Re: GAO: NASA's Deep Space Network: Current Management Structure Is Not Conducive to Effectively Matching Resources with Future Requirements.

Jim Kingdon <kingdon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So what might make sense is a fancy DSN facility, relatively small but
built for the tricky and essential work, and a bulk data facility,
built for low costs.

Especially for the latter, I'm not sure it is a win to centralize it
(well, it probably is a win to use it for more than *one* mission, but
the optimal number might be somewhere between "one" and "all").

But whether the DSN is the only game in town is another thing which
the GAO report touches on without really going into much depth on.

For some time, LEO missions (FUSE stands out, but mostly because
I've followed their operations) have been trying to work around
network costs (DSN and other NASA facilities), and incorporate
minimum-contact strategies into the original plan. FUSE uses
a partnership with the University of Puerto Rico, allowing them
to hide some of the labor costs. The also built contact scheduling
into the whole timeline setup, so they need other facilities only
for spacecraft emergencies. This meat that they didn't take the
hammering that some other satellites did with the switch to
full-cost accounting (revenue neutral in principle, if not
always in practice during the confusion).

This wouldn't be so easy for missions beyond Earth orbit, of course.

Bill Keel
.

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