Sat Comm for Mars?

 

Wow, tell me that this in not an innovative idea!  It seems that NASA may be trying to get out of the Sat Comm business, as far as Mars is concerned. 

NASA has ask for information from commercial partners to supply satellite communications on future Mars rover missions.  The commercial partner would own and operate a satellite communications network that would provide communication to NASA.  

NASA is not just limiting the field to US commercial entities but also, universities, nonprofits, NASA centers, federally funded research and development centers, in addition to U.S. government and international organizations. 

This call for information on alternative communications network does begin to make sense when one takes into account that NASA is concerned about communications gaps in the 2020s.  

At this time, NASA has the  Curiosity and Opportunity rovers on the Martian surface.  For high speed communications with these rovers, NASA uses the high gain and high power relay radios aboard  Odyssey, which was launched in 2001, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter(MRO), launched in 2005. These two will be augmented by  the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft which arrives Sept. 21, and the 2016 arrival of the European Space Agency’s ExoMars/Trace Gas Orbiter.  This should more than double the communication bandwidth.  But NASA has nothing scheduled after MAVEN arrives.  

From the NASA article:

• This creates the need to identify cost-effective options to ensure continuity of reliable, high-performance telecommunications relay services for the future

Read the complete article from NASA HERE

John Karlin, Developer of All-Digit Dialing Dies at 94

As the home phone is posed to slowly fade into oblivion, many of us are unaware of the process that took the home phone from the realm of operator controlled call centers to completely automated digital call handling.  

Before John Karlin call handling had transformed from operators to mechanical switches.  But in the decades following WWII the number of home based private numbers outpaced the mechanical switch centers ability to absorb them.  

Enter the DTMF system or Dual Tone Multi Frequency dialing which mixes two tones to represent a single number and as little as five frequencies mixed to produce 0 thru 9 plus room for two special keys.  This technology allowed the call centers to transit to filters and digital switches and the ability to handle substantially more calls. 

But the shift to the new system required a paradigm shift in the design of the phone. 

From the article:

• The rectangular design of the keypad, the shape of its buttons and the position of the numbers — with “1-2-3” on the top row instead of the bottom, as on a calculator — all sprang from empirical research conducted or overseen by Mr. Karlin. 

2013 is the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the touch-tone phone.  In those 50 years, Karlin's designs have affected many more technologies than the phone.  The keyboard design alone has become innocuous  finding itself incorporated in dissimilar items as the microwave oven to cellular phones.   And to consider that John Karlin made such stunning contributions to the very nature of how we use technology was virtually unknown outside his field.  

Original article in the New York Times 2/8/13 by By Margalit Fox

submitted by xnewsman

Google's View of Future Data/comm

In this killer demo of the future of what can only be called total immersion data/communications, Google is experimenting with what they call Project Glass and they released the video featured below. Here is what they say about Project Glass

• We believe technology should work for you — to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don't.
• A team within our Google[x] group started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment.

Check out Project Glass here