The Key Technologies of Deep Space Communications Xiao Song, Li Yunsong, Bai Baoming, ZhouYouxi ISN National Key Lab, Xidian University, Xian, 710071, China Email: xiaosong@mail.xidian.edu.cn ABSTRACT Deep space exploration and utilization are all along the dreams of human beings. Besides the technologies of launching and controlling the explorer, deep space communications plays an important role in deep space exploration. Compared with common terra and satellite communications, deep-space communications presents a more chal l engi ng envi ronment for dat a communications, such as long distance, very low signal noise ratio, high signal propagation delays and data corruption rates, asymmetric bandwidth and so on. Besides the technologies of sender, receiver and antennas, image source coding, channel coding, modu- lation and demodulation and deep space network are key technologies and play a very important role in the research of deep space communication. This paper will discuss the above four key technologies respectively with emphasis on the application of communications between Mars and earth. 1 Key words: deep space communication, interferen- tial multi-spectral image compression, more envelope fluctuations bandwidth efficient TCM, CFDP, IPN I. INTRODUCTION 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 communi- cations 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 explora- tions 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 China Communications December 2006 83 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications will be obtained and returned to the earth in 2020. These three procedures are called surrounding, Ianding 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 pre- sents more challenging environment for data communications. The radio frequency channel pre- dominantly used for communication typically oper- ates under the following constraints: 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). High Signal Propagation Delays: This is due to the enormous distances involved between the communicating entities and the relativistic con- straint 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 [1] . 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. [2] . Disruption Events: Since communicating enti- ties in deep-space tend to be in motion relative to one another, the communication channel be- tween 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 revo- lution 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 spe- cialized equipment. Meager, Asymmetric Bandwidth: The band- width capacities are asymmetric and fairly lim- ited in the deep-space environment. The uplink channel (Earth to Destination) tends to have much lower bandwidth than the downlink chan- nel (Destination to Earth) because all the inter- esting 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 [1] . Complex Geography Environment: In the moon and other planets, conditions such as the tem- perature 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. Deep space communications technology has kept improving with the development of deep space explora- tion 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 compres- sion 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 China Communications December 2006 84 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications antennas, image source coding, channel coding, modu- lation and demodulation and deep space network are key technologies and play a very important role in the researches of deep space communication. For the devel- opment 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 apart from the earth with the magnitude of several hundred million kilometers, studies of the essential technologies of communications be- tween 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 applica- tion of communications between Mars and earth. II. IMAGE SOURCE CODING In deep space communication system, the storage and transmission of image data (such as images of landform and physiognomy of remote planet) occupy large part of the resource and bandwidth of the whole system, which conflicts with the limited storage and transmis- sion capability of the explorer. As a result, in order to satisfy the requirement for bandwidth and storage capacity, high efficient image compressing coding method is one of the key technologies. On two Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit (MER-A) and Opportunity (MER-B), nine optical probes are carried with resolution of 10241024 and pixel preci- sion of 12 bit. Over half of the bits transmitted from the rovers consisted of compressed image data gathered from probes. Most of the images were compressed with the ICER image compression method [3] . The remaining images that were compressed made use of modified Low Complexity Lossless Compression (LOCO) software [4- 7] . ICER is a wavelet-based image compressor that allows for a graceful trade-off between the amount of compres- sion (expressed in terms of compressed data volume in bits/pixel) and the resulting degradation in image quality (distortion). When the compressed data volume is al- lowed to be large enough, ICER will produce lossless compression. The development of ICER was driven by the desire to achieve state-of-the-art compression perfor- mance while meeting the specialized needs of deep- space applications. In