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

Advocates’ Checklist

1. 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?
2. Was the proposed achievement a significant advance rather than an incremental improvement to an existing technology?
3. 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?
4. Has the achievement truly led to a functioning, useful, or marketable technology?
5. 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.
6. Are the scholarly references sufficiently recent?
7. Does the proposed citation explain why the achievement was successful and impactful?
8. Does the proposed citation include important technical aspects of the achievement?
9. Is the proposed citation readable and understandable by the general public?
10. 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?
11. Does the proposed plaque site fulfill the requirements?
12. Is the proposal quality comparable to that of IEEE publications?
13. 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?
14. Are date formats correct as specified in Section 6 of Milestones Program Guidelines? Helpful Hints on Citations, plaque locations
15. Do the year(s) appearing in the citation fall within the range of the year(s) included at the end of the title?
16. 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

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?
2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?
3. Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?
4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?
5. 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Dr. Kees van't Klooster (The University of Eindhoven) provided feedback on the project. -- Sergei Prokhorov (talk) 13:09, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

I will try to comply with your request, but it involves some reading, as a first result I found a typo error, written: What features set this work apart from similar achievements?

1. One of the largest antennas that can drive the whole space and transmit and receive radio waves. The large antenna of Usuda Station can drive the entire space and transmit and receive radio waves. There are large antennas in the world. For example, China has an antenna with a diameter of 500 meters, but it is not possible to drive the antenna because it is dug into the ground to create a parabola. Europe has a large antenna with a diameter of 100 m that can drive the entire space, but it is only for reception and cannot transmit. Therefore, the only antennas that can be compared to the Usuda Station antenna are the 70m antennas of the US DSN and the Russian Deep Space Network. The Usuda antenna achieved an antenna gain of 61.6 dBi, which is almost equivalent to the gain of the DSN70m antenna (63.3 dBi). As confirmed by the supportive papers, the gain should be 62.6 dBi...

2. Furthermore, in agreement with Dr. Hoppe: the peculiar effect of using a beam-waveguide system as a first in a homological designed dual reflector system with controllable sub-reflector has an uniqueness, at that time. It lasted to end 80's before it was picked up by Imriale and used as design method to be installed into the NASA 35 m DSN antennas. A similar design, with NASA peop0le and Cal Fornia State university (Yaya R.Samii) functioned as configuiration guiding for the ESA Deepspace antenna, So Nasa was 10 years after, Esa some 15 years later, with ESA employing design methods for analysis of consequcive mirror sets (in a beamwaveguide). ISAS remained with its analysis and assessment of impact of defocussing and tilt (not always seen for NASA DSN 70 m) and its correction (mechanical controillable sub in USUDA) as a an early showcase. Evpatoria 70m (Krim, Ukraine...)has a small dual reflector beamwaveguide to select feeds, but is in no way comparable, as there is no capability to control for elevation errors of the homologue configuration. And I am not 100% sure it was used in that configuration in reception of data (radar, Venera 15/16 near Venus).

It is logical that there should be a plaquette at the USUDA station, possibly a second (referring one) at the control station in Kanagawa, which was ISAS now Jaxa, but Jaxa was never involved in the Deep Space Antenna.

History on beamwaveguiding is found in part on Wikipedia, but biassed as the authors do not refer to for example Katzelenbaum, but I should find the reference (though not used in criossing elevation azimuth axis as in Usuda). Poljak (Moscow Metal Design Institute) devoted in his work with Bervalds (Latvia) attention to the Usuda antenna, referred to it (1990, book authored by both) and they made a beamwaveguide antenna in a place north west Ukarin (now radio telescope, if still there,,,). Then Poljak went to Israel..,

So, in progress, to support the nomincation for citation, well deserved.

