Greg Heckler
Space Network Customer Data Mining

Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Building 3 Auditorium - 11:20 AM
(Coffee and cookies at 10:30 AM)

The Space Network (SN) and Near Earth Network (NEN) are in a period of major transition. With the launch of TDRS-M, the continued development of the Space Network Ground Segment Sustainment (SGSS) project, planned NEN Ka-band upgrades to support missions such as WFIRST and PACE, and the infusion of optical communication technologies, NASA and GSFC must define an implementable path to a new communications and navigation network architecture.

Projecting and modeling the future user base for the NEN and SN is a key aspect of showing that potential future network architectures are supportive of user needs. In an effort to discover empirical rules of network use, as well as providing a basis for future user projections, an effort to mine and process historical records of SN and NEN use was undertaken by Zac Lamb, a Code 450/ESC Division summer intern. Zac's work helped our team discover a number of empirical laws/assumptions that will be used to model the user base of the SN and NEN through 2040. Creation of and improvement of this user model is an important portion of GSFC's larger task of creating and then implementing a plan for the future SN and NEN networks.

Gregory W. Heckler is a telecommunications systems engineer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He currently supports the SGSS project and the Tracking Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) Project as well as other activities within the Space Communication and Navigation Program. Prior to his work in space communications he was a founding member and software lead of the Navigator GPS spaceflight receiver at GSFC. He holds a B.S. and M.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University.
IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: Keith Keller

Sign language interpreter upon request: 301-286-7040