China Communications December 2006 82

Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications

The Key Technologies of Deep Space
Communications
Xiao Song, Li Yunsong, Bai Baoming, ZhouYouxi
ISN National Key Lab, Xidian University, Xian, 710071, China
Email: xiaosong@mail.xidian.edu.cn
ABSTRACT
Deep space exploration and utilization are all along the
dreams of human beings. Besides the technologies of
launching and controlling the explorer, deep space
communications plays an important role in deep space
exploration. Compared with common terra and satellite
communications, deep-space communications presents
a more chal l engi ng envi ronment for dat a
communications, such as long distance, very low signal
noise ratio, high signal propagation delays and data
corruption rates, asymmetric bandwidth and so on.
Besides the technologies of sender, receiver and
antennas, image source coding, channel coding, modu-
lation and demodulation and deep space network are
key technologies and play a very important role in the
research of deep space communication. This paper will
discuss the above four key technologies respectively
with emphasis on the application of communications
between Mars and earth.
1
Key words: deep space communication, interferen-
tial multi-spectral image compression, more envelope
fluctuations bandwidth efficient TCM, CFDP, IPN
I. INTRODUCTION
The exploration and utilization of the deep space are all
along the dreams of human beings. Since the Soviet
Union began to explore the moon by using moon-1 in
January 1959, there has existed drastic competition in the
area of deep space exploration and utilization among the
countries all over the world, especially among the United
State, Russia and some countries in Europe. Besides the
technologies of launching and controlling of the probe,
deep space communications has played an important role
in deep space exploration. It transmits the information
obtained by the probe to the ground and processes and
analyzes it. Deep space usually refers to the outer space
more than 2 million kilometers away from the earth. And
deep space communications is referred to as communi-
cations between the earth and other planets (including the
Moon, the Mars, the Jupiter and the Hesper etc.).
Until now, except for the Pluto, which is the furthest
planet from the earth, people has made explorations to
the Moon and other seven planets, including Jupiter,
Mars, Hesper, Mercury, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Among them, the explorations to the Mars and moon
are more frequent. In recent forty years, Russia, United
State and several Europe countries have made explora-
tions to the Mars more than thirty times and sent probes
to the Moon. European Space Agency (ESA), Japan
and India also have their own Moon exploration plan.
China has made its Moon exploration as the first step to
the deep space exploration. Firstly, a satellite will be
launched to surround the Moon in 2007. Secondly, soft
landing and exploration will be realized in 2019. Finally,
the exploration will be accomplished and the samples
China Communications December 2006 83
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
will be obtained and returned to the earth in 2020. These
three procedures are called surrounding, Ianding
and return respectively. In 2004, China has planned
to invest fourteen hundred million (1.4 billion yuan) to
carry out the project called goddess in the moon.
Debugging of the preliminary demo has been finished
by the end of 2004.
Compared with common terra and satellite
communications, deep-space communications pre-
sents more challenging environment for data
communications. The radio frequency channel pre-
dominantly used for communication typically oper-
ates under the following constraints:
Long Distance: A lot of planets in deep space are
several hundred million kilometers away from
the earth. Such long distance results in very low
signal to noise ratio (SNR).
High Signal Propagation Delays: This is due to
the enormous distances involved between the
communicating entities and the relativistic con-
straint restricting signal transmissions to the
speed of light. For example, one-way signal
propagation delays for the Cassini mission to
Saturn are in the range of 1 hour and 8 minutes
to 1 hour and 24 minutes
[1]
.
High Data Corruption Rates: Extremely long
distances cause the signals to be received at
extremely low strengths at the receiver, and
thereby increase the probability of bit-errors in
the channel due to random thermal noise errors,
burst errors due to solar flares, etc.
[2]
.
