Martian Positioning System (MPS)

 

Communications Systems:

The Communication Systems of our MPS make up the crux of our project.  Our Communication Systems have three main links:  Earth to GPS Satellites with Long Haul Capability (4), GPS to GPS, and GPS to GPS Receiver on Mars.

The "Bottom Line up Front" is that our MPS provides an accuracy for our GPS Receiver of within +/- 3.52 meters!  To see details on our Modulation and Peak Data Output click on the following link budget equation files:  Earth Ground Station DSN to GPS Satellites with Long Haul Capability, GPS Satellite to GPS Satellite, and GPS Satellite to GPS Receiver (attached to rover). For details on our Navigation Message Hardware for our GPS Satellite to GPS Receiver click here. For the remaining data-link block diagrams, click here.  To ensure our Inter-modulation products do not interfere with other used frequency bands, we performed calculation here.

Below is a spectral usage output for our Earth Ground Station DSN to GPS Satellites with Long Haul Capability (uplink and downlink) as well as our GPS Satellite to GPS Satellite (click for larger window).  Each of these links use BPSK with a 6.0 MHz Bandwidth.

Below is a spectral usage output of our GPS Satellite to GPS Receiver (click for larger window). This link uses QPSK with a 24.0 MHz Bandwidth.