Citation
Abstract
At the center of the DSS-14 antenna, a tower reaches to the focal point of the antenna dish. The master equatorial (ME) instrument is located at the top of the tower. This instrument precisely (with an accuracy that exceeds that of the antenna) follows the commanded trajectory. Through the optical coupling, the antenna focal point follows the ME. One factor of the antenna pointing precision is the movement of the ME base, i.e., the top of the tower. For this reason, measurements of the ME tower tilts have been taken in order to quantify the tilts, to determine possible causes of the tilting, and to update the antenna pointing budget. They were conducted under three antenna operating modes: during tracking, slewing, and antenna stowing. The measurements indicate that the ME tower tilts introduce significant pointing errors that exceed the required 32-GHz (Ka-band) pointing precision (estimated as 0.8 mdeg for a 0.1-dB gain loss). Four difierent sources of tilt were identified and require verification.
Keywords
Details
- Volume
- 42-143
- Published
- November 15, 2000
- Pages
- 1–17
- File Size
- 1.7 MB