Disruption Events: Since communicating enti-
ties in deep-space tend to be in motion relative
to one another, the communication channel be-
tween them is prone to disruption. A planetary
probe on the surface of Saturns moon Titan,
for example, could experience disruption due to
the rotation of Titan on its own axis (when it
goes to the night side of Titan), when Titan
passes under Saturns shadow during its revo-
lution around the planet, and when other moons/
planets/or the Sun itself block the line of sight to
the destination. Moreover, communicating with
an entity in deep-space requires expensive spe-
cialized equipment.
Meager, Asymmetric Bandwidth: The band-
width capacities are asymmetric and fairly lim-
ited in the deep-space environment. The uplink
channel (Earth to Destination) tends to have
much lower bandwidth than the downlink chan-
nel (Destination to Earth) because all the inter-
esting data collection, analysis, reports etc. are
expected in the downlink channel. For example,
the Cassini spacecraft has an uplink bandwidth
of 1 kbps while the maximum downlink band
width is 166 kbps
[1]
.
Complex Geography Environment: In the moon
and other planets, conditions such as the tem-
perature radiation and liberation etc. are more
complex than those in the earth. For example,
the variation of the temperature in the moon is
very high, from -183C to 127C. The lowest
temperature is -132C in Mars and -140C in
Jupiter.
Deep space communications technology has kept
improving with the development of deep space explora-
tion more than forty years. Mariner 4 launched in 1965,
communicated using S band (2.3GHz). There is neither
error correcting code nor data compression. The data rate
is only 8.33bps. Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) launched
in 1997, used X band (8.4GHz). The channel code adopts
the constraint length 7, rate 1/2 convolutional code
(denoted as the (7, 1/2) code) concatenated with the (255,
223) Reed-Solomon code. Source code is Rice compres-
sion code with ratio of 2. The data rate is 128kbps. Mars
Pathfinder launched in 1997 used JPEG coding with
compression ratio of 6. Spirit and Opportunity Mars
explorer (called MER-A and MER-B) launched in 2004
used image compression code based on wavelet. The
compression ratio is up to 12. The data rate is 168Kbps.
In the Mars Reconnaissance (MRO) explorer planned to
be launched in 2006 by America, Turbo and LDPC code
will be used as channel code and a fast and efficient
lossless image compression system (FELICS) will be
used as source code. The data rate will be 12Mbps. The
communication systems of MER and MRO represent the
state-of-art technology in the world.
Besides the technologies of sender, receiver and
China Communications December 2006 84
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
antennas, image source coding, channel coding, modu-
lation and demodulation and deep space network are key
technologies and play a very important role in the
researches of deep space communication. For the devel-
opment and utilization of resources, various countries in
the world are all put emphasis on the survey to Mars and
Moon. China already made a plan to first explore moon
then Mars. Because Mars is apart from the earth with the
magnitude of several hundred million kilometers, studies
of the essential technologies of communications be-
tween Mars and Earth will play an important role in the
deep space communications, and its achievements can
also be used in the communications system of moon
survey. As a result, in this paper, we will discuss four key
technologies respectively with emphasis on the applica-
tion of communications between Mars and earth.
II. IMAGE SOURCE CODING
In deep space communication system, the storage and
transmission of image data (such as images of landform
and physiognomy of remote planet) occupy large part
of the resource and bandwidth of the whole system,
which conflicts with the limited storage and transmis-
sion capability of the explorer. As a result, in order to
satisfy the requirement for bandwidth and storage
capacity, high efficient image compressing coding
method is one of the key technologies.
