[Sis-csi] Upcoming Intergovernmental Meetings on Lunar and Martian Spectrum Coordination

[Rodger.Magness at esa.int]

Sis-Csi members,
As you are aware, NASA is currently pressing ahead on plans for Lunar and
Martian exploration, in line with their strategic objective of eventually
sending men to Mars.

As part of these plans, NASA is also trying to define the radio frequency
spectrum usage and coordination scenario associated to these explorations.
But for this they need to coordinate their plans with the other space
agencies that may intend to use the same spectrum resources for their own
missions.

For this purpose the letter in attachment has been sent by the US Department
of State through their embassies in China, India, Japan and Russia and
through the US mission to the EU to the respective foreign ministries. As you
can see, they ask these governments and EU/ESA to attend an Intergovernmental
Meeting on Lunar and Martian Spectrum Coordination in August 2006 at JPL in
Pasadena, CA. It is proposed to prepare this meeting with two technical
meetings in February and June 2006.

If you are, as am I, a supporter of utilising current e.g. WLAN IEEE 802.11
b/g, WiMax or IEEE 802.16a/e, WPAN IEEE 802.15 etc., and next generation
COTS-derived RF SS wireless in unlicensed bands, e.g. UWB @ 3.4-4.9GHz, and
SS at 17 and 27GHz etc., in unlicensed earth-terrestial bands for Lunar and/or
Mars on-surface communications, it may be wise to lobby with your nearest
NASA, ESA or JAXA, etc. colleague that may attend or influence these
proceedings. In my opinion, it is not all clear if we can depend on a default
assumption that these will be available on the Lunar or Mars surfaces for
inter-vehicle, inter-explorer (robotic or man), or astronaut health
monitoring, etc. data comms. From this letter, one may expect a further
negotiation and possible extension of the proposal in some bands that could
negate a very beneficial usage of future COTS-derived comms technologies.

The full letter intended for this coordination is attached to this email.
kind regards,

(See attached file: US letter.pdf)

Rodger Magness


Senior Avionics Systems Engineer


Computers and Data Systems


Wireless Onboard Spacecraft Working Group Secretary:
http://www.wireless.esa.int/
Wireless Onboard Spacecraft e-group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spacewlan/
Wireless OB S/C Workshop April 2003 Proceedings:
http://www.estec.esa.nl/conferences/past_events.html
European Space Agency / Agence Spatiale Européenne http://www.esa.int
Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) Noordwijk, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 71 565.5481 Fax: +31 71 565.6791
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