2000
Deep Space Network Faces Major Crunch
The worldwide array of antennas NASA uses to communicate with its interplanetary spacecraft faces a looming crisis in late 2003, when nearly a dozen different missions will require as much as three times the network support the giant dishes can handle.
November 16th, 2000
‘Beanie Baby’ Satellites to Ride Russian Rockets
One Stop Satellite Solutions (OSSS) is hoping to do for space access what Henry Ford did for the automobile — make it cheap enough for average folks. Combining a 4-inch (10-centimeter) “CubeSat” developed by the University of Stanford, and a horde of demilitarized Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launchers, OSSS can launch your 2.2-pound (1-kilogram) payload for about $45,000. To make sure the CubeSats don’t stay up indefinitely, they would normally only be launched up to about 125 miles (200 kilometers). But if they’re launched to a higher orbit, boosting a small payload to the Moon or even Mars is relatively easy, Twiggs said. “If you want to put something around Mars, this can do it affordably,” he added.
November 13th, 2000
How an Interplanetary Internet Will Work HowStuffWorks.com
You can talk to almost anyone, in any corner of the world, almost instantly because of the Internet and other advances in electronic communication. Scientists and space explorers now are looking for a way to communicate almost instantly beyond Earth. The next phase of the Internet will take us to far reaches of our solar system, and lay the groundwork for a communications system for a manned missions to Mars and planets beyond.