Feasibility Study on Acquisition, Tracking, and Pointing Using Earth Thermal Images for Deep-Space Ka-Band and Optical Communications

Abstract

The feasibility of using long-wavelength Earth thermal (infrared) images for antenna/telescope tracking/pointing applications for both deep-space Ka-band (18 to 35 GHz) and free-space optical communications has been investigated and is reported on here. The advantage of this technology rests on using full Earth images in this band that yield more accurate estimates of geometric centroids than those of Earth images in the visible band. Furthermore, these images are nearly independent of Earth phase angle. The results of the study show that, at a Mars range with currently available sensors, a noise equivalent angle of 10 to 150 nrad and a bias error of better than 80 nrad can be obtained. This would enable precise pointing of both the optical and Ka-band communications beams.

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Details

Volume

42-155

Published

November 15, 2003

Pages

1–18

File Size

227.7 KB