NARRATOR

In 2005, NASA launched the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to survey the Red Planet. At the time, the camera on board was the largest ever flown on a planetary mission. This allowed the orbiter to identify hazards that could harm landers and rovers. Additionally, the orbiter’s imaging spectrometer searched for water features, prospecting for resources and searching for evidence that water once filled the barren Martian landscape.

In addition to its science mission, the spacecraft acted as a communications link, relaying high-resolution science data from rovers on the Red Planet’s surface. This is a common, secondary purpose for Martian science orbiters. Mars Global Surveyor and 2001 Mars Odyssey, two previous orbiters, also acted as relays.

More recently, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, or MAVEN, completed aerobraking maneuvers to tighten its orbit around Mars, enabling it to act as a communications relay for the upcoming Mars 2020 rover, part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the Red Planet. The rover has the potential to answer key questions about the potential for life on Mars. Much of that data will flow through MAVEN.

Closer to Earth, NASA and commercial industry have extensive, robust communications infrastructure. As launch services become more accessible, constellations of relay satellites around Earth become more and more common. Terrestrial connectivity is near-instantaneous and -omnipresent.

However, the challenges of launching satellites to Mars doesn’t allow for such a robust network of services. Martian satellites are few and must be jacks-of-all-trades — not dedicated communications satellites like those we enjoy on Earth.

But what of the future? What of the not-so-distant tomorrow when launches to Mars are commonplace? What could a Martian communications network look like a thousand years into the future? What network will support human exploration of the Red Planet?

I’m Danny Baird. This is the Invisible Network.

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There are some words that stick with you. Words that a teacher threw your way and stuck in your brain for far longer than the test you studied for required. Most of mine came in the small, brightly colored books of vocabulary passed to students at the beginning of the school year. Each year had a new color, a new list of interesting words to study and learn.

I don’t know if they still use those books, but I hope they do; I loved them. They informed the decisions that led me here, reading words off a page — words I found somewhere within myself.

I don’t often use the words I found in those workbooks, but many found their way into the recesses of my mind, popping out of my mouth at opportune moments — surprising me with their eloquence. Some had interesting subtleties of meaning that couldn’t be expressed with any other word. Some made me feel pretentious, precocious, potent. Some were just fun to say.

Those words often seemed to have a French origin. There was nothing jejune about this potpourri of words. “Sangfroid” meant a cool composure. Speaking it transported me to a smoke-filled salon with the likes of Dalí or Picasso. “Rendezvous” meant a meeting or encounter. Writing it in my day planner filled the hours with elegance and maturity. “Reconnaissance” meant surveillance. Whispering it filled childish games of capture the flag with added intrigue.

One probably most encounters that last word, “reconnaissance” in espionage or warcraft. You hear the word in historical war films, presumably featuring a soldier patrolling behind enemy lines, a pilot flying high over hostile airspace or a covert submarine slipping deep below rival warships.

NASA’s reconnaissance satellites, like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, don’t have national security in mind. In fact, they don’t even fly over Earth. Reconnaissance of the sort that NASA performs has no opponent in mind ­— except the unknown. As we turn our eyes once again to the Moon and venture beyond to Mars, the more we understand these destinations, the less hostile they will be to our astronauts.

But in this episode, I’m not concerned with literal reconnaissance. Previous NASA missions to Mars have done their jobs, providing NASA with an understanding of the Martian terrain our astronauts will encounter.

Rather, I’m curious about a more liminal reconnaissance — one trapped between the waking world and a dream-like tomorrow. When NASA communications engineers look at the vast topography of Mars, this dusty celestial stranger, what sort of networks do they map onto its barren surfaces?

What follows is an interview with Joseph Lazio, chief scientist of the Interplanetary Network Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages NASA’s Deep Space Network. The Deep Space Network is a collection of three ground stations with massive antennas, strategically placed around the globe to communicate with spacecraft almost anywhere in deep space. The network ensures communications for many lunar missions, with Mars, with the Voyager missions, beyond the influence of our Sun, and many other spacecraft.

I’ve asked Lazio about innovations and technologies that will enable NASA’s immediate goals in deep space, but I’ve also done some reconnaissance. I’ve asked him to stretch his imagination into the far future, plumbing his imagination for what a Martian communications network might look like hundreds of years from now. Enjoy!

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NARRATOR

What is your name and your role at JPL?

JOSEPH LAZIO

My name is Joseph Lazio, although almost everybody knows me as Joe. And my role at JPL is, I’m the chief scientist of the part of JPL called the Interplanetary Network Directorate. And, among other things, we manage NASA’s Deep Space Network for NASA.

NARRATOR

What does that role entail?

