Citation
Abstract
The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft, launched on November 7, 1996, carries an experimental space-to-ground telecommunications link at 32 GHz (Ka-band) along with the primary 8.4-GHz (X-band) downlink used for operational MGS project activities. The signals are simultaneously transmitted from a 1.5-m-diameter parabolic antenna on MGS and received by 34-meter beamwaveguide (BWG) antennas located at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California. Relative signal strength data demonstrating the advantage of Ka-band over X-band as well as details of analysis of the frequency data were presented in previous articles. This article will focus on details of the Ka-band and X-band observations acquired during the May 1998 solar conjunction experiment at solar elongation angles below 3 deg. For the link study, the Ka-band data were recorded open loop using the full spectrum recorder (FSR), and most of the X-band data were obtained from the closed-loop Block V receivers of the operational Deep Space Network. In addition, a few selected passes were conducted where open-loop FSR data were recorded at X-band. Among the solar coronal efiects on signal propagation presented will be intensity scintillation and spectral broadening. Also presented are frequency data results acquired using DSS 13’s experimental tone tracker.
Keywords
Details
- Volume
- 42-142
- Published
- August 15, 2000
- Pages
- 1–18
- File Size
- 565.8 KB