Exploration and utilization of asteroids as interplanetary communication relays

There are more than 17,000 asteroids found near Earth and nearly 2 million asteroids estimated in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. Asteroid come in diverse forms, some may hold valuable resources such as water, carbon and rare metals that may one day supply a spacefaring civilization. However, asteroids maybe also valuable as relay stations for a permanent high-speed, high-bandwidth interplanetary communication network. Asteroids are typically pock-marked with craters and grooves. Pristine craters resemble a parabolic communication antenna, but without the reflective coating or a receiver/transmitter at the focus. In this work, we evaluate two scenarios, the preliminary feasibility of setting up such a radio antenna on the Martian moon Phobos and Deimos (thought to be captured asteroids) that would act as a communication relay between the Martian system and Earth. Phobos is closer to Mars and is tidally locked. This would require two craters converted to antennas, one perpetually pointing at Mars, another pointing at Earth and a local interconnection between the two. Alternately, the relay on Deimos would need just a single crater relay station. We will then compare this communication relay to the current state-of-the-art, namely the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The proposed communication antennas would be achieved by landing a swarm of CubeSats onto a crater to form the parabolic reflector. Each CubeSat has a mass of 4 kg and a volume of 3U or 3400 cc with one side forming the surface of the reflector. These CubeSats would hop, roll and fly into the crater and distribute themselves to cover maximum surface area. Each CubeSat has deployable reflectors to fill the gap between adjacent neighbors. A parabolic reflector would be able to reflect radio waves with a gap of one-tenth of the wavelength. A large 12U CubeSat would be positioned at the crater center and extend a deployable tower with a feed antenna to the focus. To achieve the current data rate of MRO, which is 4 Mbps, the power needs of a pair of 20 m(2) aperture antennas on Phobos and the interlink will be evaluated. For Deimos, a single 20 m(2) antenna will be considered. In both cases, the intent is to have an antenna gain of 50 dBi per crater. The analysis will also be extended to a 200 m(2) aperture antenna that can provide a data rate of 40 Mbps and antenna gain of 60 dBi per crater. Our approach to the mission design exploits machine learning to perform formulation, design, planning and operations. The results from these preliminary mission design studies will be used to identify a pathway towards detailed design and field studies in a simulated environment.This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

An Experimental Platform for Multi-spacecraft Phase-Array Communications

The emergence of small satellites and CubeSats for interplanetary exploration will mean hundreds if not thousands of spacecraft exploring every corner of the solar-system. Current methods for communication and tracking of deep space probes use ground based systems such as the Deep Space Network (DSN). However, the increased communication demand will require radically new methods to ease communication congestion. Networks of communication relay satellites located at strategic locations such as geostationary orbit and Lagrange points are potential solutions. Instead of one large communication relay satellite, we could have scores of small satellites that utilize phase arrays to effectively operate as one large satellite. Excess payload capacity on rockets can be used to warehouse more small satellites in the communication network. The advantage of this network is that even if one or a few of the satellites are damaged or destroyed, the network still operates but with degraded performance. The satellite network would operate in a distributed architecture and some satellites maybe dynamically repurposed to split and communicate with multiple targets at once. The potential for this alternate communication architecture is significant, but this requires development of satellite formation flying and networking technologies. Our research has found neural-network control approaches such as the Artificial Neural Tissue can be effectively used to control multirobot/multi-spacecraft systems and can produce human competitive controllers. We have been developing a laboratory experiment platform called Athena to develop critical spacecraft control algorithms and cognitive communication methods. We briefly report on the development of the platform and our plans to gain insight into communication phase arrays for space.Comment: 4 pages, 10 figures, IEEE Cognitive Communications for Aerospace Applications Worksho

On-Orbit Demonstration of the Space Weather and Meteor Impact Monitoring Network

Incidents like the Chelyabinsk meteor airburst in 2013 show the potential dangers of a meteor impact on modern human civilization. However, not much is known about meteor impacts, including frequency of high impact bursts, typical size and composition. We propose the development of a Space Weather and Meteor Impact Monitoring Network (SWIMNet). SWIMNet will be composed of two observer CubeSats located in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to autonomously detect and track meteor trails in the Earth’s atmosphere. A third CubeSat will contain a 2 kg meteorite that will be deployed on an Earth reentry trajectory. The observer satellites, combined with ground telescopes will track this artificial reentry event and be used to validate the autonomous detection and tracking algorithms. Beyond this demonstration, the observer satellites will operate in Earth orbit for up to 1 year and detect natural meteor trails. The proposed mission utilizes off-the-shelf CubeSat technology and points towards a feasible pathway for further development