X-Antenna| Can You Hear Me Now?
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Can You Hear Me Now?
X-Antenna
Summary
Our project aim to find solutions to optimize the latency between the Earth and Mars, no matter the conditions. In order to achieve this goal, we explored different ways of inter-planetary communication systems, and finally landed on one. As a demonstration for our project, we developed a game that aim to sensibilize on how long it is to exchange between the two planets, the goal being to optimize the communication network to finally make our astronauts watch a full season of their favorite Netflix series.
How We Addressed This Challenge
In the near future, we would like to set foot on Mars. But in order to do so, we need to solve many problems. One of the first that may come to mind is the distance that separates these brave astronauts from our blue planet.
Current technology allows us to send very little data. Let's take an example that demonstrates a human aspect: An astronaut has to wait tens of minutes to load a video of his relatives (without taking into account the 5 minutes to do Earth-Mars).
Within a few years, laser communication will be implemented and will allow a better data rate with almost an unlimited bandwidth. However, this solution is very dependent on the climatic conditions and sand storms are very frequent on Mars which would make this technique less efficient than the old one.
We propose a hybrid solution where we will use radio waves, not dependent on the weather, to a satellite close to Mars in order to make the long trip via the laser method which allows to have a data rate multiplied by a factor of 100.
The reception on the earth side will be done in the same way, a satellite will receive the laser and then retransmit it on earth by radio. This will allow to take advantage of the already existing infrastructures, which will drastically reduce the price of the project.
Thanks to this, our lonely astronaut will be able to share his adventures not only with his space agency, but also with the rest of the planet.
In order to demonstrate the complexity as well as the orders of scale of a deep space communication, we have developed a game. The player will have to unlock and upgrade the right technologies as well as launch his satellites in the right places so that the colony can send as many tweets, Instagram pictures and tiktok videos as possible to the people left on earth.
How We Developed This Project
Our team has been inspired by this challenge because we think that communication is very important in many ways, from sharing scientific data to communicate with our loved ones, this shouldn't be a too heavy problem for our dear astronauts !
Moreover, this topic is linking our skills which are Rocket science and Software engineering.
In order to develop this project, we first took some time to drop and share different ideas, and then we ordered them to see which one could work with another.
After that, we found a solid common ground to work on.
We used Javascript for a wider device compatibility, with Phaser for the game library.
On the development part, we encountered few problems related to our lack of knowledge in the library, but we get through it.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
In our project, we used satellite data from previous and future mission where the optical communication system is involved.
For example, the power and accuracy required for the communication are taken from the Deep Space Optical Communications satellite (JPL - NASA). In our application, climatic hazards such as desert storm on Mars or clouds on earth are taken into account, to do so, the data rate in the study from ESA were used.
Project Demo
Project Code
Data & Resources
Web :
Deep Space Communication
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/services/networks/deep_space_network/about
Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC)
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/dsoc/index.html
Publications :
Mars Network Constellation Design Drivers and Strategies
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/246770750
Deep-Space Optical Communications: Future Perspectives and Applications
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224253418
Analysis of Data Rate for Free Space Optical Communications System
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265384446
Laser Techology in Photonic Applications for Space