NASA's Artemis I mission is making its way to the
Moon starting a new era of lunar exploration. Using communications
and navigation services from the Near Space Network based at
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Deep Space
Network based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the
Artemis I mission will be able to communicate critical tracking
telemetry and science data to Earth. Services from both
networks are integrated at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The INCO console is tasked with managing the communication
systems on Orion, making sure that we can send commands to the
spacecraft to tell it what to do, receive telemetry and data back
from it, receive video and pictures from it.
The Orion spacecraft is launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in
Florida aboard the Space Launch System rocket known as SLS. Close
to Earth it will receive communications and tracking
support from the Near Space Network, a global system of
ground antennas and satellites that provide either direct to Earth
communications or relay communications.
The NSN or the Near Space Network is an integrated network
that provides RF radio frequency and terrestrial communications
to both NASA and non-NASA spaceflight missions. They
support human spaceflight missions, like Artemis, but they
also support the launch vehicles like the Atlas 5 and Delta 4.
From a communications perspective, the early phases of
mission pre-launch and launch in early orbit are going to be
covered by a new communication system ground station called
Launch Communication Segment, or LCS. Once SLS has jettison the
vehicles will transition over to TDRS communications. Orion
itself will remain on TDRS for roughly two and a half hours
into the flight or after that transition handover to the DSN
or the Deep Space Network.
The Deep Space Network consists of three global antennas that
can communicate with spacecraft far into the galaxy. The network
will serve as Artemis I's primary communication support as
the spacecraft orbits the Moon, similar to its role in the
Apollo days. The Deep
Space Network antennas were used during the Apollo program to
tracks the missions, the Apollo missions, has they left near
space, which is about the geosynchronous orbit, around
25.000 kilometers above us and moved on to the Moon and then in
orbit around the Moon. But we would help the Apollo spacecraft
do navigation we do communications to and from the
earth to the spacecraft, which included the videos that you see
of the astronauts on the Moon. The Deep Space Network it exists
today it can support missions at the Moon it will continue to
support Artemis II, Artemis III, with the first astronauts
returning to the Moon.
The Near Space Network and the Deep Space Network have a
storied legacy of supporting Moon bound missions. To this
day, space communications and navigation are central to
communicating and tracking all missions from near-Earth to as
far as interstellar space. Now as Artemis I journeys to the
Moon, NASA sets its sights on the future of exploration,
bringing the next humans to the lunar surface and eventually to Mars.