A Regional Application Center (RAC) Ingest System

Abstract

Over the next ten years, NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise Program is scheduled to deploy a series of remote sensing satellites that require high-rate downlinks. As part of the program, a goal has been defined to provide the user community with a low-cost solution for receiving this Earth Science spaceborne remotely sensed data. This paper describes one approach, the High-Rate Ingest System (HRIS), which can serve as a gateway between the satellites and the information systems. HRIS is capable of ingesting a UQPSK downlink at rates up to 200Mbps in real-time and provide a level 0 data product with rapid turnaround. The commercial components of the HRIS include a high performance 3.1-meter antenna system, a DEC Alpha workstation, and a RAID storage system. Within the DEC Alpha workstation are advanced technology hardware and software components that will become available for commercialization. The paper describes the architecture and proposed application of the HRIS as a complete end-to-end ingest solution for regional sites. In addition, collaborative commercial efforts and technologies, along with Goddard’s technology prototyping efforts will also be presented as part of HRIS.