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> This summer, the mission team will transmit a software upgrade to boost New Horizons’ scientific capabilities I find it absolutely insane that humanity can p

by gen3 5y ago

> This summer, the mission team will transmit a software upgrade to boost New Horizons’ scientific capabilities I find it absolutely insane that humanity can provide a software update to a chunk of metal flying ~36000mph where a SYN SYN-ACK takes 14 hours. I'm really curious about the error correction / protocol the sat uses. Edit: I found some info on the specs of the sat, but not the protocol. > Data rates depend on spacecraft distance, the power used to send the data and the size of the antenna on the ground. For most of the mission, New Horizons has used its high-gain antenna to exchange data with the Deep Space Network's largest antennas, 70 meters across. Even at Arrokoth, because New Horizons was be more than 4 billion miles from Earth and radio signals took more than six hours to reach the spacecraft, it was able to send information at about 1,000 bits per second. http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Spacecraft/Systems-and-Components.php http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Spacecraft/Systems-and-Compo...

BitwiseFool 5y ago
I'm really curious if/how New Horizons authenticates the singals and commands it recieves. Is it possible that because the only way to communicate with it is with the Deep Space Network they don't need to worry about a bad actor sending signals?
Sanzig 5y ago
You can find a detailed description of the RF system aboard the spacecraft here: https://web.pa.msu.edu/people/edmunds/Saturn/new_horizons_rf_system_2018.pdf https://web.pa.msu.edu/people/edmunds/Saturn/new_horizons_rf... It's light on the details of any of the upper layers, but the vast majority of big-ticket government space missions use protocols developed by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS): https://public.ccsds.org/ https://public.ccsds.org/. CCSDS publishes a wide range of open standards that run the gamut from very high bandwidth links for LEO observation satellites all the way to very low-rate, robust delay-tolerant links for deep space. For an overview of the standards at a very high level, I suggest taking a look at CCSDS 130.0-G-3, "Overview of Space Communications Protocols": https://public.ccsds.org/Pubs/130x0g3.pdf https://public.ccsds.org/Pubs/130x0g3.pdf

by gen3 5y ago

BitwiseFool 5y ago

I'm really curious if/how New Horizons authenticates the singals and commands it recieves. Is it possible that because the only way to communicate with it is with the Deep Space Network they don't need to worry about a bad actor sending signals?

Sanzig 5y ago

You can find a detailed description of the RF system aboard the spacecraft here: https://web.pa.msu.edu/people/edmunds/Saturn/new_horizons_rf_system_2018.pdf https://web.pa.msu.edu/people/edmunds/Saturn/new_horizons_rf... It's light on the details of any of the upper layers, but the vast majority of big-ticket government space missions use protocols developed by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS): https://public.ccsds.org/ https://public.ccsds.org/. CCSDS publishes a wide range of open standards that run the gamut from very high bandwidth links for LEO observation satellites all the way to very low-rate, robust delay-tolerant links for deep space. For an overview of the standards at a very high level, I suggest taking a look at CCSDS 130.0-G-3, "Overview of Space Communications Protocols": https://public.ccsds.org/Pubs/130x0g3.pdf https://public.ccsds.org/Pubs/130x0g3.pdf