Citation
Abstract
When spacecraft are tracked near the line-of-sight of the Sun, the ground antenna sidelobes “see” the solar noise. The solar noise increases the ground system operating noise temperature and degrades the downlink RF reception performance. At specific antenna azimuthal angles relative to the Sun, noise peaks and nulls occur periodically throughout a day’s tracking pass due to the quadripod support leggenerated sidelobes. This article documents this effect while tracking Helios 1, illustrates the time of the peaks, and compares the predicted time of the noise temperature peaks with the measured data.
Details
- Volume
- 42-33
- Published
- June 15, 1976
- Pages
- 68–76
- File Size
- 443.9 KB