Channel Coding for Future Space Missions: New Requirements and Trends

Future space missions will put severe constraints on communication links in terms of data rates, bandwidth occupancy, complexity, and performance. The requirements imposed by the new missions and their consequences on channel code design are presented in the first part of the paper. All relevant issues, including code rates, frame lengths, modulation formats, performance metrics, complexity, and others, are discussed. In the second part of the paper, long erasure correcting codes are presented and their properties explained. These codes operate at the upper layers of the space link protocol and constitute an attractive new frontier for zero packet loss in future space communications.