Scheduling NASA's Deep Space Network in the Artemis Era

Scheduling NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) is inherently challenging under nominal circumstances. However, the additional stress of supporting the Artemis 1 mission, along with the expectations for future flights in the Artemis series, introduces another level of complexity and demand. The Artemis 1 mission was accompanied by a number of smallsats, which further complicated the task of providing communications and navigation support to all the launching missions. Even if future missions do not include DSN-supported smallsats, the primary Artemis scheduling support remains complicated by uncertainties in the launch date and the exact launch time within a specified window — a window during which the support geometry can change significantly. This complexity is further compounded by post-launch trajectory updates, and by the need to balance any impacts on other DSN users, including those who could potentially be seriously impacted by last-minute schedule changes. This paper outlines the nominal DSN scheduling process and tools, and then details how the Artemis 1 mission requirements (and the accompanying smallsats) impacted that nominal process. Lessons learned from this experience have been collected and converted into a set of potential future improvements designed to both lessen the impact and streamline future support timelines. In this paper we will describe the rationale behind the proposed improvements, how they will better support Artemis missions, and the architecture and design considerations, specific to the DSN, that come into play.