efaardvark

So Artemis-1 is (hopefully) launching on the 29th.  On it will be 8 smaller cubesats, which will be deployed by Artemis at 2 "bus stops" on its way to the moon.  The cubesats will then find their own ways to fulfill their various missions, with NASA's Deep Space Network of tracking stations providing the data link for them all.

Or at least that was the plan.  Someone recently realized that with 9 new spacecraft all vying for time on the DSN's already overbooked downlink stations it might be a good idea to see what additional options for tracking time might be available in the world in case something doesn't go as planned and one or more of the cubesats wind up needing additional tracking time due to problems post-deployment.  Yeah.  So now, only a couple weeks before launch, we're doing cross-support testing with the European Space Agency to make sure that's at least an option.

Let's see, 8 cubesats x 5 ESA tracking stations, uplink and downlink, call it 5 data rates and 2 or 3 different encoding schemes per sat.  Maybe 10-12 hours of testing per cubesat if we're quick about it.  Then there's equipment and manpower availability to allocate and schedule, factoring in the time zones of the various mission operations centers (JAXA, Italy, Goddard, etc.), the stations (Goonhilly, New Norcia, Cebrerus, etc.), and of course JPL in California.

Um.. how long did you say we had to finish this?