Description

Section 1 - Overview The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is seeking information from U.S. and international commercial providers on support for the recently redefined Artemis III mission. NASA is particularly interested in innovative, secondary communications capabilities that can enable robust, high rate data return from the Orion crew vehicle during operations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This Request for Information (RFI) is issued by NASA's Moon to Mars (M2M) Program, and aims to identify mature services and user terminals that can augment Orion's primary communication system. Respondents are invited to submit end-to-end system concepts that could provide continuous, high bandwidth transmission of mission data in the dynamic LEO environment and contribute to the success of crewed space exploration under the Artemis program. Section 2 – RFI Overview 2.1 The Artemis III Mission The Artemis III mission will launch crew in the Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket into a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and the commercial spacecraft needed to land astronauts on the Moon. Artemis III will test integrated rendezvous and proximity operations between the Orion spacecraft and one or both commercial lunar landers provided by SpaceX and Blue Origin. The Artemis III mission profile is still being finalized. For the purposes of responses to this RFI, the following Ground Rules and Assumptions can be considered: Summer 2027 Artemis III Mission Orion will be around a 250 nmi orbit with a 33 deg inclination Non-Critical (Crit 3) Application 2.2 Service and Integration Expectations The Artemis III mission profile moving to LEO is introducing new challenges to the Orion vehicle, one being a reduced data rate for the primary communication system. In addition, M2M seeks to receive live 4K imagery during rendezvous and docking operations, and downlink of large files in other phases of flight. To meet these demands, a secondary communications system is being evaluated for inclusion in the Artemis III Orion configuration. It is anticipated that, to meet these requirements, the system must provide near continuous communication with a return link of at least 12 Mbps. Given the short timeline, availability of hardware and ease of integration into the Orion vehicle is a significant consideration. Performance Objectives Near continuous communication (goal: > 75%) > 12 Mbps Downlink (goal: 20-50Mbps) > 500 kbps Uplink (Desired to support Class 2 CFDP, not a system requirement) System must provide a broad field of regard or steerable antenna/aperture Orion has many driving attitude constraints so precise vehicle pointing of a fixed antenna/aperture is not available Orion Vehicle Integration Given the short timeline, ease of integration into the Orion vehicle is a significant consideration. Key design parameters include: Data Interface: Ethernet Hardware Control & Telemetry Interface…

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