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NASA Team Develops New Ka-band Communications System to Break Through the Noise

posted by janrinok on Thursday February 19 2015, @07:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the shut-up-I'm-trying-to-talk dept.

AnonTechie writes:

The radio frequency band that many NASA missions use to communicate with spacecraft — S-band — is getting a bit crowded and noisy, and likely to get more [congested] as science missions demand higher and higher data rates.

A team of NASA technologists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, just may have a solution, particularly for potential missions that plan to operate in low-Earth orbit and have limited real estate to accommodate communications gear.

Under two different research and development projects, technologists Mae Huang and Victor Marrero-Fontanez have collaborated to test and verify components of a prototype end-to-end Ka-band space communications system, which promises significantly higher data rates — a whopping 2.4 gigabits of data per second (Gbps) — over more traditional S-band systems, which theoretically could achieve data rates of 90 megabits of data per second (Mbps).

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/nsfc-ntd021715.php

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by cmn32480 on Thursday February 19 2015, @07:58PM

    by cmn32480 (443) <reversethis-{moc.liamg} {ta} {08423nmc}> on Thursday February 19 2015, @07:58PM (#147090) Journal

    According to the Rain Attenuation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade/ [wikipedia.org]) wikipedia article linked to the the KaBand artilce linked to in the summary, upping the transmit power should overcome the rain attenuation.

    Meteor showers... well that is a whole different ball game.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JeanCroix on Thursday February 19 2015, @09:20PM

    by JeanCroix (573) on Thursday February 19 2015, @09:20PM (#147119)
    Upping the power is fine for transmitting from earth to orbit, but going the other way, maybe not so great. As I understand it, power tends to come at a premium in space.

    • (Score: 1) by hopp on Friday February 20 2015, @02:00AM

      by hopp (2833) on Friday February 20 2015, @02:00AM (#147233)

      If the attenuation is at the far end of the path it has a lower bearing on overall attenuation.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @09:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @09:29PM (#147125)

    On a product I used to write software for we used Ka band for data. The truck drivers would say 'ill just put a bucket over it'. We would tell them 'only if you do not mind never having children and probably cancer'. :) And yes it worked pretty good in the rain. Not so much with an inch of plastic/metal/fiberglass in the way...