Design of a Three Marstationary Satellites Constellation to support a Mars-Earth Interplanetary Internet and future missions on the Red Planet.
- Paper number
IAC-05-B3.P.01
- Author
Mr. Marco Giuliani, Italy
- Year
2005
- Abstract
Many studies have been written about the Interplanetary Internet project, which objective is to permit interoperation of the Internet resident on Earth with other remotely located internets resident on other planets or spacecraft in transit.The speed-of-light delays , intermittent and unidirectional connectivity, and error rates characteristic of deep-space communication make many elements of the current terrestrial Internet suite of protocols unfeasible across deep-space distances so new techniques must be developed, and new suite of protocols must be tested in the space enviroment to provide well-engineered standardized solutions for common space data handling needs.All interplanetary data trasmission will be wireless,and connections between traffic hubs could be interrupted when planetary rotation or orbital motion takes a transmitting entity out of line-of-sight to the receiving entity.Therefore a Mars network of multiple orbiting relay satellites is necessary to enable connectivity between Earth and Mars much of the time.A successful program of Mars exploration will need a high capacity space communications infrastructure able to support automated communications over the vast distances, heterogeneous and stressed environments that make up the Earth-Mars communications system.This would be a deep space infrastructure to support the communications needs of multiple future missions towards and on the Red Planet, and also a first segment of an Interplanetary Internet throughout the Solar System.Since communications performance decreases as the square of the distance, robotic probes at Mars require significant power,antenna size and associated mass so that a relay communication system could alleviate the burden of such requirements.The goals of the marstationary satellite constellation are to provide interoperability among the many space agencies interested in mars exploration, to meet those missions needs to avoid the cost of developing their own communications systems and minimize additional asset investments, and also to feed an intense interest by the general public to participate in the excitement of exploration, cause large quantities of data must be acquired during missions and processed via the Web.The project will be part of a scenario of deep space backbones network of long-haul wireless links interconnecting local internets;it will help solving the problem that the hubs of the future interplanetary net such as relay spacecraft or gateways into remote local Internets are all moving with respect to each other:planets travel in fixed orbits and sometimes bodies like the Sun cause line of sight occultations , or landed vehicles on remote planetary surfaces will move out of sight of Earth as the body rotates, and may have to communicate through local relay satellites that only provide data transmission contacts for a few minutes at a time.Mars exploration offers a unique communications opportunity because of the presence of multiple orbiting spacecraft that can act as communications relays.In the future this will allow humans to participate in real-time telerobotics on the Martian surface and by virtual reality immersion systems.The proposed constellation will be made up of three Mars Areostationary Relay Satellites aka MARSats like the geostationary communications satellites in Earth orbit; these satellites will be kept continously in view of and in contact with the same hemisphere of Mars;they would provide an increase in connectivity and data rate , upgrading the Microsat system already designed by NASA researchers. MARSat’s mass ranges between 800 and 1000 kg and and the satellite will orbit in a 17000 km circular orbit with a period of one sol ( the Martian day ).One satellite will occupy each of three orbital planes .
- Abstract document