Topic: communications

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announces Federal Support Granted for Nashville Following Christmas Day Bombing

January 7, 2021 |

Nashville, TN – Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will provide direct assistance to Metro Nashville-Davidson County under the federal Public Assistance program for the emergency response to the Christmas day bombing in Downtown Nashville.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee

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NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft studies Mars’ Atmosphere for causes of unpredictable Radio Communications disruptions

February 4, 2020 |

Greenbelt, MD – NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft has discovered “layers” and “rifts” in the electrically charged part of the upper atmosphere (the ionosphere) of Mars. The phenomenon is very common at Earth and causes unpredictable disruptions to radio communications.

However, we do not fully understand them because they form at altitudes that are very difficult to explore at Earth. The unexpected discovery by MAVEN shows that Mars is a unique laboratory to explore and better understand this highly disruptive phenomenon.

Graphic illustrating radio signals from a remote station (bent purple line) interfering with a local station (black tower) after being reflected off a plasma layer in the ionosphere. (NASA Goddard/CI lab)

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NASA examines problems Astronauts on Mars could face talking with experts back on Earth

January 1, 2020 |

Mountain View, CA – NASA’s BASALT project finds that science experts on this planet will be able to guide astronauts’ scientific exploration on Mars while it’s happening, despite a sometimes 40-minute round-trip lag in communications with Earth. But the devil’s in the details – and there are a lot of them.

A scene that first played out on the Moon in 1972 happened again, years later, in Hawaii. While exploring the lunar surface, Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist Harrison Schmitt spotted some bright orange soil – an important clue about the Moon’s volcanic history. You can hear the excitement in his voice in recordings, but mission control in Houston couldn’t see what was so remarkable in the video beamed back to Earth.

Two BASALT project researchers take on the role of astronauts exploring Mars to collect scientific samples, during a simulated human space mission in 2016. Conducted on Hawaii’s volcanic terrain, which bears similarities to landscapes on Mars, this research is designing and developing elements of future missions. (NASA)

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NASA’s twin E-TBEx CubeSats to study how signals get disrupted in Earth’s Ionosphere

June 11, 2019 |

Greenbelt, MD – In June 2019, the NASA twin E-TBEx CubeSats — short for Enhanced Tandem Beacon Experiment — are scheduled to launch aboard the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program-2 launch.

The launch includes a total of 24 satellites from government and research institutions.

They will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This visualization shows the relative density of certain particles in Earth’s ionosphere. The E-TBEx CubeSats will explore how signals from satellites to Earth can be disrupted as they pass through this region. (NASA)

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NASA’s Psyche Mission utilizes Photons to increase Space Communications Performance and Efficiency

October 19, 2017 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – A spacecraft destined to explore a unique asteroid will also test new communication hardware that uses lasers instead of radio waves.

The Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) package aboard NASA’s Psyche mission utilizes photons — the fundamental particle of visible light — to transmit more data in a given amount of time. The DSOC goal is to increase spacecraft communications performance and efficiency by 10 to 100 times over conventional means, all without increasing the mission burden in mass, volume, power and/or spectrum.

Artist’s concept of the Psyche spacecraft, which will conduct a direct exploration of an asteroid thought to be a stripped planetary core. (SSL/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Van Allen Probes celebrates 5 years of studying Van Allen Radiation Belts

September 4, 2017 |

Written by Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – Most satellites, not designed to withstand high levels of particle radiation, wouldn’t last a day in the Van Allen Radiation belts. Trapped by Earth’s magnetic field into two giant belts around the planet, high-energy particles in the region can batter the spacecraft and even interfere with onboard electronics.

But NASA’s Van Allen Probes have been traveling through this hazardous area since August 30th 2012 – they are now celebrating their fifth year in space studying this dynamic region.

The two Van Allen Probes work as a team, following one behind the other to uniquely observe changes in the belts. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/JHUAPL)

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NASA reports Limited Communications between Earth and Mars due to Sun this month

July 16, 2017 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – This month, movements of the planets will put Mars almost directly behind the sun, from Earth’s perspective, causing curtailed communications between Earth and Mars.

NASA will refrain from sending commands to America’s three Mars orbiters and two Mars rovers during the period from July 22nd to August 1st, 2017.

“Out of caution, we won’t talk to our Mars assets during that period because we expect significant degradation in the communication link, and we don’t want to take a chance that one of our spacecraft would act on a corrupted command,” said Chad Edwards, manager of the Mars Relay Network Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

This diagram illustrates the positions of Mars, Earth and the sun during a period that occurs approximately every 26 months, when Mars passes almost directly behind the sun from Earth’s perspective. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA looks at the Super Bowl – 5 Things Football has in Common with Space

February 4, 2017 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – As Super Bowl LI in Houston Texas approaches and players, coaches and a host of personnel behind the scenes prepare for the big game in Space City, NASA remains on the cutting edge of human space exploration, setting its sights on the journey to Mars.

A football player’s journey to the end zone, though, has a lot more in common to space exploration than one might think.

Here are five similarities.

Five Things Space and Football Have in Common

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NASA designs Compact Antenna for CubeSat Missions

November 9, 2016 |

Written by Andrew Good
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Black magic.

That’s what radiofrequency engineers call the mysterious forces guiding communications over the air. These forces involve complex physics and are difficult enough to master on Earth. They only get more baffling when you’re beaming signals into space.

Until now, the shape of choice for casting this “magic” has been the parabolic dish. The bigger the antenna dish, the better it is at “catching” or transmitting signals from far away.

RainCube, due to fly in 2017, forced JPL’s engineers to get creative in order to squeeze an antenna into a CubeSat. (Tyvak/Jonathan Sauder/NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA Mission Operations works to Reestablish Communications with it’s STEREO-B Spacecraft

December 13, 2015 |

Written by Sarah Frazier
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – On October 1st, 2014, NASA mission operations lost communication with one of the two spacecraft of the Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, mission, just as the spacecraft was about to orbit around the other side of the sun.

Though they haven’t heard from the Behind spacecraft, also known as STEREO-B, in over a year, the spacecraft has finally emerged into a region where it can once again receive radio signals. Scientists have a plan to get it back—and their chances only get better with time.

NASA lost communications with it’s STEREO-B Spacecraft on October 1st, 2014 as it began to orbit the other side of the sun. It has now emerged from behind the sun and NASA mission operations hopes that communications cab be reestablish with the spacecraft. (NASA)

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