On two Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit (MER-A)
and Opportunity (MER-B), nine optical probes are
carried with resolution of 10241024 and pixel preci-
sion of 12 bit. Over half of the bits transmitted from the
rovers consisted of compressed image data gathered
from probes. Most of the images were compressed with
the ICER image compression method
[3]
. The remaining
images that were compressed made use of modified Low
Complexity Lossless Compression (LOCO) software
[4-
7]
. ICER is a wavelet-based image compressor that allows
for a graceful trade-off between the amount of compres-
sion (expressed in terms of compressed data volume in
bits/pixel) and the resulting degradation in image quality
(distortion). When the compressed data volume is al-
lowed to be large enough, ICER will produce lossless
compression. The development of ICER was driven by
the desire to achieve state-of-the-art compression perfor-
mance while meeting the specialized needs of deep-
space applications. In particular, ICER incorporates a
sophisticated error-containment scheme to limit the ef-
fects of data losses seen on the deep-space channel. ICER
also features progressive compression: compressed in-
formation is organized so that as more of the compressed
data stream is received, reconstructed images of succes-
sively higher overall quality can be reproduced. When
lossless compression is desired, the MER mission gener-
ally uses a software implementation of a modified ver-
sion of the LOCO image compressor
[5-6]
. Although
ICER can also perform lossless compression, the simple
predictive approach used by LOCO is several times
faster, with similar compression effectiveness.
In addition to conventional image compression, MER
is using a handful of other techniques to reduce image
data volume. These include sending only subframes of
interest of certain types of images (while possibly
sending the whole image at much lower quality);
performing pixel averaging to reduce the size of images;
companding images from 12 bits/pixel to 8 bits/pixel
before compression; and sending only row sum data,
column sum data, or histogram data. Also, for each
image acquired, the rovers produce a small 64 64
pixel thumbnail image by pixel averaging; these
thumbnail images are compressed by ICER prior to
transmission. The thumbnails serve as previews of the
full-sized images, which may not be transmitted as soon
due to the larger data volume they occupy.
Considering the complexity of the algorithm, a fast
and efficient lossless image compression system
(FELICS)
[8]
will be used on MRO planed to launch in
2006. It is a simpler system for lossless image compres-
sion that runs very fast with only minimal loss of
compression efficiency, based on prediction with a
two-neighboring-pixel context and coding with single
bits and prefix codes.
China started the moon exploration plan in September,
2003. In the moon explorer planned to be launched in
2007, a set of interferential multi-spectral imaging
instrument and a set of solid camera optical imaging
instrument will be on board. The resolution of the optics
and the spectrum will be relative low for the restriction
China Communications December 2006 85
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other
methods methods methods methods methods
of the technology. Using interferential spectral imaging
instrument as an example, the resolution of the moon
surface is 200 meters, and that of the spectrum and the
optics are only 32 and 128 128 respectively. Since
interferential multi-spectral image data occupy nearly
90 percent the storage space on board (48Gbits) and 66
percent the transmission bandwidth, near lossless com-
pression of ratio of 2 will be adopted.
The interferential multi-spectral image gen-
erated by the interferential spectrum imager has
different characteristic compared with those
generated by dispersive spectrum imager. The
gray level of spatial point in interferential multi-
spectral image doesnt represent the spectrum
intensity of the point but the interference and
addition of intensity of several spatial points in
different photic path distance. Its also a kind of
data representation of the spectrum after per-
forming Fourier transform. At the same time,
the image array of the interferential spectrum
imager is generated by scanning along a direc-
tion of CCD, the correlation characteristic of
image array is also different. So it is not suitable
to apply general compression method to the
interferential multi-spectral image.
For interferential multi-spectral image compression,
the researches are in their infant time home
and abroad. Image transmission and process-
ing laboratory in Xidian University has been
done much research work in this field in
cooperation with Xian Optics and Precision
Mechanism Institute from 1999, and has con-
solidated a good research foundation. Based
on the characteristics of interferential multi-
spectral image, we propose a new improved
embedded source coding method based on
frame prediction to compress the interferen-
tial multi-spectral image. The main idea is to
utilize the high inter-frame correlation of
interferential multi-spectral image sequences.
The experiment results of the spectral inten-
sity of different spectral band of one spot on
the ground are shown in figure 1. Three
methods compared are the proposed improved
embedded source coding method based on frame predic-
tion (proposed method), the proposed method with ROI
( ROI region includes the location of interferential stripes)
and JPEG2000 coding method with ratio of 8 (JP2K with
ratio of 8) respectively. The original interferential multi-
spectral image is shown in figure2.
