In Silico Design of Deep Space Optical Links

• Published in: ASCEND 2020
• Main Authors: Lee, Carlyn-Ann, Xie, Hua, Lee, Charles H., Lyakhov, Dmitry, Michels, Dominik L.
• Other Authors: Visual Computing Center (VCC), Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) Division, Computer Science Program, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 2020
• Subjects: South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10754/666010; https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2020-4006

As deep space links migrate toward higher frequency bands like Ka and optical, thorough trade-space exploration becomes increasingly valuable for designing reliable and efficient communications systems. In this contribution, we leveraged high-performance, concurrent simulations when the run-time complexity of simulation software overwhelms capabilities of ordinary desktop machines. The first part of this manuscript describes how to run error correcting code simulations concurrently on a high-performance supercomputer. The second part of this study describes a framework to produce azimuth and elevation terrain masks from imagery of the Lunar South Pole. C. Lee thanks Mohsin Shaikh of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology for assistance with setup and troubleshooting applications on Shaheen and Harvey Newman of California Institute of Technology for insightful discussions about super computing applications. The research described in this paper was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This research used the resources of the Supercomputing Laboratory at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.