[CESG] [EXTERNAL] Re: SFCG-40 outputs concerning lunar and martian wireless frequencies

Mon Jan 3 18:01:27 UTC 2022

Dear SOIS – Wir and associated participants in this seemingly endless discussion,

First of all, a Happy New Year to all of you.  I do sincerely hope that your celebrations were safe and that the new year gives us all good health and worthy progress.

Since is are clearly more than one misunderstanding of what “consensus” means in CCSDS, and how it is intended to operate, I am offering some clarifications.  Consensus in CCSDS is defined in Annex G, and in sec 5.1.2, of the CCSDS Org & Proc doc, A02x1y4c.  It is defined thusly:
Annex G
The entire CCSDS technical organization is run by a process of consensus, and it is the CESG that decides if the standardization process has come up with a result that reflects a real consensus. Consensus does not necessarily mean that unanimous agreement has been reached, but that the result incorporates the best set of compromises that all parties can agree to. The principle of consensus applies to the decisions made at the CMC, CESG, and WG levels.
Coming to consensus is a matter of understanding, considering, eliminating disagreements, and arriving at the best set of compromises. Consensus is achieved when all significant issues are addressed, but not necessarily accommodated.
Sec 5.1.2
The decisions of all CCSDS organizational units shall be reached through consensus. In this context, consensus does not necessarily mean that unanimous agreement has been reached, but that the result incorporates the best set of compromises to which all parties can agree.
An individual is responsible for expressing concerns; the group is responsible for resolving them. The group decides whether a concern is legitimate; the individual decides whether to concur with the group, block, or stand aside. All significant issues and their disposition must be documented and accepted by the group.
Consensus building starts at the WG level and it continues through Area, CESG, and CMC level.  This is clearly stated in that doc.  There is more elaboration on this in the document, in Sec 5.1.2, and in the annex.  An individual is not permitted to thwart forward progress.  An individual who has an opinion that differs from the rest (of the WG, or CESG, or CMC) is given the opportunity to convince everyone else of their opinion.  If the dissenter cannot convince the rest of the group (whichever group) then they have a choice: they can agree with the group, they can stand aside, or they can continue to contest it.  If they do contest it then consensus is blocked at that level and the issue is escalated to the next higher level.  In the case of a WG this would involve the CESG.

It is not stated clearly in the Org & Proc doc, but once an issue has been escalated to a higher level in the organization it is no longer subject to further discussion and consensus in the lower levels of the organization, it is out of their hands.

This is now a CESG issue and it is up to the CESG to resolve it.  There is no such concept as a CESG decision that resolves and issue “breaking consensus at the WG level”.

If the WG has failed to reach consensus the decision is escalated to the CESG and it is up to the CESG to resolve it.   In a similar fashion, if the CESG fails to reach consensus the issue may be escalated to the CMC.  This has, and does, occur, but not often.

Best regards, Peter

From: Kevin K Gifford <kevin.gifford at colorado.edu>
Date: Sunday, January 2, 2022 at 9:09 AM
To: Issler Jean-Luc <Jean-Luc.Issler at cnes.fr>, "sois-wir at mailman.ccsds.org" <sois-wir at mailman.ccsds.org>
Cc: Peter Shames <peter.m.shames at jpl.nasa.gov>, "Enrico.Vassallo at esa.int" <Enrico.Vassallo at esa.int>, "Ignacio.Aguilar.Sanchez at esa.int" <Ignacio.Aguilar.Sanchez at esa.int>, "Wilmot, Jonathan J. (GSFC-5820)" <jonathan.j.wilmot at nasa.gov>, Ray Wagner <raymond.s.wagner at nasa.gov>, Kevin K Gifford <kevin.gifford at colorado.edu>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: SFCG-40 outputs concerning lunar and martian wireless frequencies

Dear Jean-Luc -

I believe there is a misunderstanding regarding consensus within CCSDS.

