Deep Space Communications: An Introduction

Since the beginning, with Sputnik in 1957 and Explorer in 1958, space missions have gone farther and have become more and more demanding in data return to enable far more ambitious science goals. This is particularly so for probes in deep space—at the Moon and farther. In the 1960s and 1970s, the missions were planet flybys, which typically have short encounter periods. Then the missions progressed in the 1980s and 1990s to plant orbiters, which have long and sustained scientific observations—often years of continuous operation. In the 2000s, missions involved landing rovers that moved around on the surface of planets to engage in scientific investigations. In 2012, the latest of these, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover was landed on Mars for years of continuous active scientific investigations.