GAO: The DSN is actually falling apart Options

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-445

[Guest_Analyst_*]

No Reply yet, although without the DSN no planetary exploration (unmanned or manned) can happen. The DSN is part of the invisible infrastructure we simply need before we start thinking about actual missions (like (E)ELVs, launch sites etc). It's very sad this essential networt is not in an optimal shape. A lot of missions with high data rates will stress the DSN and there is still only talk (and no money) about arraying a lot of small antennas (9m to 12m each) or optical communication. The DSN is the bottleneck. Part of the problem is no single mission pays for it, it's fixed costs nobody wants to pay but everybody uses the services. The situation also reminds me of the Apollo age infrastructure at KSC (VAB, pads etc.): 40 years and still useable, but how long?

Analyst

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

Things will not spontaneously become better.

DSN is based on a set of large antenna all around the world, so that a given source (for instance the MERs on Mars) can be received 24/24 hours.

In more of the quoted problem, a critical failure can occur, like the loss of one of the antenna (crashing down, like it aleady happened to a large dish, or a political setback in a country). I am afraid that for some timezones there is no redundancy, and the loss of only one antenna would create a blind zone, unability to receive certain sources at certain hours.

Anyway the only way to increase both safety and capacity of such a network is to increase the number of antennas all around the world. (whatever it is with few large antennas or many small ones)


With my opinion, such a unvaluable resource should become international and be managed by the UN. But the US government is known not to agree with such options, see with the ICANN. So international funding should come into the network, into the form of new antennas in new places, the whole thing managed like an economical association, and technically by a centralized unifom authority.