My understanding is that CCSDS consensus is achieved at the CESG level (which is the level of document review that CCSDS-8883 is currently undergoing):
-- CCSDS-883-0-R-0 is a NASA+CSA sponsored activity
-- My understanding is that no consensus is required at the WG level, if this was indeed true then any single WG member could stop a publication from moving forward and essentially thwart the respective agencies that are sponsoring the project.  While a CCSDS member agency, or a CESG AD has this power, my understanding is that a CCSDS WG member does not.

I personally have never declared a WG consensus; I have stated that the SOIS-WG sponsors of CCSDS-883 (NASA, CSA) have worked to disposition all RIDs submitted by CNES and ESA which is what the SOIS-WG is supposed to do.

The SOIS-WG NASA+CSA project sponsors have now accepted all of the RIDs that were formally received from the CESG Review led by Ignacio Sanchez and Enrico Vassallo and have provided the updated document for review by the RID submitters through SLS-RFM.

Jean-Luc: You make the statement that "To be more clear, the main CNES RIDS of the 883 Agency Review whose disposition has been de facto canceled by the broken consensus are the following: CNES-D-V2; CNES-V; CNES-T; CNES-A; CNES-B; CNES-C; CNES-D; CNES-R; CNES-H; CNES-G and CNES-F."
-- The SOIS-WG NASA+CSA project sponsors have accepted all of the RIDs that were formally received from the CESG Review led by Ignacio Sanchez and Enrico Vassallo
-- My expectation is that the SOIS-WG will receive a response from the SLS A.D. (Ignacio) regarding the NASA+CSA incorporation of all RIDs submitted by the SLS-RFM/SFCG review
-- If the CNES RIDs you mention above were part of the SLS-RFM/SFCG review, then these RIDs are now dispositioned/accepted; if they were not part of the RIDs submitted by Ignacio and Enrico then they were not in scope since CCSDS-883 RID resolution is at the CESG level

If any additional discussion is required, I formally request that Ignacio Sanchez (SLS AD), Peter Shames (SEA AD), and Jonathan Wilmot (SOIS AD) are explicitly part of the conversation to ensure no misunderstandings regarding CCSDS processes.

Thanks.

Kevin

________________________________
From: Issler Jean-Luc <Jean-Luc.Issler at cnes.fr>
Sent: Friday, December 31, 2021 3:23 AM
To: Kevin K Gifford <kevin.gifford at colorado.edu>; sois-wir at mailman.ccsds.org <sois-wir at mailman.ccsds.org>
Subject: RE: SFCG-40 outputs concerning lunar and martian wireless frequencies

Dear Kevin, dear all,

My informal E-mail bellow was mainly to inform our Wireless WG about important SFCG updates regarding lunar wireless frequency bands and related limitations. I thought it is interesting for SOIS-Wireless-WG to know these informations that I re-attach here (with bellow extracts of the lunar frequency table related to wireless)

[cid:image003.png at 01D7FE38.B70A53D0]

(Note 4) Frequencies to only be used outside the Shielded Zone of the Moon (SZM).

(Note 6) 5.25-5.57 GHz is allocated to SRS (active) on a primary basis; use of these frequencies for communications in the lunar region is on a non-interference and unprotected basis to SRS (active).

Link Type

Frequency Band

Limitations

4.0

Lunar Surface  Communications

390-405 MHz

See Note 4 to Table 1

410-420 MHz

435-450 MHz

See Note 4 to Table 1

2.400 – 2.480 GHz

Sufficient OOB filtering to protect the 2483.5-2500 MHz LO-to-LS PNT band is necessary

2.5035-2.620 GHz

Sufficient OOB filtering to protect the 2483.5-2500 MHz LO-to-LS PNT band is necessary

5.15-5.835 GHz

25.25-25.5 GHz

Subject to SFCG Rec. 15-2R4

27.225-27.5 GHz

Subject to SFCG Rec. 15-2R4

The new martian and lunar SFCG rec updates are for me interesting to know by Wireless WG not only for reasons related to 883, and more broadly, for some future new bleu or green book(s) to be issued by Wireless WG. That is why this informal E-mail bellow was adressed to SOIS-Wireless WG only, and why I did not sent the 883 version submited to RFM to our WG, since it is not my responsibility to do it.

