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Relay Support for the Mars Science Laboratory MissionThe Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission landed the Curiosity Rover on the surface of Mars on August 6, 2012, beginning a one-Martian-year primary science mission. An international network of Mars relay orbiters, including NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey Orbiter (ODY) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and ESA's Mars Express Orbiter (MEX), were positioned to provide critical event coverage of MSL's Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL). The EDL communication plan took advantage of unique and complementary capabilities of each orbiter to provide robust information capture during this critical event while also providing low-latency information during the landing. Once on the surface, ODY and MRO have provided effectively all of Curiosity's data return from the Martian surface. The link from Curiosity to MRO incorporates a number of new features enabled by the Electra and Electra-Lite software-defined radios on MRO and Curiosity, respectively. Specifically, the Curiosity-MRO link has for the first time on Mars relay links utilized frequency-agile operations, data rates up to 2.048 Mb/s, suppressed carrier modulation, and a new Adaptive Data Rate algorithm in which the return link data rate is optimally varied throughout the relay pass based on the actual observed link channel characteristics. In addition to the baseline surface relay support by ODY and MRO, the MEX relay service has been verified in several successful surface relay passes, and MEX now stands ready to provide backup relay support should NASA's orbiters become unavailable for some period of time.
Document ID
20150008727
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Edwards, Charles D. Jr,
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Bell, David J.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Gladden, Roy E.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Ilott, Peter A.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Jedrey, Thomas C.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Johnston, M. Daniel
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Maxwell, Jennifer L.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Mendoza, Ricardo
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
McSmith, Gaylon W.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Potts, Christopher L.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Schratz, Brian C.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Shihabi, Mazen M.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Srinivasan, Jeffrey M.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Varghese, Phillip
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Sanders, Stephen S.
(Lockheed Martin Astronautics Denver, CO, United States)
Denis, Michel
(European Space Agency. European Space Operations Center Darmstadt, Germany)
Date Acquired
May 21, 2015
Publication Date
March 2, 2013
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Space Communications, Spacecraft Communications, Command And Tracking
Meeting Information
Meeting: IEEE Aerospace Conference
Location: Big Sky, MT
Country: United States
Start Date: March 2, 2013
End Date: March 9, 2013
Sponsors: Prognostics and Health Management Society (PHM), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
Telecommunications
MSL
Curiosity

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