particular, ICER incorporates a sophisticated error-containment scheme to limit the ef- fects of data losses seen on the deep-space channel. ICER also features progressive compression: compressed in- formation is organized so that as more of the compressed data stream is received, reconstructed images of succes- sively higher overall quality can be reproduced. When lossless compression is desired, the MER mission gener- ally uses a software implementation of a modified ver- sion of the LOCO image compressor [5-6] . Although ICER can also perform lossless compression, the simple predictive approach used by LOCO is several times faster, with similar compression effectiveness. In addition to conventional image compression, MER is using a handful of other techniques to reduce image data volume. These include sending only subframes of interest of certain types of images (while possibly sending the whole image at much lower quality); performing pixel averaging to reduce the size of images; companding images from 12 bits/pixel to 8 bits/pixel before compression; and sending only row sum data, column sum data, or histogram data. Also, for each image acquired, the rovers produce a small 64 64 pixel thumbnail image by pixel averaging; these thumbnail images are compressed by ICER prior to transmission. The thumbnails serve as previews of the full-sized images, which may not be transmitted as soon due to the larger data volume they occupy. Considering the complexity of the algorithm, a fast and efficient lossless image compression system (FELICS) [8] will be used on MRO planed to launch in 2006. It is a simpler system for lossless image compres- sion that runs very fast with only minimal loss of compression efficiency, based on prediction with a two-neighboring-pixel context and coding with single bits and prefix codes. China started the moon exploration plan in September, 2003. In the moon explorer planned to be launched in 2007, a set of interferential multi-spectral imaging instrument and a set of solid camera optical imaging instrument will be on board. The resolution of the optics and the spectrum will be relative low for the restriction China Communications December 2006 85 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other lg.+ Perormance comparson o proposed method wth other methods methods methods methods methods of the technology. Using interferential spectral imaging instrument as an example, the resolution of the moon surface is 200 meters, and that of the spectrum and the optics are only 32 and 128 128 respectively. Since interferential multi-spectral image data occupy nearly 90 percent the storage space on board (48Gbits) and 66 percent the transmission bandwidth, near lossless com- pression of ratio of 2 will be adopted. The interferential multi-spectral image gen- erated by the interferential spectrum imager has different characteristic compared with those generated by dispersive spectrum imager. The gray level of spatial point in interferential multi- spectral image doesnt represent the spectrum intensity of the point but the interference and addition of intensity of several spatial points in different photic path distance. Its also a kind of data representation of the spectrum after per- forming Fourier transform. At the same time, the image array of the interferential spectrum imager is generated by scanning along a direc- tion of CCD, the correlation characteristic of image array is also different. So it is not suitable to apply general compression method to the interferential multi-spectral image. For interferential multi-spectral image compression, the researches are in their infant time home and abroad. Image transmission and process- ing laboratory in Xidian University has been done much research work in this field in cooperation with Xian Optics and Precision Mechanism Institute from 1999, and has con- solidated a good research foundation. Based on the characteristics of interferential multi- spectral image, we propose a new improved embedded source coding method based on frame prediction to compress the interferen- tial multi-spectral image. The main idea is to utilize the high inter-frame correlation of interferential multi-spectral image sequences. The experiment results of the spectral inten- sity of different spectral band of one spot on the ground are shown in figure 1. Three methods compared are the proposed improved embedded source coding method based on frame predic- tion (proposed method), the proposed method with ROI ( ROI region includes the location of interferential stripes) and JPEG2000 coding method with ratio of 8 (JP2K with ratio of 8) respectively. The original interferential multi- spectral image is shown in figure2. It can be seen that the proposed method with ROI has best performance compared with other two methods. The difference only exists in individual spectral bands. Through lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage lg. The orgna ntererenta mut-spectra mage China Communications December 2006 86 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications lg. odes perormance or BER=+o lg. odes perormance or BER=+o lg. odes perormance or BER=+o lg. odes perormance or BER=+o lg. odes perormance or BER=+o - - - - - further research the performance can still be improved. III. CHANNEL CODING The large distance between the transmitting space craft and the receiving earth station and the limited transmitting power result in a very poor signal- to- noise 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 transmis- sion to allow as large a number of images as possible to be transmitted in the limited data rate. But espe- cially compressed data bits are very sensitive to trans- mission 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 10 -5 when E b /N o is 1.75dB [9] . 