With NASA gearing up to launch its last Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-M), the agency has begun studying what its next generation of space communications satellites might look like.
One feature NASA definitely wants is dramatically higher data-transfer rates than it gets from the TDRS constellation, which was conceived in the 1970s, said Badri Younes, deputy associate administrator for Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) at NASA headquarters in Washington. While TDRS satellites currently pass data at rates measured in hundreds of megabits per second, NASA envisions switching from radio waves to laser communications to achieve rates of up to 100 gigabits per second.
Such an improvement would be “crucial when missions collect massive amounts of data and have narrow windows of time to send that data back to Earth,” NASA said.
Over the next few months, NASA plans to release two requests for information to learn more about capabilities that could support its next-generation efforts, Younes told Defense Daily Aug. 17 after participating in a pre-launch news conference. NASA hopes to buy a new satellite as early as 2019 and field it in about 2025.
TDRS satellites were first launched in the 1980s and have been replenished many times since then. They send data to and from Earth ground stations to support NASA missions, such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station. Nine satellites are currently in orbit over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.
TDRS-M is scheduled to lift off Aug. 18 on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. ULA is a joint venture of Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT]. The backup date for the launch is Aug. 19.
Once on orbit, TDRS-M will be checked out for three to four months from NASA’s White Sands Complex in New Mexico before the agency formally accepts it. The spacecraft is designed to last 15 years.
Built by Boeing, TDRS-M is the third satellite in the third generation of TDRS. Its siblings, TDRS-K and TDRS-L, were launched in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Four satellites from the first generation and all three satellites from the second generation remain in service.
NASA’s contract with Boeing included an option for a TDRS-N, but the agency chose not to exercise it after deciding that the satellite was not needed, agency officials said.