Session
Technical Session VIII: University Programs
Abstract
Employing microspacecraft on interplanetary missions entails meeting numerous unresolved technical challenges. One such problem is how to maintain a reliable communications link with the microspacecraft over long distances. When considering the feasibility and costs of several alternatives, it has been shown that a ground station array is an ideal solution to the problem. Simulations and experiments performed at the Space Flight Laboratory of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies have demonstrated that it is possible to create such an array using a group of amateur radio ground stations. When enhanced through the use of several digital signal processing techniques, these commercial-grade ground stations represent a low-cost, robust alternative to the Deep Space Network for terrestrial ground support of future microspacecraft missions or high data rate low-Earth orbit microsatellite missions. These ground stations can also be used to increase the array size of currently existing large dish arrays, such as those used in the DSN, by linking them to groups of small aperture ground stations. Such an increase in array size would yield an array that is better able tolerate antenna outages, equipped to decode noisier spacecraft transmissions, and has a longer baseline to facilitate the determination of spacecraft ranging information.
Presentation Slides
Low-Cost Ground Station Antenna Arrays for Microspacecraft Mission Support
Employing microspacecraft on interplanetary missions entails meeting numerous unresolved technical challenges. One such problem is how to maintain a reliable communications link with the microspacecraft over long distances. When considering the feasibility and costs of several alternatives, it has been shown that a ground station array is an ideal solution to the problem. Simulations and experiments performed at the Space Flight Laboratory of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies have demonstrated that it is possible to create such an array using a group of amateur radio ground stations. When enhanced through the use of several digital signal processing techniques, these commercial-grade ground stations represent a low-cost, robust alternative to the Deep Space Network for terrestrial ground support of future microspacecraft missions or high data rate low-Earth orbit microsatellite missions. These ground stations can also be used to increase the array size of currently existing large dish arrays, such as those used in the DSN, by linking them to groups of small aperture ground stations. Such an increase in array size would yield an array that is better able tolerate antenna outages, equipped to decode noisier spacecraft transmissions, and has a longer baseline to facilitate the determination of spacecraft ranging information.
