Milestone-Proposal talk:Usuda Deep Space Center and Associated Deep Space Control System

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-- Administrator4 (talk) 12:34, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Advocates’ Checklist

Is the proposal for an achievement rather than for a person? If the citation includes a person's name, have the proposers provided the required justification for inclusion of the person's name?
Was the proposed achievement a significant advance rather than an incremental improvement to an existing technology?
Were there prior or contemporary achievements of a similar nature? If so, have they been properly considered in the background information and in the citation?
Has the achievement truly led to a functioning, useful, or marketable technology?
Is the proposal adequately supported by significant references (minimum of five) such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or citations to pages in scholarly books? At least one of the references should be from a peer-reviewed scholarly book or journal article. The full text of the material, not just the references, shall be present. If the supporting texts are copyright-encumbered and cannot be posted on the ETHW for intellectual property reasons, the proposers shall email a copy to the History Center so that it can be forwarded to the Advocate. If the Advocate does not consider the supporting references sufficient, the Advocate may ask the proposer(s) for additional ones.
Are the scholarly references sufficiently recent?
Does the proposed citation explain why the achievement was successful and impactful?
Does the proposed citation include important technical aspects of the achievement?
Is the proposed citation readable and understandable by the general public?
Will the citation be read correctly in the future by only using past tense? Does the citation wording avoid statements that read accurately only at the time that the proposal is written?
Does the proposed plaque site fulfill the requirements?
Is the proposal quality comparable to that of IEEE publications?
Are any scientific and technical units correct (e.g., km, mm, hertz, etc.)? Are acronyms correct and properly upper-cased or lower-cased? Are the letters in any acronym explained in the title or the citation?
Are date formats correct as specified in Section 6 of Milestones Program Guidelines? Helpful Hints on Citations, plaque locations
Do the year(s) appearing in the citation fall within the range of the year(s) included at the end of the title?
Note that it is the Advocate's responsibility to confirm that the independent reviewers have no conflict of interest (e.g., that they do not work for a company or a team involved in the achievement being proposed, that they have not published with the proposer(s), and have not worked on a project related to the funding of the achievement). An example of a way to check for this would be to search reviewers' publications on IEEE Xplore.

Reviewers’ Checklist

Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?
Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?
Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?
Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?
Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity?

In answering the questions above, the History Committee asks that reviewers apply a similar level of rigor to that used to peer-review an article, or evaluate a research proposal. Some elaboration is desirable. Of course the Committee would welcome any additional observations that you may have regarding this proposal.

Submission and Approval Log

Submitted date:
Advocate approval date:
History Committee approval date:
Board of Directors approval date:

Plaque citation -- Sergei Prokhorov (talk) 07:58, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

There is no doubt that the achievement itself is worthy of inclusion in the IEEE Milestones list. However, the text proposed for the plaque citation needs to be brought into line with the committee's requirements. It contains the name of the place — Usuda Deep Space Center — and a list of three organizations that participated in its creation. This contradicts the committee's requirements: "Milestones honor the achievement, rather than a place or a person." As a basis for further work, I propose the following text: "To support several deep space missions and scientific studies, the most sophisticated apparatus, the first beam waveguide tracking antenna in the world, and an operationally optimized system were put into place in 1984. Specifically, it was employed in the International Armada Project to observe Halley's Comet." It is only 46 words long, which is far from the recommendation to use no more than 60 words in a citation. So it is possible to supplement it with information emphasizing the importance of the achievement.

Daniel J. Hoppe (JPL, Caltech) provided feedback on the project. -- Sergei Prokhorov (talk) 09:50, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate? The citation reads...

Usuda Deep Space Center and control system for deep space exploration were built in 1984 by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and NEC corporation to perform Halley's comet observations in the International Armada. The world-first tracking antenna with beam-waveguides, the most advanced devices, and the optimized system for easy operation were realized to facilitate many deep space missions and scientific observations. [69 words]

Yes. I believe the wording is accurate but could be improved to clarify that the achievement is the beam-waveguide antenna being the first to accomplish deep space communication. Secondary significant achievements are indeed its advanced technology and the fact that it truly is optimized for ease of operation and maintenance, with the use of a beam waveguide system being largely responsible for these secondary benefits. This is not so clear from the citation. I also believe the achievement should come first, followed by the citing of contributing organizations.

An example of how to improve the citation (in my opinion):

The Usuda Deep Space Center and control system include the world's first deep space communication antenna employing beam-waveguides. Built by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and NEC corporation to track spacecraft in the 1984 Halley's comet International Armada, it includes the most advanced technology optimized for easy operation. Since 1984 it has participated in many deep space missions and scientific observations.[69 words]

I am sure this could be improved further but I do think being the first beam waveguide antenna for deep space communication should come first. Working in the beam waveguide's contribution to allowing ease of maintenance would be nice, but difficult, given the word count limit and the wish to acknowledge both the sponsor an builder of the antenna.

Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation? Yes. Usuda Deep Space Center's 64m antenna is the first beam waveguide antenna used for this application. It was indeed outfitted with the most advanced technology of the time. The detailed invited paper by Hayashi (reference T-15) is the best evidence of the antenna details and design achievement and communication and science importance are detailed in many of the other references.

Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement? Yes. The development of this large beam-waveguide antenna demonstrated that excellent performance (SNR, antenna efficiency, pointing, etc.) as well as low maintenance operation could be achieved using this technology for deep space tracking. Based on these results and demonstrations many more beam waveguide antennas were fielded in NASA's Deep Space Network, as well as ESA's Deep Space Network.

Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed? No, I am not aware of any other agency committing to a beam waveguide antenna for deep space tacking at this early time.

Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity? Yes. The benefit to humanity from this achievement is represented by the scientific data received by the antenna throughout its history, which includes data from cometary exploration, the Voyage mission, Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), and various Radio Science Experiments and radar experiments. Many references to these achievements are included in the package.