Regenerative PN ranging experience with New Horizons during 2012

The New Horizons mission to Pluto is the first deep space mission to include the capability of supporting regenerative PN ranging. During the current phase of the mission, sequential tone ranging supports the mission navigation requirements but regenerative ranging will expand the conditions (antenna selection, integration time, etc.) over which ranging will be successful during any extended mission following the Pluto fly-by, to objects in the Kuiper belt. Experience with regenerative ranging is being obtained now in preparation for its use in an extended mission. During most of 2012, New Horizons was in a hibernation state. Tracking was conducted between late April and early July. Six regenerative ranging passes were performed to bookend this interval; 2 at the beginning and 4 at the end. During that time, the distance between the spacecraft and Earth was in excess of 22 Astronautical Units (AU) and the Pr/No levels were below 15 dB-Hz. A seventh regenerative ranging pass was performed in May at a higher signal level in order to test the acquisition of the ranging code by the spacecraft during a variety of conditions. The consistency of the regenerative range measurements with the adjacent sequential tone ranging measurements has been demonstrated and serves as a check on the calibration of the regenerative ranging system conditions. The range measurement precision has been shown to follow the predictions that are based on the uplink and downlink signal power. The regenerative ranging system has been shown to acquire the uplink ranging code with and without a commanded reset and regardless of the noise bandwidth setting of the system. This paper will present the data that was obtained during 2012 and will describe the analysis results for the regenerative ranging experience during 2012.