Beacon Monitor Operations on the Deep Space One Mission

A new approach to mission operations will be flight validated on NASA’s New Millennium Program Deep Space One (DS1) mission scheduled to launch in October of 1998. The beacon monitor technology is an operational concept for reducing deep space mission operations cost and decreasing the loading on ground antennas. The technology is required for upcoming NASA missions to Pluto and Europa. With beacon monitoring, the spacecraft will assess its own health and will transmit one of four sub-carrier frequency tones to inform the ground how urgent it is to track the spacecraft for telemetry. If all conditions are nominal, the tone provides periodic assurance to ground personnel that the mission is proceeding as planned without having to receive and analyze downlinked telemetry. If there is a problem, the tone will indicate that tracking is required and the resulting telemetry will contain a concise summary of what has occurred since the last telemetry pass. The primary components of the technology are a tone messaging system, AI-based software for onboard engineering data summarization, a ground visualization system for telemetry summaries, and a ground response system. This paper will describe the operational concept, key hardware and software components, the flight validation approach and the DS1 development status. Applicability to future missions will also be included.