JOSEPH LAZIO

A fascinating diversity of projects. The Deep Space Network, as we’ll discuss momentarily, is responsible for enabling this whole suite of missions, both for NASA and for international space agencies. And so, I think about all aspects of how can we get more science, either from the spacecraft missions or from other things, with the antennas in the Deep Space Network.

NARRATOR

And what brought you to that role and to JPL?

JOSEPH LAZIO

It was an opportune time. My background is radio astronomy, and the Deep Space Network — the foundation of the Deep Space Network — is a series of large, essentially, radio antennas. And in the past, they have done work in radio astronomy. So that confluence of knowing some aspects about radio technology — radio frequency technology — some of the possible science applications, and then just looking to the future of possible projects that at the time JPL was contemplating being involved in.

NARRATOR

So on a basic level, what is the Deep Space Network? What does its architecture look like?

JOSEPH LAZIO

The Deep Space Network is the set of, currently, radio antennas that NASA uses to enable a whole suite of missions across the solar system and beyond. There are three complexes of antennas. One is located in Goldstone, California, which is maybe a third of the way between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. One is located in Madrid, just outside Madrid, Spain, and one is located just outside Canberra, Australia. Each complex has four antennas: one very large 70-meter antenna and then three relatively smaller 34-meter antennas.

But even a 34-meter antenna — if you’ve ever stood next to one — it’s an impressive piece of engineering machinery. And these complexes are set up — they’re almost equidistant in longitude, so each one is about 120 degrees apart, which means that no matter where a spacecraft is in the solar system, it can always see at least one DSN antenna for receiving commands from Earth and then transmitting data back.

NARRATOR

And what sort of missions does the network currently support?

JOSEPH LAZIO

As I indicated, it supports or enables missions everywhere across the solar system. And in fact, if you, if you simply do a web search on DSN Now, there’s a website that allows you to view in real-time what data are coming down or what commands are being sent up from various spacecraft.

I’m looking at it as we speak and, just to give you a sample of the suite of missions that is enabled by the DSN:In Madrid, there is data coming down from SOHO, which is a joint European-NASA mission to study the Sun. There are data coming down from Juno, which is the spacecraft orbiting Jupiter. At Goldstone, currently Mars is overhead at Goldstone, so there are two antennas actually that are either transmitting commands or receiving data from four different spacecraft or landers at Mars. There’s also data coming down from Chandrayaan-2, which is the Indian mission at the Moon. And in Canberra, data are coming down currently from Voyager 2, which is actually a spacecraft outside the solar system. And it’s actually coming down to the 70-meter.

So, it’s an illustration of just how much science the network enables.

NARRATOR

So, that’s a lot of different missions. What sort of services do you offer them?

JOSEPH LAZIO

The DSN, it provides three essential capabilities. They go by the names telemetry, tracking and command. Often — because it’s NASA of course we need acronyms — so it’s often abbreviated to TT&C.

Telemetry is the thing about which most people probably have the most direct connection. So, if you’ve ever seen a picture of a planet, undoubtedly that picture has come down through one or more antennas in the network. And telemetry is that process in which the spacecraft transmits a signal, or transmits some data, or an image, from its antenna — from its system — and then it’s received by one or more DSN antennas. So, the telemetry is when the spacecraft sends data down to the Earth or down to us.

Command, the “C” part, is when scientists or operators on the ground are sending command up to a spacecraft to do something: take a picture, gather some kind of data, change its trajectory slightly.

And then finally tracking, the middle “T,” is for trying to figure out where the spacecraft is on the sky or where the spacecraft is in space. And of course, this is a particularly essential aspect when a spacecraft is going from Earth to a destination. We want to keep it on track, as it were, and ensure that it’s actually going along the trajectory that will get it to its intended destination.

NARRATOR

And how is the network growing to support the Artemis missions to the Moon?

JOSEPH LAZIO

In the near term, one of the plans — or actually the plan — is for the network to continue to expand. As I think I said earlier, there is one 70-meter dish at each complex and then three 34-meter antennas at each complex, and the objective is to continue to build out 34-meter antennas over the next five years so that each complex has four 34-meters.

In fact, there are two 34-meter antennas currently under construction at Madrid — in various states of construction. And then there is one planned at Goldstone for which construction will be starting relatively soon. They’re already doing site surveys, trying to figure out exactly where, next to the other three 34-meters, the fourth will go. And then there’s a planned fourth one for Canberra, sort of middle of next decade — in the middle of the 2020s.

And with that, then there’ll be numerous 34-meters, which will allow very high data rates down from the spacecraft at or on the surface of the Moon or around the surface of the Moon.

