The NASA Near Earth Network (NEN) project consists of globally distributed tracking stations, including NASA, commercial, and partner ground stations, that are strategically located to maximize the coverage provided to a variety of orbital and suborbital missions, including those in low Earth orbit (LEO), geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), highly elliptical orbit (HEO), lunar orbit and Lagrange point L1/L2 orbits. Analyses involving the NEN have applicability to other ground station networks. Our studies addressed nanosatellite direct-to-ground communication and nanosatellite constellations with a mother-ship direct-to-ground communication.
|