Terrestrial Portable Spacecraft-Mission-Support Stations

A data-communication and -processing network of compact, laptop-computer-based portable stations communicating via the World Wide Web (WWW) has been proposed as a relatively inexpensive end-to-end ground support system for future spacecraft missions. At present, end-to-end ground support functions (receiving, tracking, telemetry, command, monitoring, and control) are distributed among several subsystems in rack-mounted chassis (see figure). Many of these subsystems have outdated designs that entail high reproduction, maintenance, and operational (labor) costs. The costs are even higher than they might otherwise be because some functions are duplicated by two independent systems at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory: the Deep Space Communications Complex (DSCC) and the Advanced Multi-Mission Operation System (AMMOS). The AMMOS is an intermediate product of evolution toward the proposed system and is not an end-to-end system; in the AMMOS, some telemetric and interfacial functions are implemented in software on a laptop computer, at data rates that are too low for typical spacecraft missions.