It can be seen that the proposed method with ROI has
best performance compared with other two methods. The
difference only exists in individual spectral bands. Through
lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage
China Communications December 2006 86
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
lg. odes perormance or BER=+o lg. odes perormance or BER=+o lg. odes perormance or BER=+o lg. odes perormance or BER=+o lg. odes perormance or BER=+o
- - - - -
further research the performance can still be improved.
III. CHANNEL CODING
The large distance between the transmitting space
craft and the receiving earth station and the limited
transmitting power result in a very poor signal- to-
noise ratio at the receiver side. The consequence is a
large amount of transmission errors. At the same time,
the data bits are highly compressed before transmis-
sion to allow as large a number of images as possible
to be transmitted in the limited data rate. But espe-
cially compressed data bits are very sensitive to trans-
mission errors. Therefore, channel coding method is
also one of the most important technologies.
In the Galileo space plan launched in 1989 in
America, (15, 1/4) convolutional code was used. The
bit rate error rate (BER) can achieve 10
-5
when E
b
/N
o
is 1.75dB
[9]
. In Mars Global Surveyor of 1997, the
constraint length 7, rate 1/2 convolutional code
(denoted as the (7, 1/2) code) concatenated with the
(255, 223) Reed-Solomon code was used
[10]
. While in
MER communication system, (15, 1/6) convoluational
code concatenated with the (255, 223) Reed-Solomon
code was used. In the design of MRO (plan to launch
in 2006) data transmission
system, Turbo code and
LDPC code wi l l be
adopted. In SMART-1, the
first deep space explorer
launched by European
Space Agency in Sep.
2003, Turbo code was
used. While in the moon
exploring plan of China,
convolutional code con-
catenated with the Reed-
Solomon code was used.
Turbo code was sug-
gested to be used as a kind
of channel coding method
for deep space by CCSDS
for its near Shannon limit
performance
[11]
. The main problem in its design for
deep space focuses at how to optimize the parameters
of interleaver and component code to achieve lower
error floor.
Compared to Turbo code, LDPC code has similar
(even superior in the case of long code) decoding
performance as well as the advantages of fast decoding
speed, easy for VLSI implementation and low error
floor. It is suitable for deep space communication
circumstance, which has long delay. Research results
have shown that irregular LDPC with 1/2 rate and 10
7
bits length has the performance of 0.04dB apart from
Shannon limitation in AWGN channel, which is supe-
rior than the best Turbo code up to the present time.
In China, the researches on Turbo code and LDPC
code are also a hotspot. The researchers in Tsinghua
University, Beijing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, Southeast University, Shandong
University, Huazhong University of Technology and
National University of Defense Technology have en-
gaged for many years in design of Turbo and LDPC
code and already obtained lots of achievements.
Figure 3 and figure 4 show respectively different
coding system with modulation for deep space missions.
They are codes currently in use in DSN and recently
published in the literature.
China Communications December 2006 87
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o
-, -, -, -, -,
One standard code used in the DSN whose perfor-
mance is well characterized and included in the com-
parison is the rate 1/2, constraint length 7 convolutional
inner code concatenated with the (255,223) Reed-
Solomon outer code (RS+(7,1/2)). In addition, two
classes of codes are also included: One is Punctured
turbo codes of rate 3/4 and 7/8, which are a simple
extension of the present Consultative Committee on
Space Standards (CCSDS) standard turbo codes. De-
tails on these codes and the specific punctured pattern
have been submitted to CCSDS for inclusion in a
revised standard for coded telemetry. The other is low-
density parity-check (LDPC) codes of rate 0.5 and 0.8
[12]
, as is shown in Fig. 4. It shows a variety of codes with
near-capacity performance. Rates below 0.5 are suit-
able for low-data-rate deep-space missions; rates be-
tween 0.5 and approximately 0.8 are suitable for high-
data-rate deep-space missions when used with offset
QPSK (OQPSK) modulation. Code rates higher than 0.
