Communications Strategies, How can the Deep-Space Network be improved on? Options

[Greg Hullender]

Given the recent news that Cassini will lose some data during the Phoenix landing due to contention for DNS access:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ic=4831&hl=

It seemed reasonable to create a topic to discuss where the DNS might be going.

Jasedm suggested a relay station at the Earth-Sun L2 point, which I think might be discussing (despite the expense) assuming the relay station could use laser communication with space probes, while beaming data to Earth via microwaves.

I know that experiments with laser communications were part of the now-abandoned Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, and I know that there was even a recent laser experiment involving Mercury Messenger.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/060104_laser_comm.html

These seem intended to support laser communications with ground-based receivers, though -- something that seems much too risky if remote space probes can't store days of data allowing for multiple retries.

Obviously a relay station would have its own risks -- you'd probably need two for redundancy -- and it'd be fabulously expensive, but it might also include quite a few savings as well. I've looked for figures for what the DSN costs to run, but I haven't found them yet. Not sure how large a part of a given mission (if any) is charged to the DSN, but it seems to me that a relay satellite ought to be a good bit cheaper to operate, and for far higher bandwidth.

Also, a laser transmitter ought to be lighter and consume less power than an equivalent microwave transmitter. That alone could result in huge savings for outer-system missions.

The only time I saw a serious proposal for a laser-to-satellite communications system was in a description of options for the "Grand Tour" that later became Voyager. (Assuming that counts as serious.) :-) With DSN needing more and more maintenance, I wonder if anyone is seriously considering laser for the future.

--Greg