CHAPTER 1

Introduction
1.1

Background
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 communications 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 explorations 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 will be obtained
and returned to the earth in 2020. These three procedures are called surrounding, Landing
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 presents more challenging environment for data communications. The radio
1

frequency channel predominantly used for communication typically operates under the following
constraints:1) 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).
2) High Signal Propagation Delays: This is due to the enormous distances involved between
the communicating entities and the relativistic constraint 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.
3) 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.
4) Disruption Events: Since communicating entities in deep-space tend to be in motion
relative to one another, the communication channel between 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 revolution 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 specialized
equipment.
5) Meager, Asymmetric Bandwidth: The bandwidth capacities are asymmetric and fairly
limited in the deep-space environment. The uplink channel (Earth to Destination) tends to
have much lower bandwidth than the downlink channel (Destination to Earth) because all
the interesting 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.
6) Complex Geography Environment: In the moon and other planets, conditions such as the
temperature 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.

1.2

Relevance
Deep Space Communication is having its strong connection with microwave as it works

in the frequency range of radio waves and microwaves. The subjects that are related to this topic
are wireless communication and signal processing for wireless communication system. It has
advantages of improving the data rate, communication reliability, Simple signal processing,
Power efficiency and improved techniques for deep space communication. Besides the
technologies of sender, receiver and antennas, image source coding, channel coding, modulation
and demodulation and deep space network are key technologies and play a very important role in
the researches of deep space communication.

1.3

Literature Survey
Deep space communications technology has kept improving with the

development of deep space exploration 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 compression 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 antennas, image source coding,
channel coding, modulation and demodulation and deep space network are key technologies and
play a very important role in the researches of deep space communication. For the development
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
3

apart from the earth with the magnitude of several hundred million kilometers, studies of the
essential technologies of communications between 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 application of communications between Mars and earth.

1.4

Motivation
Compared with common terra and satellite communications, deep-space communications

presents a more challenging environment for data communications, such as long distance, very
low signal noise ratio, high signal propagation delays and data corruption rates, asymmetric
bandwidth.

1.5

Scope
Besides the technologies of sender, receiver and antennas, image source coding, channel

coding, modulation and demodulation and deep space network are key technologies and play a
very important role in the researches of deep space communication. For the development and
utilization of resources, various countries in the world are all put emphasis on the survey to Mars
and Moon.

CHAPTER 2
Image Source Coding
2.1

Introduction
In early 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission will land a pair of rovers on

Mars. Well over half of the bits transmitted from the rovers will consist of compressed image
data gathered from the unprecedented nine cameras onboard each rover. The MER rovers will
rely exclusively on the ICER image compressor for all lossy image compression. ICER is a
wavelet-based image compressor designed for use with the deep-space channel. The
development of ICER was driven by the desire to achieve state-of-the-art compression
performance with software that meets the specialized needs of deep-space applications. ICER
features progressive compression and by nature can provide both lossless and lossy compression.
ICER incorporates a sophisticated error-containment scheme to limit the effects of data losses
seen on the deep-space channel.

2.2

Progressive Compression
Under a progressive data compression scheme, compressed information is organized so

that as more of the compressed data stream is received, reconstructed images of successively
higher overall quality can be reproduced. Figure 2.2.1 illustrates this increase in quality for an
example image, as a function of the resulting effective bit rate. Truncating a progressively
compressed data stream by increasing amounts produces a graceful degradation in the
reconstructed image quality. Thus, progressive compression provides a simple and effective
method of meeting a constraint on compressed data volume without the need to guess at an
appropriate setting of an image-quality parameter. By contrast, non-progressive compression
techniques typically encode information one region at a time (where a region may be a pixel or a
small block of pixels), gradually covering the image spatially. Truncating the data stream
produced by a non-progressive algorithm generally results in complete loss of information for
some portion of the image. Using ICER, one could send a small fraction of the data from a
5

compressed image to get a low quality preview, and later send more of the data to get a higherquality version if the image is deemed interesting. In future missions, progressive compression
will

enable

sophisticated

data-return

strategies

involving

incremental

image-quality

improvements to maximize the science value of returned data using an onboard buffer.

a)

b)

c)

d)

Figure: 2.2.1 This sequence of image details from a larger image shows how overall image quality
improves under progressive compression as more compressed data are received: (a) 0.125 bits/pixel, (b)
0.25 bits/pixel, (c) 0.5 bits/pixel, and (d) 1 bit/pixel.

