The Evolution of ESA Ground Station Communications to Internet Protocol
Manfred Bertelsmeier, Gioacchino Buscemi, Marko Butkivic, Jacobo Matute, F. Mamedov · SpaceOps 2002 Conference · 2002
ANITE Systems GmbH, Robert-Bosch-Str. 7, D-64293 Darmstadt, Germany Email: [email protected] INTRODUCTION The European Space Agency operates a network of ground stations for tracking, telemetry and telecommanding known as ESTRACK, with a space mission operations dedicated communications network known as OPSNET. The wide area data communications within this system have traditionally been based on the X.25 protocol. ESA is in the course of migrating this to the IP protocol suite. The project team has given this project the name EXCITE, which stands for ESTRACK X.25 Communications to Internet Technology Evolution. This conference contribution covers key elements of EXCITE and reports on the current status. Communications within any high performance real time network are to be optimized from an end-to-end perspective. Adaptations of TT&C and some other software applications are thus an important part of EXCITE. Nonetheless this paper focuses on the communications bearer system, the modifications of which are the comparatively most laborious and costly ones.