8 are not recommended for deep-space missions due to
severe power efficiency reduction.
The punctured turbo codes have the advantage of
being decodable with a simple modification of the
current DSN turbo decoder. The LDPC codes
[13-14]
h a v e t w o m a i n
advantages: they have
lower decoding com-
plexity and therefore are
suitable for very high data
rates (>10 Mb/s), and
they perform better at a
very low bit-error rate
(BER) (10
-9
) since their
error floor can be con-
trolled and pushed to
lower BERs for a small
penalty in their waterfall-
region performance. For
application requiring
BERs lower than the tra-
ditional 10
-6
and high data
rates, LDPC codes are a
suitable choice.
Although LDPC code
has superior performance in such case, Turbo code
still has obvious predominance in the case of short
length code eg. smaller than 1000bits, and the encod-
ing process of Turbo code is more simple than that of
LDPC code. As a result, it is essential to combine the
study of Turbo and LDPC code in deep space
communications.
IV. MODULATION AND
DEMODULATION
In the MER system, the work frequency is X band (8.
4GHz). BPSK and MFSK are used. The maximum
transmission rate is 168 kbps. In MRO system planed
to launch in 2006, Turbo code, LDPC code and
bandwidth efficient modulation technique will be
used to improve the reliability of communications.
Work frequency will be 32GHz (Ka-band). Data rate
will achieve 12Mbps
[10]
. European space agency
uses 4D 8-PSK TCM modulation technique in the
services of earth exploring satellite. It can be pre-
dicted that deep space exploring mission in future
must adopt bandwidth efficient modulation tech-
China Communications December 2006 88
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
nique even in Ka band.
CCSDS suggested using bandwidth efficient tech-
nique compatible with Block V receiver structure in
a deep space network. JPL is now researching deep
space exploring mission (eg. MRO) modulation
schemes
[15]
suitable for future high data rate (eg.10-
100Mbps) by combining high efficient error correc-
tion code (eg. Turbo and LDPC code)mainly
including
Offset QPSK O-QPSK : For phase restriction,
its peak average power ratio (PAPR) is smaller
than that of BPSK and standard QPSK. Two
research keystones in O-QPSK are how to use
rectangular and square root raised cosine (SRRC)
pulse shaping techniques.
Pre-encoded GMSK: Pre-encoding technique
is used to compensate differential coding of
MSK modulator. Consequently, it can avoid
power performance reduction in modulator and
demodulator system resulted by combination of
differential coding at sender and differential
decoding at receiver.
Trellis-coded OQPSK: By using two-state
convolutional encoder to introduce memory
among sending data and raised cosine pulse
waveform, OQPSK signal of improved enve-
lope performance can be obtained.
FQPSK: By introducing a controllable correla-
tion and adopting given signal waveform be-
tween in-phase and quadrature arms (its enve-
lope is similar to constant), the FQPSK modula-
tor can be regarded as a 16-state joint I-Q TCM
modulator
[16]
.
In order to further improve bandwidth efficiency,
more envelope fluctuations bandwidth efficient
TCM technique is now being a research hotspot
[16]
.
It can be concluded from the above analysis,
modulation technique for deep space should have
both high power efficiency and high bandwidth
efficiency. The research direction is quasi constant
envelope or continuous phase modulation techniques
with minimum power spectral containment.
Currently, research emphasis is put on power and
bandwidth efficient modulation techniques in the
condition of more fluctuations. Existing methods
use I-Q two-layer TCM modulator structure or single
layer TCM structure based on multi-waveform. Such
structure is inflexible in the adjustment of transmis-
sion rate, eg. it can not support non-integer rate of 1.
