Citation

Abstract

A series of experiments was conducted for the purpose of characterizing the effects of short-term atmospheric-induced temperature fluctuations at 32 GHz (Ka-band) at DSS 13 in Goldstone, California. Total power radiometer (TPR) data were acquired at both 8.4-GHz (X-band) and Ka-band frequencies at 1-s integrations rather than the usual 5-s integrations. This effort to characterize the magnitude and statistics of atmospheric-induced system temperature fluctuations at short time scales (about 1 s) is motivated by the need to predict their effect on Ka-band spacecraft telemetry during cloudy or rainy weather conditions. The TPR zenith sky temperature fluctuations presented in this article at 1-s time scales were found to be dominated by system noise and gain instability during clear weather conditions and by the wet troposphere during turbulent cloudy/rainy weather.

Keywords

Ka-band X-band atmospheric temperature fluctuations propagation total power radiometer beam-waveguide antenna

Details

Volume
42-150
Published
August 15, 2002
Pages
1–17
File Size
219.7 KB