Interaktiv 3D-Visualisering Av Nasas Deep Space Network Kommunikation Lovisa Hassler Agnes Heppich
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LIU-ITN-TEK-A-19/005--SE Interaktiv 3D-visualisering av NASAs Deep Space Network kommunikation Lovisa Hassler Agnes Heppich 2019-04-30 Department of Science and Technology Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap Linköping University Linköpings universitet nedewS ,gnipökrroN 47 106-ES 47 ,gnipökrroN nedewS 106 47 gnipökrroN LIU-ITN-TEK-A-19/005--SE Interaktiv 3D-visualisering av NASAs Deep Space Network kommunikation Examensarbete utfört i Medieteknik vid Tekniska högskolan vid Linköpings universitet Lovisa Hassler Agnes Heppich Handledare Emil Axelsson Examinator Anders Ynnerman Norrköping 2019-04-30 Upphovsrätt Detta dokument hålls tillgängligt på Internet – eller dess framtida ersättare – under en längre tid från publiceringsdatum under förutsättning att inga extra- ordinära omständigheter uppstår. Tillgång till dokumentet innebär tillstånd för var och en att läsa, ladda ner, skriva ut enstaka kopior för enskilt bruk och att använda det oförändrat för ickekommersiell forskning och för undervisning. Överföring av upphovsrätten vid en senare tidpunkt kan inte upphäva detta tillstånd. All annan användning av dokumentet kräver upphovsmannens medgivande. För att garantera äktheten, säkerheten och tillgängligheten finns det lösningar av teknisk och administrativ art. Upphovsmannens ideella rätt innefattar rätt att bli nämnd som upphovsman i den omfattning som god sed kräver vid användning av dokumentet på ovan beskrivna sätt samt skydd mot att dokumentet ändras eller presenteras i sådan form eller i sådant sammanhang som är kränkande för upphovsmannens litterära eller konstnärliga anseende eller egenart. För ytterligare information om Linköping University Electronic Press se förlagets hemsida http://www.ep.liu.se/ Copyright The publishers will keep this document online on the Internet - or its possible replacement - for a considerable time from the date of publication barring exceptional circumstances. The online availability of the document implies a permanent permission for anyone to read, to download, to print out single copies for your own use and to use it unchanged for any non-commercial research and educational purpose. Subsequent transfers of copyright cannot revoke this permission. All other uses of the document are conditional on the consent of the copyright owner. The publisher has taken technical and administrative measures to assure authenticity, security and accessibility. According to intellectual property law the author has the right to be mentioned when his/her work is accessed as described above and to be protected against infringement. For additional information about the Linköping University Electronic Press and its procedures for publication and for assurance of document integrity, please refer to its WWW home page: http://www.ep.liu.se/ © Lovisa Hassler, Agnes Heppich Linköping University | Department of Science and Technology Master’s thesis, 30 ECTS | Medieteknik 202019 | LIU-ITN/LITH-EX-A--2019/001--SE Interactive 3D Visualization of the NASA Deep Space Network activity – Visualizing communication across great distances Interaktiv 3D visualisering av NASAs Deep Space Network kom- munikation Agnes Heppich, Lovisa Hassler Supervisor : Emil Axelsson, Carter Emmart Examiner : Anders Ynnerman Linköpings universitet SE–581 83 Linköping +46 13 28 10 00 , www.liu.se Upphovsrätt Detta dokument hålls tillgängligt på Internet - eller dess framtida ersättare - under 25 år från publicer- ingsdatum under förutsättning att inga extraordinära omständigheter uppstår. Tillgång till dokumentet innebär tillstånd för var och en att läsa, ladda ner, skriva ut enstaka ko- pior för enskilt bruk och att använda det oförändrat för ickekommersiell forskning och för undervis- ning. Överföring av upphovsrätten vid en senare tidpunkt kan inte upphäva detta tillstånd. All annan användning av dokumentet kräver upphovsmannens medgivande. För att garantera äktheten, säker- heten och tillgängligheten finns lösningar av teknisk och administrativ art. Upphovsmannens ideella rätt innefattar rätt att bli nämnd som upphovsman i den omfattning som god sed kräver vid användning av dokumentet på ovan beskrivna sätt samt skydd mot att dokumentet ändras eller presenteras i sådan form eller i sådant sammanhang som är kränkande för upphovsman- nens litterära eller konstnärliga anseende eller egenart. För ytterligare information om Linköping University Electronic Press se förlagets hemsida http://www.ep.liu.se/. Copyright The publishers will keep this document online on the Internet - or its possible replacement - for a period of 25 years starting from the date of publication barring exceptional circumstances. The online availability of the document implies permanent permission for anyone to read, to down- load, or to print out single copies for his/hers own use and to use it unchanged for non-commercial research and educational purpose. Subsequent transfers of copyright cannot revoke this permission. All other uses of the document are conditional upon the consent of the copyright owner. The publisher has taken technical and administrative measures