Connectivity Business News
Apr 18, 2024
NASA’s DSN can communicate with space assets beyond the bounds of the solar system, David Cunniff, space stategist at Reston, Va.-based security and technology company Peraton, told CBN during Space Symposium 2024.
“The problem is that more missions keep getting launched,” Cunniff said, adding existing missions are getting also getting longer, putting further strain on the network. “There’s an incentive to extend missions as much as you can. Once you’ve taken the risk and the expense to send something into space, you don’t just throw that away,” he said.
Peraton works with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to support the network, Cunniff said. “DSN makes it so easy to launch a new mission that somebody may have to take a backseat sometimes, because [NASA] just doesn’t have enough assets to support these missions,” he said.
