Apr 27 2006
From The Space Library
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its report, “NASA’s Deep Space Network: Current Management Structure Is Not Conducive To Effectively Matching Resources with Future Requirements.” The report concluded that, although Deep Space Network (DSN) “is able to meet most of the requirements of its current workload, serious questions exist as to whether it will be able to keep up with both near-term and future demands.” The report also found that “system infrastructure, which has been marked by extensive deferred maintenance, is aging and is likely to become increasingly fragile and subject to breakdown at a time when demand is anticipated to increase.” Managed by NASA’s JPL, DSN comprised communications antennas measuring up to 70 meters (229.6 feet), located in California, Australia, and Spain. Established in 1959, DSN supported an average of 35 to 40 deep space missions each year. However, the number of new deep space missions continued to increase, and existing “legacy” missions, such as Voyager missions, had remained in operation longer than initially planned. Therefore, NASA projected that, by 2020, DSN would have to support twice as many missions as currently. In a written response to GAO’s report, NASA Deputy Administrator Shana L. Dale stated that, although “no mission had been unable to meet its mission requirements due to a lack of capability in the DSN, NASA shared GAO’s concerns about the future capacity and capabilities of the system.” She also noted that NASA had initiated a study to review the management structure for all of NASA’s space communications activities.
U.S. Government Accountability Office, “NASA’s Deep Space Network: Current Management Structure Is Not Conducive To Effectively Matching Resources with Future Requirements” (report no. GAO-06-445, Washington, DC, 27 April 2006), 2, 22, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06445.pdf (accessed 24 June 2010); Brian Berger, “GAO Warns Deep Space Network Ill-Equipped To Meet Future Demands,” Space News, 23 May 2006.
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