2.3

How ICER Works: An Overview

The first step in wavelet-based image compression is to apply a wavelet transform to the

image. A wavelet transform is a linear (or nearly linear) transform designed to decorrelate
images by local separation of spatial frequencies. The transform decomposes the image into
several sub-bands, each a smaller version of the image, but filtered to contain a limited range of
spatial frequencies. The wavelet transforms used by ICER are described in Section II. An ICER
user can select one of seven integer wavelet transforms and can control the number of sub-bands
by choosing the number of stages of wavelet decomposition applied to the image. The wavelet
transforms used by ICER are invertible; thus, image compression is lossless when all of the
compressed sub-band data are losslessly encoded. By using a wavelet transform, ICER avoids
the blocking artifacts that can occur when the discrete cosine transform (DCT) is used for
decorrelation, as in the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) compressor used on the Mars
Pathfinder mission. The wavelet compression of ICER does introduce ringing artifacts
(spurious faint oscillations or edges, usually near sharp edges in the image), but these tend to be
less objectionable. Both types of artifacts are illustrated in Fig. 2.3.1 In addition to producing
6

less noticeable artifacts, wavelet-based compression is usually superior to DCT-based

compression in terms of quantitative measures of reconstructed image quality. Following the
wavelet transform, ICER compresses a simple binary representation of the transformed image,
achieving progressive compression by successively encoding groups of bits, starting with groups
containing highly significant bits and working toward groups containing less significant bits.
During this encoding process, ICER maintains a statistical model that is used to estimate the
probability that the next bit to be encoded is a zero. ICERs method of modeling the image is a
form of context modeling. The probability estimates produced by the context modeler are used
by an entropy coder to compress the sequence of bits.

a)

b)

c)

Figure: 2.3.1 Details from a larger image: (a) original image, (b) reconstructed image illustrating
ringing artifacts after compression to 0.125 bits/pixel using ICER, and (c) reconstructed image illustrating
blocking artifacts after compression to 0.178 bits/pixel using JPEG. In this example, the ringing artifacts
under ICER are less noticeable than the blocking artifacts under JPEG, even though the image is more
highly compressed under ICER.

For error-containment purposes, the wavelet-transformed image is partitioned into a user

selectable number of segments, each roughly corresponding to a rectangular portion of the
image. Data within each segment are compressed independently of the others so that if data
pertaining to a segment are lost or corrupted, the other segments are unaffected. Increasing the
number of segments (and thus reducing their size) helps to contain the effects of a packet loss to
a smaller region of the image; however, its generally harder to effectively compress smaller
segments. By varying the number of segments, a user can control this trade-off between
compression effectiveness and robustness to data loss, allowing some adaptability to different
7

data loss statistics. Image quality and the amount of compression are primarily controlled by two
parameters: a byte quota, which controls the maximum number of compressed bytes produced,
and a quality goal parameter that tells ICER to stop producing compressed bytes when a simple
image-quality criterion is met.

2.4

Advantages and Limitations of ICER image compression

The ICER image compressor was designed to meet the specialized needs of deep-space

applications. ICER is wavelet-based and produces progressive compression, providing lossless

and lossy compression, and incorporates an error-containment scheme to limit the effects of data
loss on the deep-space channel. ICER achieves state-of-the-art compression effectiveness,
providing lossy compression performance competitive with the JPEG 2000 image compression
standard, and lossless compression performance competitive with the LOCO image compressor.
ICER noticeably outperforms the JPEG image compressor used by the MPF mission and
provides significantly more effective lossless compression than the Rice compressor used by that
mission. The MER mission, with a total of 18 cameras on two rovers, will rely heavily on ICER
to enable delivery of image data back to Earth during the 180 Martian days of surface operations.
The MER mission is significantly advancing the state of practice of image compression for deep
space missions by using image compressors that provide substantially more effective
compression than that obtained by the MPF mission. Rapid advances in imaging technologies
will enable future missions to collect even higher volumes of image data and continue to push
the need for innovative data compression technologies. Some possible improvements to ICER
that would increase its functionality and effectiveness for future missions:
(1) Improvements to the overall compression effectiveness of ICER should be possible. A likely
avenue is to improve the context modeling and prediction during encoding of bit layers by
developing a more refined context modeler. Improvements in compression effectiveness would
need to be balanced with complexity considerations.
(2) It would be fairly straightforward to modify ICER to provide more fine-grained control over
image-quality requests than currently supported by the minimum loss parameter.
(3) The quality disparity that can occur when the bit stream is truncated and the overshoot of the
byte quota are two issues that are largely related to the backlog of bits in each segments
interleaved entropy coder. One straightforward way of reducing the byte overshoot would be to
8