NARRATOR

Beyond the Artemis missions, what are current goals for growing the Deep Space Network’s capabilities?

JOSEPH LAZIO

In fact, I just sort of summarized one which is, it’s broader than, of course, just Artemis. An essential aspect is Artemis, but, of course, having more antennas enables not only more crewed missions with humans on board but more robotic missions to other destinations in the solar system.

One of the essential aspects is to try to increase the radio frequency at which commands are sent and data are received. There’s a fundamental relationship between how much data one can transmit and the frequency, the radio frequency, at which the commands are sent or the data are received. And, on top of that, things like cell phones and 5G and other such uses of radio waves are causing increasing congestion in in the radio spectrum. So, the Deep Space Network and NASA in general would like missions to move to higher frequencies, so that we can transmit and receive more data.

In the near term that’s focused on radio wavelengths — radio frequencies. Looking a little bit farther ahead, one of the goals is to transition to laser communications, actually sending laser beams back and forth. And again, this is all focused on the idea that as we go to higher frequencies — so light lasers are higher frequencies than radio — we can transmit more data. It’s kind of equivalent to using fiber optics, if you will, without the fibers, across the solar system, and that should enable even higher data rates.

And, in the near term, in fact, some of the existing 34-meter antennas and some of the future ones to be constructed, they may very well become both radio antennas and optical telescopes. Essentially: integrated optical/radio, with the idea that you can use them either for radio communications for existing spacecraft, or, maybe in the future, laser or optical communications for new spacecraft. So those are the key technologies, both moving to higher radio frequencies and then ultimately to laser communications.

NARRATOR

Is it a challenge maintaining an operational network while also implementing these new technologies?

JOSEPH LAZIO

Oh, of course, yes. Particularly in the case when one is retrofitting antennas — so, adding an optical or laser capability to existing radio capability — it’s very much like trying to do an upgrade to a car, or replace or improve something on a car, while it’s being driven. So you always have to keep in mind that there are existing spacecraft out there with technology.

You can’t change the spacecraft, of course, so you have to be very careful not to do something that would disrupt a current spacecraft, while enabling a capability for a new spacecraft. And perhaps the ultimate example of that are the Voyager spacecraft — the two Voyager spacecraft. They were launched in 1977, so anything one does has to respect and be backwards-compatible with the kinds of things that were being done in the late ’70s.

NARRATOR

Turning then to the far future of deep space exploration, what unique challenges do you think the networks of 100 or 1,000 years from now must face?

JOSEPH LAZIO

That’s a fascinating question. And my, my initial thought was: predicting that far out is incredibly challenging. Of course, I have the benefit that any predictions I make, I won’t be around to figure out if I’m right or not.

But, I thought about this in the sense of maybe the best way to imagine what communications might be like in the distant future is to look to how communications were done in the distant past. And, if we think back, say 2,000 years to the Roman Republic, and, I guess, the year 19 AD, or AD 19, was kind of — it was at the end — well after the end — of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire.

The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire did a very good job of building, essentially, high capacity roads between major cities. And, my expectation is that, that kind of architecture is likely to remain, even into the far future. So, if one wanted to transmit data between Rome and Ravenna or Rome and Brundisium, there were major roads that ran along Italy — or along the Italian peninsula — for transport of materials and, of course, communications.

Today, we know how to harness light or radio waves in a way that the Romans didn’t. But, they still had an architecture in which one moved massive amounts of material and communications along these — essentially what you would think of as backbones or trunk lines. That’s the lingo that we use today: a backbone or trunk line. In 2,000 years ago, it was a road. But the idea was: you have these very high capacity trunk lines — or ways of communicating between major population areas — and then the information would spread out from there.

Sort of analogously, I’m sitting in Pasadena [California]. You’re in the Washington, D.C., area. There’s not a line that runs between us. What will happen is, there’s likely to be a very high capacity communication line between, say, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. And then our conversation is going from Pasadena to somewhere in Los Angeles, along this high capacity line from Los Angeles to Washington and then from Washington to where you’re sitting.

And that’s analogous to how the Romans did it. It’s analogous, say, to how the Inca Empire did it, sort of 500 years ago. There were major roads.

So, if I look 1,000 years out, and I imagine colonies on Mars and maybe even mining colonies on asteroids, I would imagine that there will be these very high-capacity trunk lines or communication backbones probably enabled by laser communications? And then there’ll be smaller networks around the hub points that funnel the communication.

There will be a high capacity between, say, Earth and Mars and then it’ll spread out from the various communication points at Mars to the individual Martian colonies and same for major cities on Earth.