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 [10] . While in MER communication system, (15, 1/6) convoluational code concatenated with the (255, 223) Reed-Solomon code was used. In the design of MRO (plan to launch in 2006) data transmission system, Turbo code and LDPC code wi l l be 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 con- catenated with the Reed- Solomon code was used. Turbo code was sug- gested to be used as a kind of channel coding method for deep space by CCSDS for its near Shannon limit performance [11] . 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. 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 10 7 bits length has the performance of 0.04dB apart from Shannon limitation in AWGN channel, which is supe- rior than the best Turbo code up to the present time. In China, the researches on Turbo code and LDPC code are also a hotspot. The researchers in Tsinghua University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Southeast University, Shandong University, Huazhong University of Technology and National University of Defense Technology have en- gaged for many years in design of Turbo and LDPC code and already obtained lots of achievements. Figure 3 and figure 4 show respectively different coding system with modulation for deep space missions. They are codes currently in use in DSN and recently published in the literature. China Communications December 2006 87 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o lg.( odes perormance or BER=+o -, -, -, -, -, One standard code used in the DSN whose perfor- mance is well characterized and included in the com- parison 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 simple extension of the present Consultative Committee on Space Standards (CCSDS) standard turbo codes. De- tails 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 parity-check (LDPC) codes of rate 0.5 and 0.8 [12] , as is shown in Fig. 4. It shows a variety of codes with near-capacity performance. Rates below 0.5 are suit- able for low-data-rate deep-space missions; rates be- tween 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 [13-14] h a v e t w o m a i n advantages: they have lower decoding com- plexity and therefore are suitable for very high data rates (>10 Mb/s), and they perform better at a very low bit-error rate (BER) (10 -9 ) since their error floor can be con- trolled and pushed to lower BERs for a small penalty in their waterfall- region performance. For application requiring BERs lower than the tra- ditional 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 eg. smaller than 1000bits, and the encod- ing 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. IV. MODULATION AND DEMODULATION 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 planed 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 [10] . European space agency uses 4D 8-PSK TCM modulation technique in the services of earth exploring satellite. It can be pre- dicted that deep space exploring mission in future must adopt bandwidth efficient modulation tech- China Communications December 2006 88 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications nique even in Ka band. CCSDS suggested using bandwidth efficient tech- nique 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 correc- tion code (eg. Turbo and LDPC code)mainly including 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. 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. Trellis-coded OQPSK: By using two-state convolutional encoder to introduce memory among sending data and raised cosine pulse waveform, OQPSK signal of improved enve- lope performance can be obtained. FQPSK: By introducing a controllable correla- tion and adopting given signal waveform be- tween in-phase and quadrature arms (its enve- lope is similar to constant), the FQPSK modula- tor can be regarded as a 16-state joint I-Q TCM modulator [16] . In order to further improve bandwidth efficiency, more envelope fluctuations bandwidth efficient TCM technique is now being a research hotspot [16] . It can be concluded from the above analysis, modulation technique for deep space should have both high power efficiency and high bandwidth efficiency. The research direction is quasi constant envelope or continuous phase modulation techniques with minimum power spectral containment. Currently, research emphasis is put on power and bandwidth efficient modulation techniques in the condition of more fluctuations. Existing methods use I-Q two-layer TCM modulator structure or single layer TCM structure based on multi-waveform. Such structure is inflexible in the adjustment of transmis- sion rate, eg. it can not support non-integer rate of 1. 