International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / This paper describes the new Telemetry Processor Hardware (TPH) that Avtec Systems has developed for the Deep Space Network (DSN) Telemetry Processor (TLP) system. Avtec is providing the Telemetry Processor Hardware to RTLogic! for integration into the Telemetry Processor system. The Deep Space Network (DSN) is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions for exploration of the solar system and the universe. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the DSN for NASA. The TLP system provides the capability to acquire, process, decode and distribute deep space probe and Earth orbiter telemetry data. The new TLP systems will be deployed at each of the three deep-space communications facilities placed approximately 120 degrees apart around the world: at Goldstone, California; near Madrid, Spain; and near Canberra, Australia. The Telemetry Processor Hardware (TPH) supports both CCSDS and TDM telemetry data formats. The TPH performs the following processing steps: soft-symbol input selection and measurement; convolutional decoding; routing to external decoders; time tagging; frame synchronization; derandomization; and Reed-Solomon decoding. The TPH consists of a VME Viterbi Decoder/MCD III Interface board (VM-7001) and a PCI-mezzanine Frame Synchronizer/Reed-Solomon Decoder (PMC- 6130-J) board. The new Telemetry Processor Hardware is implemented using the latest Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology to provide the density and speed to meet the current requirements as well as the flexibility to accommodate processing enhancements in the future.

A visualization of the NASA Deep Space Network activity. Implemented in an interactive 3D environment. A thesis work by students from the Media technology and engineering program at Linköping University.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP) has a scheduled launch date between mid- 1999 and mid-2000, and will encounter a yet to be determined near Earth asteroid (1.1 - 2.2 AU distance from Earth) some ten months later [2]. The purpose of this mission is not only to collect valuable scientific and geological data, but to also determine the value of the asteroid’s materials for possible mining and exploitation [2], [3]. The purpose of this paper is to detail frequency allocation issues and to determine possible return (space to Earth) data rates associated with deep space communications with the NEAP spacecraft.