A document discusses the physical and engineering principles affecting the design of the Smart Data Node in the Sky (SDNITS) — a proposed Earthorbiting satellite for relaying scientific data from other Earth-orbiting satellites to one or more ground station(s). The basic concept of the SDNITS is similar to that of NASA’s Tracking Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). However, the SDNITS would satisfy the needs of the next generation of Earth-observing satellite missions, including, notably, the need to relay data at much higher rates — of the order of 10 Gb/s versus 400 Mb/s for the TDRSS.

The document characterizes the problem of designing the telecommunication architecture of the SDNITS as consisting of two main parts: (1) finding the most advantageous orbit for the SDNITS to gather data from the scientific satellites and relay the data to the ground, taking account of such factors as visibility and range; and (2) choosing a telecommunication architecture appropriate for the intended relay function. The design of the SDNITS would incorporate technological advances — especially in the field of high-rate data transmission — that have occurred during the three decades since the TDRSS was designed.

This work was done by Faiza Lansing and Anil Kantak of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, download the Technical Support Package (free white paper) at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Electronics/Computers category. NPO-30904



This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).
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Smart Data Node in the Sky

(reference NPO-30904) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

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