5 bit/symbol. By using multilayer TCM structure, which means to use different rate encoder, rate adjustable power and bandwidth efficient modula- tion can be obtained. OFDM is a bandwidth efficient modulation method. There are many in-depth researches in such field home and abroad including ISN laboratory in Xidian University [17] . Constant envelope OFDM technique is recently proposed [18] and its application in satellite communication system is also studied. But its applica- tion foreground in deep space communication needs to be further investigated. The deep space exploring mission has just started up in China. The data transmission system in moon exploring plan used BPSK modulation, and the effi- cient bandwidth of RF is 6MHz. The maximum data rate of single channel is 3Mb/s. The bit error rate (Ber) P e 1 10 -6 when SNR E b /N 0 =16dB (C/N 0 =81. 5dBHzin downlink (explorer to earth) data trans- mission channel. In deep space communication, if bandwidth effi- cient modulation technique is designed jointly with high performance error correcting coding technique, we can improve both coding gain and system band- width efficiency. Figure 5 compares power efficiency, E b /N 0 , and spectral efficiency, = R b /B, measured as the frac- tional (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=10 -6 , 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 percent bandwidth constraint. Figure 5 also shows the region of interest for Mars missions, where coding gain is still of great importance, China Communications December 2006 89 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes lg. omparson o severa coded moduaton schemes 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. V. DEEP SPACE NETWORK 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 increas- ing 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 Con- sultative 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). With the development of deep space communica- tion 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 net- work research group (DTNRG) proposed space/earth protocol stack [19-23] namely highly integrated opti- mized regional protocol stack. It is mainly dependent of middle layer-Bundling Protocol layer [20] , 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. The network protocol stacks in MER communica- tion system proposed by CCSDS [24] include space wireless frequency and modulation (layer 1), space channel coding and space link (layer 2), space net- working (layer 3), space end-to-end security (layer 4), space end-to-end reliability (layer 5), and space file transfer (layer 6) (including CFDP [25-26] (CCSDS File Delivery Protocol) and SCPS (Space Communi- cation Protocol Standards) protocol), as shown in Figure 6. The network successfully fulfilled bidirec- tional transmission of multi-user data. But it can not 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 China Communications December 2006 90 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack lg . The Nars communcaton protoco stack 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 2004, used DTNRG Custody Transfer protocol to transport network data. There are 17 stations on earth. Researches for deep space communication in China start up later than other countries. The moon exploring communication system will use earth station in Beijing (E11628 N3954) and Urumchi(E 8736 N4348). The network structures are also based on DSN protocol stack of CCSDS. For deep space internet architecture, [27] introduced a general infrastructure for the NASA space Internet, which contains a backbone network, an access network, an interspacecraft network, and a proxim- ity network. The space Internet is described as a network of Internets [28] , with a specialized deep space backbone network of long-haul wireless links inter- connecting these local Internets. Internet or Internet- related protocols are used to form local networks with low-delay relatively low-noise environments such as around Earth, within a free-flying spacecraft, on and around another planet. Bundling protocol [20] is em- ployed to tie together a set of heterogeneous Internets, performing any required additional functions the local protocols typically cannot do. In [29] , the IPN Internet is depicted in Fig. 7a. It includes the IPN backbone network, IPN external networks, and planetary networks. IPN backbone network provides a common infrastructure for com- munication among the Earth, outer space planets, moons, satellite, intermediate relay stations, and so on. IPN external network consists of spacecrafts fly- ing in groups in deep space between planets, clusters of sensor nodes, and groups of space stations. Plan- etary 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 as shown in Fig. 7b and provides such services as intermediary caching and relay ser- vice between the Earth and the planet, relay service between the in situ mis- sion elements, and loca- tion management of plan- etary surface networks. Planetary surface net- work provides the com- munication links between hi gh power surface elements, such as rovers and landers that have the capability to connect with satellites. They also pro- vide a power-stable wire- less backbone in the planet. Moreover, a plan- etary surface network in- cludes 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 China Communications December 2006 91 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications 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 proto- cols have been shown to achieve very poor