GAO Pings NASA on DSN Problems
GAO: NASA’s Ability to Meet Future Deep Space Communications Demand Is at Risk, House Science Democrats
“While NASA’s Deep Space Network can meet most requirements of its current workload, it may not be able to meet near-term and future demand. The systemsuffering from an aging, fragile infrastructure with some crucial components over 40 years oldhas lost science data during routine operations and critical events. In addition, new customers find they must compete for this limited capacity, not just with each other, but also with legacy missions extended past their lifetimes, such as NASA’s Voyager, that nonetheless return valuable science. Program officials doubt they can provide adequate coverage to an increasing set of new mission customers, especially if they increase dramatically under the President’s Vision.”
