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eterevsky parent
Aren't missions paying for the usage of DSN? How come a small cubesat gets the amount of time on the network comparable to JWST?

Could this be commercialized? If there's high demand it should be profitable to build new dishes to increase bandwidth.


dr_orpheus
Yes and no. There are usage cost times for DSN stations [0]. That link is old and says it is on the order of $1000/hr in 2009. Inflation adjusted it would be more, but I think costs have actually risen to closer to a $5000/hr. Theoretically each of the eight cubesat missions would be paying this cost, so that would come out to $500k that each of them would be paying. Not a lot for larger space missions, but may be a lot for a cubesat mission. However, I doubt that they are all paying for this and is was just part of the usage agreement to host their mission on Artemis. Some of the cubesats are also NASA sponsored so they would just be paying themselves.

It likely is somewhat profitable, but would require a huge investment. Some have suggested (can't find the source) that the DSN should be charging closer to $35,000/hr to cover costs of maintenance and building new dishes to expand the network, but NASA themselves can't be a for profit company. So if there was someone providing commercial ground services for deep space, lets say with commercial efficiency they get services to cost $20,000/hr. Great! But why would I do that if I can still go to DSN and pay $5000.

But as the article indicates there were probably be a reckoning soon because I've already heard people describe scheduling and allocation of DSN time at JPL as a battle royale.

https://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/files/6_NASA_MOCS_2014_10_01_...

snowwrestler
I don’t think missions are individually billed for DSN time, rather DSN time is allocated according to NASA internal priorities. Which is a classic resourcing problem in bureaucracies.

That also explains the challenge for private investment. If none of the missions are budgeted to buy bandwidth, then you would have no customers for a private DSN service.

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