Ground and Space Hardware for Interplanetary Communication Networks

The increasing demand for interplanetary communication links, due to the growing number of space missions planned or being executed as part of the Lunar and Martian future colonization, but also the science-driven exploration of the outer solar system, drives the optimization of ground and space hardware, and the creation of new paradigms for deep space communication. This chapter deals with a review of the existing technologies and development trends for the communication equipment on the ground and onboard the spacecraft. It also introduces different potentially promising architectures which may overcome the bottleneck due to the conflicting requirements represented on the one side by the advantage of having higher frequencies to increase the data throughput, and on the other side by the greater attenuation due to the Earth’s atmosphere at higher frequencies.