5 bit/symbol. By using multilayer TCM structure,
which means to use different rate encoder, rate
adjustable power and bandwidth efficient modula-
tion can be obtained.
OFDM is a bandwidth efficient modulation method.
There are many in-depth researches in such field
home and abroad including ISN laboratory in Xidian
University
[17]
. Constant envelope OFDM technique is
recently proposed
[18]
and its application in satellite
communication system is also studied. But its applica-
tion foreground in deep space communication needs
to be further investigated.
The deep space exploring mission has just started up
in China. The data transmission system in moon
exploring plan used BPSK modulation, and the effi-
cient bandwidth of RF is 6MHz. The maximum data
rate of single channel is 3Mb/s. The bit error rate (Ber)
P
e
1 10
-6
when SNR E
b
/N
0
=16dB (C/N
0
=81.
5dBHzin downlink (explorer to earth) data trans-
mission channel.
In deep space communication, if bandwidth effi-
cient modulation technique is designed jointly with
high performance error correcting coding technique,
we can improve both coding gain and system band-
width efficiency.
Figure 5 compares power efficiency, E
b
/N
0
, and
spectral efficiency, = R
b
/B, measured as the frac-
tional (99 percent) power containment bandwidth in
bits/second/hertz, for some of combinations of coding
and modulations on the AWGN channel. When a
finite error rate is acceptable, the channel capacity is
higher; for typical numbers such as BER=10
-6
, the
difference is imperceptible. Because this capacity is
achieved by using a uniform power spectral density
(PSD), the curve can be raised by the fraction 1/
when measured according to a 100 percent
bandwidth constraint.
Figure 5 also shows the region of interest for Mars
missions, where coding gain is still of great importance,
China Communications December 2006 89
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes
and moderate spectral efficiency is necessary to
accommodate current high-data-rate X-band
missions and future Ka-band missions requiring
even higher data rates.
V. DEEP SPACE NETWORK
In deep space communications, since the
long distance between planet results in low
SNR, long delay and extreme vibration of the
signal, the performance of conventional TCP/
IP will decrease drastically with the increas-
ing packet loss rate. Asymmetrical forward
and reverse link capacities of deep space will
also bring challenges to the realization of
feedback communication protocol. Because
of the high cost of deep space hardware
distribution and network construction, the
network and its infrastructure must be adapted
to its future development. Although the Con-
sultative Committee for Space Data Systems
(CCSDS) has proposed the protocol of deep space
network (DSN), it will not satisfy the requirement of
the development of deep space communication.
Furthermore, the CCSDS File Delivery Protocol
(CFDP) developed for reliable file transport over
space links is still not an optimal one for DSN. So it
is essential to study the bundle protocol network and
apply CFDP to the DSN to acquire optimal network
performance and Quality of service (Qos).
With the development of deep space communica-
tion technique, many organizations in the world are
doing research work in the field of deep space network.
Besides CCSDS, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in
America are now studying interplanetary internet
(IPN internet) by integrating several space and earth
communication infrastructures. Delay tolerant net-
work research group (DTNRG) proposed space/earth
protocol stack
[19-23]
namely highly integrated opti-
mized regional protocol stack. It is mainly dependent
of middle layer-Bundling Protocol layer
[20]
, which lies
between application layer and lower layers. Bundling
Protocol layer uses store and forward mechanism like
E-mail to resolve the problems of intermittence
connection, long delay, asymmetric data rate and
high error rates etc. in deep space.
The network protocol stacks in MER communica-
tion system proposed by CCSDS
[24]
include space
wireless frequency and modulation (layer 1), space
channel coding and space link (layer 2), space net-
working (layer 3), space end-to-end security (layer
4), space end-to-end reliability (layer 5), and space
file transfer (layer 6) (including CFDP
[25-26]
(CCSDS
File Delivery Protocol) and SCPS (Space Communi-
cation Protocol Standards) protocol), as shown in
Figure 6. The network successfully fulfilled bidirec-
tional transmission of multi-user data. But it can not
resolve the transmission problems resulted by long
delay and asymmetric data rate etc. in deep space
because it didnt comprise the Bundling Protocol
layer. In MRO, which is planned to launch in 2006,
has been considered to add Bundling Protocol layer
to protocol stacks to find a more efficient and more
flexible network infrastructure. French space agency
will launch a remote sensing satellite and four mini-
type landers to Mars in 2007, the network structures
China Communications December 2006 90
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack
of which are based on DSN protocol stack of CCSDS.
