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Does China have an equivalent to NASA's Deep Space Network tracking stations? By deploying large antennae in the US, Spain, and Australia, the US was able to ma

Does China have an equivalent to NASA's Deep Space Network tracking stations? By deploying large antennae in the US, Spain, and Australia, the US was able to maintain 24/7 contact with the space missions. Granted, this isn't a manned mission but I'd still think that they'd want to have continuous comms to their lander.

ptero 8y ago
There is little value in the continuous comms to the unmanned missions. You generally want good tracking during maneuvers (which is where things go wrong), but outside of those motion is highly predictable. And the comms to the unmanned missions are mostly for forensics (outside of active science or other active payload functions) -- if a problem arises that the automation on board cannot solve it is highly unlikely that a difference between real-time and an hour later warning would matter.
- Rooster61 8y ago
  I'd agree with you for anything outside the Earth's SoI, but the Moon is somewhat unique in that we DO have the ability to try to correct things in near-real time. It's one thing to have to wait 16 minutes to grab telemetry and issue commands to something on Mars, but having only a few seconds lag seems like something mission designers/operators would take full advantage of. The idea of actively controlling a rover rather than having it perform pre-programmed routines seems highly desirable.
  - ptero 8y ago
    > The idea of actively controlling a rover rather than having it perform pre-programmed routines seems highly desirable. Rover, probably (which I considered payload functions). For delivery vehicle during passive parts of the trajectory the value is doubtful. Plus, the standard way of getting a ground station outside a country's land footprint is to put one on a ship. That's what Soviet Union did and I suspect this is what China is doing now.
    - Rooster61 8y ago
      > Plus, the standard way of getting a ground station outside a country's land footprint is to put one on a ship. Never heard of a ship based ground station, and that's saying something as I'm in the industry. How does that work? I'd imagine the antenna would need to be on a massive gimbal, yeah?
      - genera1 8y ago
        From the top of my head there is Soviet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmonavt_Yuriy_Gagarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmonavt_Yuriy_Gagarin In principle this isn't that different from ships designed to track ICBMs, and I've seen designs both with spinning parabolic radar antennas in radomes and regular antennas on gimbals. In fact many of those tracking ships were used in space programmes, but I'm not certain, whether just for one way telemetry or two-way comms
peter303 8y ago
There was a television story about Chinas DSN station in Argentina. I think it was 60 Minutes, but could not find the link. The story alleged China could be spyingof world satellites with these radio dishes. The locals are of mixed opinion. They like the economic infusion from China but fearful they could get more pushy. The Chinese workers mostly keep to themselves, but there is a grocery store and new restaurants for them. My guess is that they would need a third location for unbroken 360 degree coverage. I would gues somewhere in Africa would do it. They have lots of development projects ther.

ptero 8y ago

There is little value in the continuous comms to the unmanned missions. You generally want good tracking during maneuvers (which is where things go wrong), but outside of those motion is highly predictable. And the comms to the unmanned missions are mostly for forensics (outside of active science or other active payload functions) -- if a problem arises that the automation on board cannot solve it is highly unlikely that a difference between real-time and an hour later warning would matter.

Rooster61 8y ago
I'd agree with you for anything outside the Earth's SoI, but the Moon is somewhat unique in that we DO have the ability to try to correct things in near-real time. It's one thing to have to wait 16 minutes to grab telemetry and issue commands to something on Mars, but having only a few seconds lag seems like something mission designers/operators would take full advantage of. The idea of actively controlling a rover rather than having it perform pre-programmed routines seems highly desirable.
- ptero 8y ago
  > The idea of actively controlling a rover rather than having it perform pre-programmed routines seems highly desirable. Rover, probably (which I considered payload functions). For delivery vehicle during passive parts of the trajectory the value is doubtful. Plus, the standard way of getting a ground station outside a country's land footprint is to put one on a ship. That's what Soviet Union did and I suspect this is what China is doing now.
  - Rooster61 8y ago
    > Plus, the standard way of getting a ground station outside a country's land footprint is to put one on a ship. Never heard of a ship based ground station, and that's saying something as I'm in the industry. How does that work? I'd imagine the antenna would need to be on a massive gimbal, yeah?
    - genera1 8y ago
      From the top of my head there is Soviet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmonavt_Yuriy_Gagarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmonavt_Yuriy_Gagarin In principle this isn't that different from ships designed to track ICBMs, and I've seen designs both with spinning parabolic radar antennas in radomes and regular antennas on gimbals. In fact many of those tracking ships were used in space programmes, but I'm not certain, whether just for one way telemetry or two-way comms

peter303 8y ago

There was a television story about Chinas DSN station in Argentina. I think it was 60 Minutes, but could not find the link. The story alleged China could be spyingof world satellites with these radio dishes. The locals are of mixed opinion. They like the economic infusion from China but fearful they could get more pushy. The Chinese workers mostly keep to themselves, but there is a grocery store and new restaurants for them. My guess is that they would need a third location for unbroken 360 degree coverage. I would gues somewhere in Africa would do it. They have lots of development projects ther.