As Martin and I formally wrote to our WG, we considered the consensus to have been broken, and I simply informally wanted to inform the WG that it is still the case (broken consensus) for me (unless comments received from RFM are integrated in 883). When stating about the broken consensus, Martin and I wrote that it is now at CESG level, I can therefore only agree with your statement bellow that “it is a CESG level” (but as mentioned you Kevin brought 883 also at SLS/RFM level, and I thought that minimum informal technical exchanges of technical facts between RFM and Wireless group members should have been be possible ?). The specificity here is also that several major paragraphs related to frequencies has been removed (in addition to more than 150 frequency references kept in the 883 main text), protection of Radio Astronomy in the Shielded Zone of the Moon and protection of non-wireless SFCG lunar bands (including a very important one having a link with RA in the SZM). Theses removals has been made to the point of breaking the consensus that you declared, and to make uneffective and not real the declared disposition of most of the CNES RIDS (Normaly, PIDS proposed at CESG level by a participant/adviser involved in the Agency Review do not break consensus that much). I therefore just wanted to informally make the status of the consensus (still lost) clear to our WG, also since it is the first time in CCSDS history (due to this boken consensus) that a CCSDS standard could unvolontary make the adopting/implementing engineer to unvolontary threaten Radio Astronomy  (more than if all the crucial informations and requirement were clearly written in 883 as we agreed during the Agency Review), if the RFM suggestions (all reasonable with shorter texts and new compromise proposals, and staying inside the declared consensus) made to answer your request for review to RFM are not taken into account. Such an important stakes  can certainly not  be transformed/reduced/interpretated into “confusing sentence whose content was redoundent”. As already mentioned, our Ministry of Reasearch (one of our stakeholders) expect that french public servants to do their best for protection of Radio Astronomy in the SZM (by the way we are very happy about the succesfull launch of James Webb Telescope ☺ ! Bravo to NASA, ESA, CSA and all the actors !). To be more clear, the main CNES RIDS of the 883 Agency Review whose disposition has been de facto canceled by the broken consensus are the following: CNES-D-V2; CNES-V; CNES-T; CNES-A; CNES-B; CNES-C; CNES-D; CNES-R; CNES-H; CNES-G and CNES-F.

I am glad that the green book “SOIS lunar communication frequency bands” uploaded is “totally out of scope”. The fact that it (or its last version) was uploaded less than 4 monthes ago, soon after our conclusive Agency Review, and that  October 2021 appeared in its title, confused me.

Most importantly: nice end of year, and Happy New Year to you, your families and your nears.

See you soon; Very best regards

Jean-Luc

De : Kevin K Gifford <kevin.gifford at colorado.edu>
Envoyé : lundi 27 décembre 2021 02:27
À : Issler Jean-Luc <Jean-Luc.Issler at cnes.fr>; sois-wir at mailman.ccsds.org
Cc : Shames, Peter M (US 312B) <peter.m.shames at jpl.nasa.gov>; Kevin K Gifford <kevin.gifford at colorado.edu>
Objet : Re: SFCG-40 outputs concerning lunar and martian wireless frequencies

Dear Jean-Luc -

The CCSDS-883 issue is not at the SOIS-WG level, it is at the CESG level.

In response to your comments, please note that all agreed-to RIDs from ESA/CNES from the CESG Review have been excepted, sans one confusing sentence whose content was redundant, so I fail to your concerns.

Regarding the proposed green book updates draft document, that is totally out of scope, it is an old draft document.