The Cassini-Huygens explorer jointly developed by
America, European and Italy space agencies landed
the sixth Saturn satellite in 2004, used DTNRG
Custody Transfer protocol to transport network data.
There are 17 stations on earth.
Researches for deep space communication in China
start up later than other countries. The moon exploring
communication system will use earth station in Beijing
(E11628 N3954) and Urumchi(E 8736
N4348). The network structures are also based on
DSN protocol stack of CCSDS.
For deep space internet architecture,
[27]
introduced
a general infrastructure for the NASA space Internet,
which contains a backbone network, an access
network, an interspacecraft network, and a proxim-
ity network. The space Internet is described as a
network of Internets
[28]
, with a specialized deep space
backbone network of long-haul wireless links inter-
connecting these local Internets. Internet or Internet-
related protocols are used to form local networks with
low-delay relatively low-noise environments such as
around Earth, within a free-flying spacecraft, on and
around another planet. Bundling protocol
[20]
is em-
ployed to tie together a set of heterogeneous Internets,
performing any required additional functions the local
protocols typically cannot do.
In
[29]
, the IPN Internet is depicted in Fig. 7a. It
includes the IPN backbone network, IPN external
networks, and planetary networks. IPN backbone
network provides a common infrastructure for com-
munication among the Earth, outer space planets,
moons, satellite, intermediate relay stations, and so
on. IPN external network consists of spacecrafts fly-
ing in groups in deep space between planets, clusters
of sensor nodes, and groups of space stations. Plan-
etary network is composed of a planetary satellite
network and a planetary surface network. A planetary
satellite network is composed of multilayer satellites
circling the planets as shown in Fig. 7b and provides
such services as intermediary caching and relay ser-
vice between the Earth and the planet, relay service
between the in situ mis-
sion elements, and loca-
tion management of plan-
etary surface networks.
Planetary surface net-
work provides the com-
munication links between
hi gh power surface
elements, such as rovers
and landers that have the
capability to connect with
satellites. They also pro-
vide a power-stable wire-
less backbone in the
planet. Moreover, a plan-
etary surface network in-
cludes surface elements
that cannot communicate
with satellites directly.
These elements are often
organized in clusters and
spread out in an ad hoc
manner (e.g., sensor
China Communications December 2006 91
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
nodes and balloons).
Among the architectural elements of the IPN Internet,
the IPN backbone network poses the most challenging
problems for reliable data and multimedia transport in
the IPN Internet. The existing reliable transport proto-
cols have been shown to achieve very poor perfor-
mance in deep space communication networks. The
dominant factor in this performance degradation is the
extremely high propagation delay in deep space links.
This is solely due to the window-based mechanism
used by the current TCP protocols. Although there are
transport protocol solutions proposed for satellite
links
[29]
, these solutions cannot be directly applied to
the IPN backbone network because of the extremely
high propagation delay and the other challenges men-
tioned in section 1.
