In this course, the principles of spacecraft communication systems will be examined with a specific emphasis on real-world implementation, application, and performance. Existing commercial, civil, and military systems are described and analyzed, including those for Earth-orbiting, cislunar, and deep space spacecraft. The various entities that spacecraft communication systems interact with are reviewed including the host spacecraft, the space environment, ground- and space-entry points, and sources of interference, both intentional and unintentional. Topics include: requirements analysis and definition, end-to-end functional analysis and definition, design options and implementations, performance predictions and analysis, system integration, system verification, and mission operations. The analysis required for system development and operations are introduced including navigation, link analysis, antenna performance, analog and digital modulation/demodulation systems in noise and interference, filtering, sampling, quantization, encoding, and detection techniques to improve signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and bit error rate (BER) performance. Prerequisite
Course Prerequisite(s)
EN.675.600, EN.675.601, EN.525.640 or equivalent, and a basic working knowledge of Fourier transforms, linear systems, and probability theory, and MATLAB, or with approval of the instructor.