Considerations in Building a DSN-Affiliated Ground Station in Economical and Sustainable Ways

The 21-m ground station at the Morehead State University became operational in 2021 as an affiliated node of the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN). The station was developed to support NASA-sponsored CubeSat missions such as CAPSTONE and the Artemis-1 Cubesats (e.g., Lunar IceCube). Since then, it has been used to support other lunar commercial missions such as Intuitive Machine’s IM-1 and IM-2 landers. Continued support for future missions both commercially and NASA-owed missions is expected. This paper will discuss some of the desirable characteristics of a DSN-affiliated station. Given that the affiliated station is likely owned and operated by a university as in the case of Morehead, funding is often limited. The approach taken during the development to realize an operational ground station within the available budget is discussed. More importantly the need to maintain such an operational system post-deployment is challenging. Different strategies employed by the Morehead State University team are discussed. They include expanding the station capabilities and offering services to other potential mission users to sustain operational funding.

莫尔黑德州立大学（Morehead State University）的21米口径地面站于2021年正式投入运行，成为美国国家航空航天局（NASA）深空网络（Deep Space Network, DSN）的附属节点。该地面站的建设初衷是为支持NASA资助的立方体卫星（CubeSat）任务，例如CAPSTONE以及阿尔忒弥斯1号（Artemis-1）任务搭载的立方体卫星（如月球冰立方（Lunar IceCube））。自此之后，该地面站还用于支持其他月球商业探测任务，例如直觉机器公司（Intuitive Machines）的IM-1与IM-2着陆器，未来还将持续为商业任务及NASA主导的任务提供支持。本文将探讨作为DSN附属节点的地面站所应具备的部分理想特性：考虑到这类附属地面站往往由大学所有并运营，正如莫尔黑德州立大学的案例所示，其项目经费通常较为有限，因此本文还将探讨在有限预算内建成可运行地面站的研发路径。更关键的是，在系统部署完成后对其进行运维维护往往颇具挑战，本文亦将介绍莫尔黑德州立大学团队采用的各类运维策略，包括拓展地面站功能、向其他潜在任务用户提供服务以维持运维经费来源。