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My professor really wants to know if the IRIS transceiver, which flew on MarCo, will be used in LEO. In fact so much that he doesn't accept "no" for an answer. I have searched for an example but found nothing.

This is just what I expected because it is just overkill, to big and too expensive for your average CubeSat mission, even when talking about 3U. And who needs DSN support in LEO?

So I will try it here and ask if anyone knows of any mission which has used, or plans to use an IRIS transceiver in LEO, not just for commissioning but to stay there.

Read further about the IRIS cubesat transponder in this answer, the Iris V2.1 CubeSat Deep Space Transponder datasheet and in the NASA JPL page Iris V2 CubeSat Deep-Space Transponder (IRIS) .

DrSheldon
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Clex
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    I'm not 100% sure I fully understand your question yet. Do you have any idea why your professor will only accept "Yes" for an answer? Do you mean that he is sure it's going to be used in LEO but he doesn't know how, or just that he is sure it would be a reasonable option to use in LEO? If you are trying to make a case against using it, the best way to proceed would be to show that a lighter, lower cost, possibly lower power system (uses less power) would meet your requirements. Keep the focus on requirements, specifications, and merits, rather than only focused on what other people do. – uhoh Jun 02 '19 at 22:50
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    The IRIS data sheet does mention a lot of intriguing goodies, including some nice radio science options. If your cubesat mission will be exploring Earth's atmosphere, there might be some useful features there. But watch your power budget, with everything running it can draw 35 Watts. – uhoh Jun 02 '19 at 22:56
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    The 6U Lunar IceCube will use (1, 2) the IRIS cubesat transceiver, but it's not an answer because it starts in HEO and transfers to a lunar orbit rather than LEO. Interesting question, any further thoughts on my previous comments? – uhoh Jun 04 '19 at 01:48
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    My professor will only accept yes for an answer because he strongly believes it should be used in LEO, my supervisors for the seminar don't understand this either. He himself has no secure source if it will be used in LEO or not. He just really really wants it to be done.

    I plan to compare it with typical CubeSat transceivers, then the difference will be seen easily.

    I also know the Lunar IceCube, sadly we are really talking LEO, there is also LunarFlashLight and BioSentinel. All not in LEO

     – Clex Jun 04 '19 at 07:42
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    Okay, I think your plan to do the comparison is a good one. Sometimes people have reasons for doing things that they don't share, so you may not be able to crack the puzzle of the professor's preference here in Stack Exchange. – uhoh Jun 04 '19 at 07:45
  • He is very well known in the CubeSat business and (I think) His company is one of the biggest CubeSat Manufacturers in Europe (Besides Airbus and OHB) (Right now 18 on the order list, sounds like a big number to me!) anyways. He is into formations and constellations. Deep Space doesn't really concern him, he is more about earth orbit. So, I think, he wants to find options for powerful transceivers. On the other hand, my topic, specified by the faculty is "Deep Space Communications with small satellites" so I will have to serve the topic ofc! Thanks for the help! – Clex Jun 04 '19 at 08:02
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    I just came here to maybe find missions which use it in LEO, that was like an "I might as well aks here" effort after reading a lot of papers and a bunch of presentations from JPL with no desired result. Again, Thank you :) I really appreciate it. – Clex Jun 04 '19 at 08:04

2 Answers2

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I went ahead and emailed the responsible people at JPL. They confirmed that there is no planned mission for LEO with IRIS on board.

Clex
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Iris is sort of overkill (and expensive) for most LEO missions. If you're doing radio science or precision radiometric measurements, then yes, an Iris would do quite nicely.

Iris has the somewhat unique capability of doing coherent turnaround (the transmit signal is phase/frequency locked to the receive signal) which enables accurate ranging measurements, which are needed for navigation in deep space. And to do some radio science, gravity science, etc. In LEO, one usually uses GNSS for position finding and nav.

Iris power is comparable to other 4 Watt X-band transmitters - it's the SSPA efficiency (or lack thereof) that drives the power consumption.

One aspect of Iris is that it is completely software defined - and somewhat open source (it's export controlled) - so you could modify the software to do some unique function for your mission.

jimlux
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