Portland Amateur Radio Club

NASA has several spacecrafts, most are autonomous probes that explore, make scientific measurements to better understand our universe. These spacecrafts can, and are controlled by operators on Earth by sending commands requesting specific instruments to be used at specific times. The data collected is then sent back to Earth to be analyzed and to determine further investigation. The Deep Space Network was created to fulfill the communication requirements to maintain control and receive data from these orbiting and surface assets. This presentation will try to give an overview of the communication challenges when your remote party is millions of kilometers away. The DSN was designed, built and is now operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center in Pasadena, CA funded by NASA and managed by the California Institute of Technology.

Biography:
Paolo Bellutta has worked in computer vision and robotics for 40 years, from developing automated off-road scouting vehicles for the Army to payloads flown on suborbital flights. He also spent 15 years operating rovers on the Martian surface. Originally from Italy and with an educational background in physics and computer science, is now retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and lives in Vancouver, WA.