Let me repeat: CCSDS-883 processing is at the CESG level and the SOIS-WIR WG will await the outcome of this process.

Thanks.

Kevin

________________________________

From: SOIS-WIR <sois-wir-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org<mailto:sois-wir-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org>> on behalf of Issler Jean-Luc <Jean-Luc.Issler at cnes.fr<mailto:Jean-Luc.Issler at cnes.fr>>
Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2021 2:23 AM
To: sois-wir at mailman.ccsds.org<mailto:sois-wir at mailman.ccsds.org> <sois-wir at mailman.ccsds.org<mailto:sois-wir at mailman.ccsds.org>>
Subject: [SOIS-WIR] SFCG-40 outputs concerning lunar and martian wireless frequencies

Dear Kevin, dear all,

I hope you have had a nice Christmas

As a member of CCSDS SOIS/Wireless and SLS/RFM group, I have seen the 883 version that you submited to RFM for comments. This version do not present significant progress to re-find the consensus that you declared Kevin, and which was later broken. I made new proposals (included in the combined version of 883 containing the comments received from RFM WG before the deadline that you have defined Kevin) to find new compromises in the 883 text, while keeping in mind the key issues allowing to re-create the declared consensus.

Please also find here attached the updated SFCG recommandations (for the ones who have not them aready) to respect vis a vis lunar and martian communication/PNT frequencies. New lunar and martian wireless bands have been introduced, with some necessary restrictions, as well as recommendations to protect the 2483-2500 MHz PNT orbit to surface lunar band. The need of an upper guard band that we have discussed before reaching our consensus including that need at WG Level (now broken by SEA/AD PIDS and the resulting version submited to RFM), between 2.5000 and 2.5035 GHz, has been discussed, confirmed and included in the updated SFCG RECs . The 3GPP 4G 2.5 GHZ lunar and martian bands are therefore 2503.5-2620.0 MHz. SFCG confirmed also the Wifi 2.4 GHz lunar and martian bands: 2400.0-2480.0 MHz, that is not any channel, even partly spectraly speaking, above 2480.0 MHz. CNES hopes that the published 883 version will be clear in fully respecting these SFCG bands and in fully protecting the 2483.5-2500 MHz SFCG band. We know that there is not any CCSDS written rules, or even clear usage, precluding 883 to be unambiguous on this. Moreover, without this few frequency references allowing to re-create the consensus, the 883 version submited to RFM contains more than 150 frequency references in MHz or GHz ! SFCG also did not introduced new wireless bands which could threaten Radio Astronomy in the Shielded Zone of the Moon.

CNES was among the few agencies having been in favour of introduction of both 2.5 GHz and 5 GHz wireless bands in these updated SFCG recommendations !     SFCG is a continuous process, and CNES hopes that a compromise could be find for a future update to introduce a well studied portion of the 60 GHz wireless band acceptable for both Wireless and Radio Astronomy communities.

It is also very important that 883 re-become acceptable vis a vis the Protection of Radio Astronomy in the Shielded Zone of the Moon, as it was when you declared consensus and the related 883 agency review closure, Kevin; may be could you provide to our Wireless WG a status on 883 ?

I also had a look to the following Draft Recommendation for Space Data System Standards which is available in CWE (uploaded end of august): ”SOIS-Lunar Surface Communications Recommended Frequency Bands; Engineering technical recommendation; CCSDS 883.0-G-4; Proposed Green Book Updates. October 2021”. This document is also not compatible with the consensus which has been declared (and it is better than SFCG com, PNT and radar communities do not see the current version of this document !). I will have many comments, I will provide them asap, but I would recommend that we put on hold this document by waiting publication of 883, since the content of 883 is not approved if I am correct, notably due to the broken consensus. Once 883 will be hopefully published, we would have a stable reference to built upon to continue drafting this document.

Most importantly: nice end of year, and Happy New Year to you, your families and your nears.

Very best regards

Jean-Luc
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