estimate the backlog of bits in each segments interleaved entropy coder when checking the byte
quota. One also could periodically flush each interleaved entropy coder, but this would reduce
compression effectiveness slightly. A more integrated approach would involve changing the way
that entropy coding is performed.
(4) The decompressor could be modified to incorporate more sophisticated techniques for
selecting quantizer reconstruction points than the current method of selecting a point close to the
midpoint of each quantizer bin. A thorough study of the distribution of sub-band data in typical
images could yield an improved approach, perhaps by adaptively adjusting the quantizer
reconstruction point based on observations of nearby pixels. This would reduce distortion in the
reconstructed image at a given bit rate without changing the compressor. Since the decompressor
operates on the ground, fairly complex approaches could be considered.
Progressive compressors like ICER will enable future missions to employ sophisticated
data-return strategies involving incremental image-quality improvements to maximize the
science value of returned data using an onboard buffer. Improvements in compression techniques
and onboard hardware will allow future missions to reap larger benefits from image
compression.

CHAPTER 3
Channel Coding
3.1

Introduction
The large distance between the transmitting space craft and the receiving earth station

and the limited transmitting power result in a very poor SNR 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 transmission to allow as large a number of images as possible to be
transmitted in the limited data rate. But especially compressed data bits are very sensitive to
transmission 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

when Eb/No is 1.75dB. 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. While in MER
communication system, (15, 1/6) convolutional code concatenated with the (255, 223) ReedSolomon code was used.

3.2

Turbo and LDPC code

In the design of MRO (plan to launch in 2006) data transmission system, Turbo code and

LDPC code was 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 concatenated with the Reed- Solomon code was used. Turbo code was
suggested to be used as a kind of channel coding method for deep space by CCSDS for its near
Shannon limit performance. 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.

10

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 107
bits length has the performance of 0.04dB apart from Shannon limitation in AWGN channel,
which is superior than the best Turbo code up to the present time. In China, the researches on
Turbo code and LDPC code are also a hotspot.

Figure: 3.2.1 Code Performance for

One standard code used in the DSN whose performance is well characterized and
included in the comparison 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
11

simple extension of the present Consultative Committee on Space Standards (CCSDS) standard
turbo codes. Details 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 paritycheck (LDPC) codes of rate 0.5 and 0.8, as is shown in Fig. 3.2.1. It shows a variety of codes
with near-capacity performance. Rates below 0.5 are suitable for low-data-rate deep-space
missions; rates between 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 have two main advantages:
they have lower decoding complexity and therefore are suitable for very high data rates (>10
Mb/s), and they perform better at a very low bit-error rate (BER) since their error floor can be
controlled and pushed to lower BERs for a small penalty in their waterfall region performance.
For application requiring BERs lower than the traditional 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 example smaller than 1000bits, and the
encoding 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.

12

CHAPTER 4
Modulation and Demodulation techniques
4.1

Introduction
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 planned 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. European space agency uses 4D 8-PSK TCM modulation technique in the services of
earth exploring satellite. It can be predicted that deep space exploring mission in future must
adopt bandwidth efficient modulation technique even in Ka band. CCSDS suggested using
bandwidth efficient technique 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
correction code (eg. Turbo and LDPC code)_mainly including:
1) 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.
2) 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.
3) Trellis-coded OQPSK: By using two-state convolutional encoder to introduce
memory among sending data and raised cosine pulse waveform, OQPSK signal of
improved envelope performance can be obtained.
4) FQPSK: By introducing a controllable correlation and adopting given signal
waveform between in-phase and quadrature arms (its envelope is similar to constant),
the FQPSK modulator can be regarded as a 16-state joint I-Q TCM modulator.
13

It can be concluded from the above analysis, modulation technique for deep space should
have both high power efficiency and high bandwidth efficiency. Existing methods use I-Q twolayer TCM modulator structure or single layer TCM structure based on multi-waveform. Such
structure is inflexible in the adjustment of transmission rate, example it cannot support noninteger rate of 1. 5 bit/symbol. By using multilayer TCM structure, which means to use different
rate encoder, rate adjustable power and bandwidth efficient modulation can be obtained.
The data transmission system in moon exploring plan used BPSK modulation, and the
efficient bandwidth of RF is 6MHz. The maximum data rate of single channel is 3Mb/s. The bit
error rate (Ber) Pe 1x

when SNR Eb/N0=16dB (C/N0=81.5dBHz) in downlink (explorer

to earth) data transmission channel.