perfor- mance 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 [29] , these solutions cannot be directly applied to the IPN backbone network because of the extremely high propagation delay and the other challenges men- tioned in section 1. Space Communications Protocol Standards- Transport Protocol (SCPS-TP) [30] is a set of TCP extensions developed by the CCSDS. SCPSTP mechanisms are basically a combination of exist- ing 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) [25-26] has also been developed for reliable file transport over space links. In [20] , as mentioned before, the bundling approach, which lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture lg ;a. The lPN lnternet archtecture lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture lg ;b. The panetary network archtecture China Communications December 2006 92 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications 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 bundle transport between two IPN Internet nodes. In [31] a 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 algo- rithm in order to capture link resources in a very fast controlled manner. In Steady State a new conges- tion detection and control mechanism is deployed to minimize erroneous congestion decisions due to high link errors. TP-Planet deploys a newly devel- oped end-to-end rate-based additive-increase mul- tiplicative-decrease (AIMD) congestion control, whose AIMD parameters are adjusted to compen- sate 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. It is shown in [31] via simulation experiments that TP- Planet significantly improves the throughput per- formance and addresses the challenges in the IPN backbone network. VI. CONCLUSIONS This paper introduces four key technologies includ- ing image source coding, channel coding, modula- tion 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 im- age source coding, interferential multi-spectral im- age compression scheme is mainly introduced. For channel coding, combining Turbo and LDPC code according to the characteristics of deep space chan- nel 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 how to construct more efficient and reliable plan- etary network protocols. In a word, in order to realize reliable deep space communication, there are still a lot of challenges need to be solved. 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Burleigh et al., The Interplanetary Internet: A Communications Infrastructure for Mars Exploration, 53 rd IntI. Astronautical Cong., World Space Cong., Houston, TX, Oct. 2002. [29]. I. F. Akyildiz, X. Zhang, and J. Fang, TCP- Peach+: Enhancement of TCP-Peach for Satellite IP Networks, IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 6, no. 7, July 2002, pp. 303-305. [30]. CCSDS, Space Communications Protocol Specifications-Transport Protocol (SCPS-TP), Sep- tember 1997. [31]. O. B. Akan, J. Fang, and I. F. Akyildiz, TP- Planet: A Reliable Transport Protocol for InterPlaNetary Internet, IEEE JSAC, vol. 22, no. 2, China Communications December 2006 94 Feature Articles: Deep Space Communications Feb. 2004, pp. 348-361. BIOGRAPHIES Xiao Song was born in Shannxi province, China, in Jan., 1977. She is associate profes- sor and master director of communication and information system in Xidian University. She obtained her M.S degree in communication and information system and Ph.D degree in signal and information processing in Xidian University, China in 2001 and 2004 respectively. Now she is making postdoctoral re- searches in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California, United States. Her research interests are in the fields of video signal compression and coding, joint source channel coding, multiple description coding and networked media systems, robust image and video communication, deep space communications etc. Li Yunsong was born in Liaoning province, China, in Nov., 1974. He is currently an associate professor at the Department of Communication Engineering in Xidian University. He obtained his M.S degree in communication and information system and Ph.D de- gree in signal and in- formation processing in Xidian University, Chi na i n 1999 and 2003 respectively. His research interests are in the fields of image/ video compression and net work vi deo transmission etc. Bai Baoming was born in Mar., 1966. He is currently a professor at the Department of Commu- nication Engineering in Xidian University. He ob- tained his M.S and Ph.D degree in Xidian University, China in 1990 and 2000 respectively. During the years of 2000 to 2003, he was doing postdoctoral researches in Hongkong city university. His re- search interests are in the fields of information and coding theory, high efficiency digital modulation and wireless communications etc. Zhou Youxi was born in Fujian, China, on Oct 19, 1979. He received his BS, MS degrees in com- munication engineering from the University of Xidian, China, in 2002 and 2005, respectively. Now he is a Ph.D. cadidate in the Department of Infor- mation Engineering of Xidian University. His cur- rent research interests include the processing of video signal coding and the modeling of telecom- munication system.
Evaluation of Some Websites that Offer Virtual Phone Numbers for SMS Reception and Websites to Obtain Virtual Debit/Credit Cards for Online Accounts Verifications