Opening Remarks

Dr. Karl Erb, the Director, Office of Polar Programs (OPP), discussed the important relationship between the construction of the new South Pole Station and NSF/OPP’s planning support of communications for the new station. The goal of this workshop is to define communications requirements and options to support these requirements (short- and long-term) so that the capability exists to support the science through the completion of the new South Pole Station in 2005.

Overview of USAP Satellite Capabilities

Mr. Patrick Smith, Technology Development Manager, OPP, led a presentation and discussion of current satellite communication capabilities at all of the USAP Antarctic stations.

At McMurdo Station, commercial satellite communication service, a full period (24 hrs/day) T1 communications circuit (1.544 Mb/s), is provided by SPAWAR Systems Center, Charleston, SC, through a contract to AT&T/ALASCOM until Feb. 2000. Continuity of service is of prime concern and SPAWAR plans to re-compete the service contract, with award planned by 1 Oct. 1999. It is estimated that the bandwidth may be able to double without increase in cost. The time division multiplexed (TDM) fractional T1 service provided includes telephone, fax, Internet, and private data network links (Table 1).

McMurdo Station-based scientists find the satellite communications provided comparable to any institution, although they are presently not moving large files (image or data) like South Pole astronomers and physicists. Scientists working on the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Project, based in the nearby McMurdo Dry Valleys, however, have increasing requirements for Internet access for e-mail and data file transfer, which has only recently been provided in a limited fashion.

Table 1: McMurdo Station Satellite Communications

At Palmer Station, satellite communication service for part of the day is provided by three satellites presently (ATS-3, LES-9, and INMARSAT). Palmer Station has excellent visibility to many international satellites in the geosynchronous arc servicing North and South America and Europe. Future plans call for the installation of 24 hour a day coverage by one of the international satellite operators (e.g., Intelsat or Hughes/Panamsat) (Table 2).

Table 2: Palmer Station Inventory of Present/Future Satellite Capability

At South Pole Station, approximately 13 hr/day of connectivity exist using four satellites, ATS-3, LES-9, GOES-3, and TDRS F1 (Table 3). South Pole has a theoretical daily total throughput of 5,180 MBytes/day with all existing satellite resources and 656 MB/d without any TDRS F1 service. This estimate does not include a realistic derating of throughput based on such factors as TCP/IP Internet protocol overhead, data transmission session overhead, link fade periods, link error rates, etc. This estimate must be considered an optimal upper bound of throughput. Any practical systems implemented will perform at lower levels of performance. Loss of TDRS F1 would have a catastrophic effect on scientific research being conducted at South Pole Station. An Iridium handset was successfully tested at South Pole Station for voice (only) during the 1998-99 season as a part of the Iridium Beta Test Program.

Table 3: South Pole Station Inventory of Present Satellite Capability

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