Citation
Abstract
Site test interferometers (STIs) have been deployed at the Venus and Apollo antenna sites in Goldstone, California, to assess the suitability of Goldstone as an uplink array site, and to statistically characterize atmospheric-induced phase fluctuations for application to Goldstone array link scenarios. The phase decorrelation data extracted from the STIs are filtered to remove long-period trends due to satellite motion and instrumental drift. The remaining fluctuation energy is dominated by the troposphere over timescales ranging from ~ second to several hundred seconds. The fluctuation in phase delay (or pathlength difference) statistics derived from these data can be used to infer power loss for particular array configurations after appropriate scaling to elevation angle, frequency, and array element spacing. The phase decorrelation data from both Goldstone STIs have been mapped into two-element phasing loss (amplitude fades) referenced at a frequency of 7.15 GHz and at an elevation angle of 20 deg to assess statistical behavior. This article thus predicts phasing loss statistics that would be measured by a two-element array at Goldstone.
Details
- Volume
- 42-186
- Published
- August 15, 2011
- Pages
- 1–20
- File Size
- 2.9 MB