| Cluster Inter-Spacecraft Communications |
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| NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory | |
| Jun 01 2008 | |
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advertisement: A document describes a radio communication system being developed for exchanging data and sharing data-processing capabilities among spacecraft flying in formation. The system would establish a high-speed, low- latency, deterministic loop communication path connecting all the spacecraft in a cluster. The system would be a wireless version of a ring bus that complies with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard 1393 (which pertains to a spaceborne fiber-optic data bus enhancement to the IEEE standard developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Every spacecraft in the cluster would be equipped with a ring-bus radio transceiver. The identity of a spacecraft would be established upon connection into the ring bus, and the spacecraft could be at any location in the ring communication sequence. In the event of failure of a spacecraft, the ring bus would reconfigure itself, bypassing a failed spacecraft. Similarly, the ring bus would reconfigure itself to accommodate a spacecraft newly added to the cluster or newly enabled or re-enabled. Thus, the ring bus would be scalable and robust. Reliability could be increased by launching, into the cluster, spare spacecraft to be activated in the event of failure of other spacecraft. This work was done by Brian Cox of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In accordance with Public Law 96-517, the contractor has elected to retain title to this invention. Inquiries concerning rights for its commercial use should be addressed to: Innovative Technology Assets Management Refer to NPO-45379, volume and number of this NASA Tech Briefs issue, and the page number. This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).
Cluster Inter-Spacecraft Communications (reference NPO-45379) is currently available for download from the TSP library. Login first to download.
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