to assure authenticity, security and accessibility. According to intellectual property law the author has the right to be mentioned when his/her work is accessed as described above and to be protected against infringement. For additional information about the Linköping University Electronic Press and its procedures for publication and for assurance of document integrity, please refer to its www home page: http://www.ep.liu.se/. © Agnes Heppich, Lovisa Hassler Abstract This report describe the master thesis project developed by students from Linkoping University. The project was executed at the American Museum of Natural History and is a contribution to an open source software called OpenSpace. The report presents the design and development of an interactive visualization of the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN). Data from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was used to create a visualization de- signed to enhance the public understanding of the network as well as highlighting the chal- lenges of interplanetary communication. The research topics for this work has been how to visualize communication while considering the temporal aspects in space communication as well as showing all of the active components of the DSN in a comprehensible manner for laypeople. The result was an interactive visualization showing all spacecrafts, commu- nication complexes and radio wave communication that are part of the NASA Deep Space Network between 2014 and 2019. User tests showed that the visualization was in general satisfying the main goals of the project. Some future improvements have been identified and described as well. Acknowledgments We would like to express our gratitude to everyone at Linköping University (LiU) and The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) who made it possible for us to conduct this work. Thanks to our examiner Anders Ynnerman and Carter Emmart who arranged this collaboration. Thanks again to Carter for his enthusiastic ideas about visualization and his great knowledge about space as well as his eagerness to share it. Thanks to Emil Axelsson for being our educational supervisor and supporting us with valuable guidance throughout our whole project. We are also appreciative of Alexander Bock for providing fast feedback on Slack and even working after hours in other time zones to help us out. Also great thanks to Micah Acinapura who introduced us to the project code and for his great patience whenever we needed his help. Thanks again, to all of you for making us feel welcome into the OpenSpace team. We want to show our gratitude to Kevin Hussey at Jet Propulsion Laboratory who con- nected us to people with expertise about DSN. Special thanks to Shan Malhotra for his willingness to generate custom file formats with the necessary data for this project. This work could not have been possible without your help. We also want to extend our appre- ciation to everybody at AMNH who made our stay an unforgettable experience. Thanks to Vivian Trakinski and Ro Kinzler who showed interest in our work and invited us to after work events. Also thanks to Camera Walrond-Joshua, Barbara Green and Eric Hamilton at AMNH who helped us with administrative tasks. Agnes Karlsson-Heppich and Lovisa Hassler, March 2019 iv Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgments iv Contents v List of Figures vii List of Tables ix 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Deep Space Network . 1 1.2 OpenSpace software . 2 1.3 Motivation and Aim . 2 1.4 Research questions . 2 1.5 Delimitations . 3 2 Related Work 4 2.1 Three-dimensional analysis of deep space network antenna coverage . 4 2.2 Deep Space Network Now . 5 3 Theory 6 3.1 Technical details of the Deep Space Network and Communication . 6 3.2 Precision issues while navigating in OpenSpace . 9 3.3 Date reference frames and celestial coordinate systems . 10 3.4 JPL data . 11 3.5 DSN Now XML data . 12 4 Visual representation 13 4.1 Spacecraft . 13 4.2 Ground stations and their coverage . 14 4.3 Radio wave communication . 14 5 Implementation 17 5.1 Preprocessing of raw data and Data formats . 17 5.2 Stations . 20 5.3 Spacecraft . 20 5.4 Radio wave communication . 22 5.5 Station field of view . 24 6 Results 26 6.1 Visualization of the DSN stations . 26 6.2 Visualization of the spacecraft . 27 6.3 Visualization of the radio wave communication . 28 v 6.4 Ground station field of view . 28 7 User test 31 7.1 Design and purpose . 31 7.2 Result . 31 8 Discussion and analysis 33 8.1 Results . 33 8.2 Implementation . 35 8.3 Future improvements . 36 9 Conclusion 37 Bibliography 39 vi List of Figures 2.1 Main page of DSN Now observed at 2019-02-20.The center and left shows the communication complex sites and their individual stations. Above each station there are names of spacecraft that are in current communication. Animated radio waves indicate activity and goes in different directions. To the right more detailed information can be found about the spacecraft and the transmission. 5 3.1 Illustration of the coverage of the communication complexes.The dotted line rep- resents 30 000 kilometers from Earth. Outside of that radius the DSN stations coverage overlap, and there are nearly no blind spots left.