Figure: 4.1.1 Comparison of several coded modulations

14

In deep space communication, if bandwidth efficient modulation technique is designed

jointly with high performance error correcting coding technique, we can improve both coding
gain and system bandwidth efficiency.
Figure 4.1.1 compares power efficiency, Eb/N0, and spectral efficiency = Rb/B,
measured as the fractional (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=

, 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 x
percent bandwidth constraint.
Figure 4.1.1 also shows the region of interest for Mars missions, where coding gain is
still of great importance, 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.

15

Chapter 5
Deep Space Network
5.1

Introduction
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 increasing 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 Consultative 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).

5.2

DSN communication protocol stack

With the development of deep space communication 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 network
research group (DTNRG) proposed space/earth protocol stack namely highly integrated
optimized regional protocol stack. It is mainly dependent of middle layer-Bundling Protocol
layer, 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.

16

Figure: 5.2.1 DSN communication protocol stack

The network protocol stacks in MER communication system proposed by CCSDS

include space wireless frequency and modulation (layer 1), space channel coding and space link
(layer 2), space networking (layer 3), space end-to-end security (layer 4), space end-to-end
reliability (layer 5), and space file transfer (layer 6) (including CFDP (CCSDS File Delivery
Protocol) and SCPS (Space Communication Protocol Standards) protocol), as shown in Figure
5.2.1. The network successfully fulfilled bidirectional transmission of multi-user data. But it
cannot 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 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

17

2004, used DTNRG Custody Transfer protocol to transport network data. There are 17 stations
on earth.

5.3

Planetary Network Architecture

For deep space internet architecture, introduced a general infrastructure for the NASA

space internet which contains a backbone network, an access network, an inter-spacecraft

network, and a proximity network. The space Internet is described as a network of Internets, with
a specialized deep space backbone network of long-haul wireless links interconnecting these
local Internets. Internet or Internet related protocols are used to form local networks with delay
relatively low-noise environments such as around Earth, within a free-flying spacecraft, on and
around another planet. Bundling protocol is employed to tie together a set of heterogeneous
Internets, performing any required additional functions the local protocols typically cannot do.

Figure: 5.3.1 The Planetary Network Architecture

18

The IPN Internet is depicted in Fig. 5.3.1. It includes the IPN backbone network, IPN
external networks, and planetary networks. IPN backbone network provides a common
infrastructure for communication among the Earth, outer space planets, moons, satellite,
intermediate relay stations, and so on. IPN external network consists of spacecrafts flying in
groups in deep space between planets, clusters of sensor nodes, and groups of space stations.
Planetary 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 and
provides such services as intermediary caching and relay service between the Earth and the
planet, relay service between the in situ mission elements, and location management of planetary
surface networks. Planetary surface network provides the communication links between high
power surface elements, such as rovers and landers that have the capability to connect with
satellites. They also provide a power-stable wireless backbone in the planet. Moreover, a
planetary surface network includes 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 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 protocols have been shown to
achieve very poor performance 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, these solutions cannot be directly
applied to the IPN backbone network because of the extremely high propagation. Space
Communications Protocol Standards- Transport Protocol (SCPS-TP) is a set of TCP extensions
developed by the CCSDS. SCPSTP mechanisms are basically a combination of existing 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) has also been developed for
reliable file transport over space links. The bundling approach, which 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
19

bundle transport between two IPN Internet nodes. In 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 algorithm in
order to capture link resources in a very fast controlled manner. In Steady State a new congestion
detection and control mechanism is deployed to minimize erroneous congestion decisions due to
high link errors. TP-Planet deploys a newly developed end-to-end rate-based additive-increase
multiplicative-decrease (AIMD) congestion control, whose AIMD parameters are adjusted to
compensate 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.

20

CHAPTER 6
Conclusions
We have seen four key technologies that includes image source coding, channel coding,
modulation 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 image source coding, interferential multi-spectral image
compression scheme is mainly introduced. For channel coding, combining Turbo and LDPC
code according to the characteristics of deep space channel 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 to construct more
efficient and reliable planetary network protocols. In a word, in order to realize reliable deep
space communication, there are still a lot of challenges need to be solved.

21

References
[1] Xiao Song, Li Yunsong, Bai Baoming, ZhouYouxi, The Key Technologies of Deep
Space Communications China Communications Dec 2006
[2] A. Imbriale, Large Antennas of the Deep Space Network Issued by the Deep-Space
Communications and Navigation Systems Center of Excellence Jet Propulsion
Laboratory publications, California Institute of Technology, Feb 2002
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