Onboard science processing and buffer management for intelligent deep space communications

We present an integrated system for the intelligent progressive transmission of data for deep space communications. This work is motivated by the realization that much more information can be collected by imaging and remote sensing equipment than can be transmitted through downlink channels. Suitable onboard science processing allows us to introduce semantics to the data collected by the imaging and remote sensing equipment. The data stream is then prioritized according to its significance in the image, and the most significant segments of data are transmitted first by means of a prioritized buffer management strategy. We show that this system allows to optimally exploit the limited onboard resources (downlink data rate, buffer size) and therefore to maximize the science return of a mission.