Comm and Nav Crosslink Topology Design and Optimization including DSMs
Project Description
As space missions become increasingly complex and distributed in their architecture to achieve their science goals, crosslinks between satellites have become a key need for space communications networks to enable autonomous operations and dynamic connectivity. Crosslinks enable not only higher science return possibilities but also the exchange of navigation and time information across the network for improved position knowledge and synchronization. However, there is currently a lack of a set of unifying standards, protocols, and recommendations optimized for crosslink communications. Through this proposed effort we seek to design and optimize crosslink network topology, by studying the physical, data link, and network layer solutions, needed to support the communications and navigation needs for space missions such as Distributed System Missions.
The goal of our effort is to study the node-to-node comm and navigation interactions and down select the most optimum protocols and procedures for each of the network layers that would meet the needs for missions requiring space autonomy and distributed science processing. To this end, we will develop a distributed constellation network simulation model and conduct trade studies on the physical layer signaling schemes, multiple access, link contention management and dynamic link establishment procedures, PNT distribution methods and network routing architectures. Through the network simulation and analysis, a well-defined crosslink communications architecture and network topology will be developed and recommended for next generation space missions.
More »Anticipated Benefits
As more and more missions adopt multi-hop and distributed spacecraft architectures at lunar/planetary distances, autonomous operation with minimal human intervention and dynamic network access have become critical needs for achieving the mission goals. Crosslink communications can significantly contribute to the improvement of communications network availability and navigation accuracy to meet such mission requirements. Crosslink communications topology design is therefore imperative to develop the network infrastructure for these advanced mission architectures.
As our study specifically aims to optimize crosslink communications and navigation architecture for distributed missions, the network topology that we develop would enable the formulation, integration and demonstration of the comm and nav enabling technologies both at the subsystem level and eventually for flight validation of NASA's future distributed missions. Our effort includes a realistic modeling of the distributed constellation and simulation of link interactions to derive the optimum networking solutions. So, this project would add to NASA's capabilities with a powerful analysis tool for the development of future communications network architectures.
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Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners
| Organizations Performing Work | Role | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
Goddard Space Flight Center
(GSFC)
|
Lead Organization | NASA Center | Greenbelt, Maryland |
Primary U.S. Work Locations
-
Maryland