Dr. Kees van't Klooster (The University of Eindhoven) provided feedback on the project. Second letter. -- Sergei Prokhorov (talk) 13:25, 12 January 2025 (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] The wording is quite accurate. A suggestion could be to have the description of the beam-waveguide emphasised. It is the World’s first Deep-Space tracking antenna employing a beam-waveguide. Previous expertise related in Mitsubishi and NEC has been used for beam- waveguide antennas, but that was for telecommunication functions with geostationary satellites. They are mentioned on the plaquette. Only one location is indicated with geographical coordinates. Consideration might be given to two locations, namely the control centre in Sagamihara and the Usuda 64-meter antenna location. As the Sagamihara location is indicated for the plaquette, there might be a possibility for the second (copy) plaquette for the Usuda Deep Space Centre location. Accordingly mentioning both on the plaquette is possibly a consideration: Usuda Deep Space Centre comprises World’s first large 64-meter antenna employing a beam-waveguide to access from a movable antenna to a fixed position and vice-versa. It was constructed by Institute of Space and Astronautical Science with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and NEC corporation. It did track spacecraft to Halley's comet (1984). Advanced technologies optimized for ergonomic operation allow to continue to follow many deep space missions and scientific operations from the control centre in Sagamihara. [74 words].

Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation? There is a very interesting elaboration of achievements which would have been impossible without such a 64-meter beam-waveguide antenna. It contains several first unique results. The extensive reference list has been interesting to take note of. Furthermore, with its world- leading capability, the Usuda antenna has been an example for other space-agencies, comprising Nasa and later ESA, to arrive at Deep Space Antennas with a beam-waveguide to convert from a movable reflector assembly (via azimuth and elevation axes) to a fixed point for the transmit/receive location. The Nasa beam-waveguide antenna came later. The ESA 35 m antenna installation involved the consultant from Nasa. In conclusion, the 64-meter antenna with beam-waveguide was a first Deep Space Antenna of such a type. It has been involved in several interesting space missions, support as a key player to the Voyager mission, as a key-player reception for the first space-VLBI experiment with TDRSS and several others, see references.

Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement? It has been and still is a technical achievement, as well described with more than sufficient references. Early Japanese references and the Usuda 64-meter antenna did precede Nasa publications and antenna realisations. The link to geostationary telecommunication antennas has been referred for the beam-waveguide. Another technical achievement has been to include the antenna for radio astronomy, amongst other in conjunction with the VSOP program with more frequency bands, receive only. The reference T15 is explanatory.

Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed? As Mitsubishi and NEC are involved on the plaquette. NEC and Mitsubishi were involved earlier in the beam-waveguide antennas for telecommunication (geostationary satellites). It is perhaps a suggestion to include a related reference (1973, TransAP IEEE, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1140628) for back-ground information, even although for the telecommunication antennas (32m) for geostationary satellites. It is indeed noted that one of the authors is referred to in Ref doc in T15 (reference [5]), thus the link is already there. Here T15 describes the relation to such antenna design. Although realised before for telecommunication, it has been with USUDA 64-meter antenna that a functioning of large antennas with a beam-waveguiding has been employed for drastic larger distances into Deep Space, far beyond the 36.000 km of Geostationary. This is a unique achievement, for sure at its time for the reception of various satellites passing by Halley’s comet in1986. NEC (the mentioned reference [5] in T15) has been involved earlier in 6 antennas for geostationary telecommunication. Such 32m antennas were realised before mid-eighties, like in Zolotchiv (Ukrain), in Accra in Ghana, in New Zealand and 3 other locations. They have been converted for a radio telescope function, as described in http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/167751 with references therein.

Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity? The proposers have described the benefits of the exploitation for science, for world-wide inclusion in Deep Space missions (for science and humanity) comprising Voyager and have communicated with others to endeavour their realisation of beam-waveguide Deep Space Antennas, directly (Nasa) and indirectly (ESA). The summary with references is rather detailed and is now included in the proposal. It is anticipated that it will be followed by an interesting overview article. In this context it is appropriate, that the technical realisation of the unique facility Usuda with beam-waveguide has facilitated the progress in science, thanks to technology in a well-balanced cooperation.