NARRATOR

How do you find that NASA and JPL are uniquely situated to do the long-term technology development key to realizing something like a network 1,000 years from now?

JOSEPH LAZIO

The key aspect for NASA — and just one of the great things about the agency — is that we can think 50 years in the future. We can think a century in the future. So getting some of the robotic missions alone, that one contemplates, people are thinking about, geez, what would we be doing or what should we be doing 20 years from now?

And similarly, people are mapping out how would humans, potentially, what’s the first trip to Mars look like and how would that work? But of course, the long-term goal is not just to go to Mars and then come back. Similarly, the one the goal for the Moon is not just to go to the moon and come back, but to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon — and ultimately, a long-term human presence on Mars.

In order to do that, you really do have to think about, “Well, what is — what are the logistics? What are the infrastructure? What does that look like?” And you have to start thinking about these things sometimes 20 or 50 years in the future. And some of the details might turn out to be not exactly what was planned initially, but if you don’t start thinking now — just the whole process of building the rockets and doing the missions — if you don’t start now, then you end up behind the curve.

And so NASA is one of those neat places that enables us to think really long term — forces us to think really long term about how to do things. And then accordingly, once you start saying, “Well, here’s how we think we would do it,” you have to start investing in those technologies. And of course, in some cases, those technologies don’t pay off for 20 or 40 years. But the very basic technologies that are being developed today are things that our grandchildren might enjoy the fruits of.

NARRATOR

And I suppose my last question is, what excites you most about the future of space communications or the future of space exploration in general?

JOSEPH LAZIO

Yeah, of course. The two are linked, right? Because without the communications, there is no exploration. It’s no use sending a spacecraft off if you don’t get the data back ­— if you don’t get the communications back, or if you don’t have communications with it.

The future: what excites me is, well, multiple things.

I imagine there’s a there’s a lot of interest in exploring the other oceans in the solar system. We know that there are now at least a half a dozen bodies in the solar system that have oceans. Some of them have more water in their oceans than the Earth does — moons like Europa around Jupiter, Enceladus at Saturn. And, you know, the Earth oceans are fascinating, so what must be the oceans at these other places? They must be doubly fascinating.

We are currently monitoring our own home planet with constellations of spacecraft — lots of spacecraft either taking pictures or making measurements. I’d very much like to see a future in which we’re doing that at other planets as well. In which we’re monitoring — and perhaps we’ll need to do so for a future Mars colony or set of colonies — monitoring those planets the same way we do Earth.

My own background is astronomy, so I look forward to much more capable observatories. Something like NASA’s Chandra telescope, NASA’s Hubble telescope, maybe a future radio telescope, but much bigger and much more capable, looking at planets around nearby stars to the edges of the observable universe.

And again, those are just fascinating possibilities in space exploration and won’t be possible without continuing advances in the communications, so that we can not only build, assay, much larger telescopes or much more capable robotic spacecraft, but also get the important data back from them.

NARRATOR

That’s amazing. Thank you so much for your time.

JOSEPH LAZIO

Sure, my pleasure.

NARRATOR

When I emailed Lazio requesting an interview, I sent him an early draft of the opening to this episode. He had some thoughts on the connections between the word “reconnaissance” and the exercise of dreaming up the future of space communications.

He wrote, “What you’re describing seems to be more ‘projection,’ from the Latin ‘proicere,’ or ‘throw forth.’ The sense is both in the standard usage of projecting into the future, but also we’ve talked about how communications allows us to extend ourselves in a virtual sense.”

He went on to add that the simple act of video conferencing with him could be interpreted as an example of this sort of projection.

As we journey together to the Moon, Mars and beyond, joining brave astronauts on distant celestial bodies through video links with Earth, I’m so confident in the power this agency has to throw us forth — boldly — into the unknown. With scientists and engineers like Lazio driving us toward the future, “tomorrow” will become a word of the past.

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This season of “The Invisible Network” debuted in November of 2019. The podcast is produced by the Space Communications and Navigation program, or SCaN, out of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Episodes were written and recorded by me, Danny Baird, with editorial support from Matthew Peters. Our public affairs officers are Peter Jacobs of Goddard’s Office of Communications, Clare Skelly of the Space Technology Mission Directorate and Kathryn Hambleton of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.

Special thanks to Barbara Adde, SCaN Policy and Strategic Communications director, Rob Garner, Goddard Web Team lead, Amber Jacobson, communications lead for SCaN at Goddard, and all those who have leant their time, talent and expertise to making “The Invisible Network” a reality. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. For transcripts of the episodes, visit NASA.gov/invisible. To learn more about the vital role that space communications plays in NASA’s mission, visit NASA.gov/SCaN.