Space Communications Protocol Standards-
Transport Protocol (SCPS-TP)
[30]
is a set of TCP
extensions developed by the CCSDS. SCPSTP
mechanisms are basically a combination of exist-
ing TCP protocols with some modifications and
extensions to address link errors, bandwidth
asymmetry, and link outages, which are shown to
be inadequate to address the challenges in the IPN
backbone network. The CCSDS File Delivery
Protocol (CFDP)
[25-26]
has also been developed for
reliable file transport over space links. In
[20]
, as
mentioned before, the bundling approach, which
lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture
lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture
China Communications December 2006 92
Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications
performs a custody-based store-and-forward
approach, is introduced to address the intermittent
connectivity, large and variable delays, and high
BERs. Although this approach achieves reliable
transport over intermittent links, it still requires a
specifically tailored transport protocol for high-
performance bundle transport between two IPN
Internet nodes. In
[31]
a reliable transport protocol,
TP-Planet, for the IPN backbone network is
introduced. Two novel algorithms, Initial State and
Steady State, constitute the structure of TP-Planet.
Initial State replaces the inefficient slow start algo-
rithm in order to capture link resources in a very fast
controlled manner. In Steady State a new conges-
tion detection and control mechanism is deployed
to minimize erroneous congestion decisions due to
high link errors. TP-Planet deploys a newly devel-
oped end-to-end rate-based additive-increase mul-
tiplicative-decrease (AIMD) congestion control,
whose AIMD parameters are adjusted to compen-
sate for throughput degradation. In order to reduce
the effects of blackout conditions on throughput
performance, TP-Planet incorporates a Blackout
State procedure into protocol operation. Bandwidth
asymmetry is addressed by the adoption of delayed
selective acknowledgment (SACK) options. It is
shown in
[31]
via simulation experiments that TP-
Planet significantly improves the throughput per-
formance and addresses the challenges in the IPN
backbone network.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This paper introduces four key technologies includ-
ing image source coding, channel coding, modula-
tion and demodulation and deep space network
respectively in deep space communications with
emphasis on the application of communications
between Mars and the earth. The challenges and the
current status of research efforts to address the
above four key technologies are explored. For im-
age source coding, interferential multi-spectral im-
age compression scheme is mainly introduced. For
channel coding, combining Turbo and LDPC code
according to the characteristics of deep space chan-
nel may bring good results. While the develop trend
for modulation and demodulation is more envelope
fluctuations bandwidth efficient TCM technique,
and the main problem for deep space network is
how to construct more efficient and reliable plan-
etary network protocols. In a word, in order to
realize reliable deep space communication, there
are still a lot of challenges need to be solved.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Xiao Song was born
in Shannxi province,
China, in Jan., 1977.
She is associate profes-
sor and master director
of communication and
information system in
Xidian University. She
obtained her M.S degree
in communication and
information system and
Ph.D degree in signal and information processing in
Xidian University, China in 2001 and 2004
respectively. Now she is making postdoctoral re-
searches in the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of
Southern California, United States. Her research
interests are in the fields of video signal compression
and coding, joint source channel coding, multiple
description coding and networked media systems,
robust image and video communication, deep space
communications etc.
Li Yunsong was born in Liaoning province,
China, in Nov., 1974. He is currently an associate
professor at the Department of Communication
Engineering in Xidian University. He obtained his
M.S degree in communication and information
system and Ph.D de-
gree in signal and in-
formation processing
in Xidian University,
Chi na i n 1999 and
2003 respectively. His
research interests are
in the fields of image/
video compression
and net work vi deo
transmission etc.
Bai Baoming was born in Mar., 1966. He is
currently a professor at the Department of Commu-
nication Engineering in Xidian University. He ob-
tained his M.S and Ph.D degree in Xidian University,
China in 1990 and 2000 respectively. During the
years of 2000 to 2003, he was doing postdoctoral
researches in Hongkong city university. His re-
search interests are in the fields of information and
coding theory, high efficiency digital modulation
and wireless communications etc.
Zhou Youxi was born in Fujian, China, on Oct
19, 1979. He received his BS, MS degrees in com-
munication engineering from the University of
Xidian, China, in 2002 and 2005, respectively. Now
he is a Ph.D. cadidate in the Department of Infor-
mation Engineering of Xidian University. His cur-
rent research interests include the processing of
video signal coding and the modeling of telecom-
munication system.