Advocate's conclusion -- Sergei Prokhorov (talk) 21:45, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Report on Milestone-Proposal #2024-19: Usuda Deep Space Center and Associated Deep Space Control System

The proposal contains a very detailed and well-reasoned justification for why project "Usuda Deep Space Center and Associated Deep Space Control System" is worthy of being included in the IEEE Milestones. The Usuda Deep Space Center and Control System for Deep Space Exploration was built in 1984 by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and NEC Corporation to conduct observations of Halley's Comet in the international Armada project. The Usuda space observatory included a large antenna, a low-noise amplifier, and a high-power transmitter. Thanks to this, it was possible to communicate over an ultra-long distance of about 300 million km when Halley's Comet is on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth. This was an outstanding achievement. The space observatory subsequently provided communications and tracking for space probes deployed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science and other international organizations. In particular, it has made significant contributions to the control of deep space probes such as Hayabusa (launched in 2003) and Hayabusa-2 (2014), the Kaguya lunar probe (2007), the Geotail Earth magnetosphere observation satellite (1992), etc. In 1989, when the American deep space probe Voyager 2 flew past Neptune, Usuda took part in radio science research on Neptune's atmosphere. In 1995, the world's first space debris detection experiment was conducted. In 1998, radio science research was conducted on the eclipse phenomenon of Mars. In 2007, gravity on the far side of the Moon was investigated, which indicated the existence of caves under the lunar soil. In 2018, Japanese and European scientists conducted radio science research on the Venus eclipse using the Usuda facility.

Daniel J. Hoppe (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology), an independent expert, in his review fully supported the proposal to include the "Usuda Deep Space Center and Associated Deep Space Control System" in the Milestones List. In his review, he points out the following achievements of the Usuda Center. “Usuda Deep Space Center's 64-meter antenna is the first beam waveguide antenna used for this application. It was indeed outfitted with the most advanced technology of the time. 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. 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.”

Dr. Kees van ’t Klooster (Eindhoven University of Technology), an independent expert, in his review also fully supported the proposal to include the "Usuda Deep Space Center and Associated Deep Space Control System" in the Milestones List. In his extensive review, he points out the following achievements of Usuda. “With its world- leading capability, the Usuda antenna has been an example for other space-agencies, comprising Nasa and later ESA, to arrive at Deep Space Antennas with a beam-waveguide to convert from a movable reflector assembly (via azimuth and elevation axes) to a fixed point for the transmit/receive location. The 64-meter antenna with beam-waveguide was a first Deep Space Antenna of such a type. It has been involved in several interesting space missions, support as a key player to the Voyager mission, as a key-player reception for the first space-VLBI experiment with TDRSS and several others, see references. It has been and still is a significant technical achievement, as well described with more than sufficient references. Early Japanese references and the Usuda 64-meter antenna did precede Nasa publications and antenna realisations. Another technical achievement has been to include the antenna for radio astronomy, amongst other in conjunction with the VSOP program with more frequency bands, receive only. The proposers have convincingly described the benefits of the exploitation for science, for world-wide inclusion in Deep Space missions (for science and humanity) comprising Voyager and have communicated with others to endeavour their realisation of beam-waveguide Deep Space Antennas, directly (NASA) and indirectly (ESA). The summary with references is rather detailed and is now included in the proposal. It is anticipated that it will be followed by an interesting overview article. In this context it is appropriate, that the technical realisation of the unique facility Usuda with beam-waveguide has facilitated the progress in science, thanks to technology in a well-balanced cooperation.”

The proposal includes references to more than 50 scientific publications. All publications unanimously testify to the high significance of the projects implemented and being implemented in Usida. The new version of the quote correctly conveys the content of the project: "In 1984, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and NEC Corporation built the system for deep space exploration 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. After that, the facility has contributed to successes of many deep space missions and scientific observations".

Based on the above, I conclude that the “Usuda Deep Space Center and Associated Deep Space Control System” was a significant step forward, resulting in a functioning, useful, or promising technology. This is supported by both the opinions of the reviewers and the references to scientific publications and other materials submitted by the submitters.

Sergei Prokhorov, Proposal advocate, IEEE senior member, IEEE History Committee member, IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Contributor