Communications and Navigation

NASA seeks proposals to produce high impact developments in communications and navigation technologies to support future space science and exploration missions. Missions are generating ever-increasing data volumes that require increased performance from communications systems while minimizing the impacts to the spacecraft. This requires higher peak data rates from the communications systems, algorithms to increase the overall throughput of the end-to-end communications channel, and lowering the flight system cost, mass, and power per bit transmitted. Effective communications on a non-interference basis are also required in complex RF environments such as inside a launch vehicle fairing. New analysis methods are requested for predicting the RF environment in fairings and spacecraft cavities. Similarly, missions have a need for more precise guidance, navigation, and control to meet their mission objectives. This requires new and more efficient trajectory planning methods, increased onboard autonomous navigation, and increased precision of onboard instrumentation while minimizing cost, mass, and power. This focus area supports development of technologies in optical communications systems, cognitive communications, flight dynamics and navigation, transformational communications technology, electric field prediction methods, and guidance, navigation, and control that will provide a significant improvement over the current state of the art.