MESSENGER solar scintillation measurements at superior solar conjunction

Author

Mosavi, Nelofar ; Sequeira, H. Brian ; Copeland, David J. ; Sepan, David M. ; Menyuk, Curtis R.

Author_Institution

Johns Hopkins Univ. Appl. Phys. Lab., Laurel, MD, USA

fYear

2015

fDate

7-14 March 2015

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

7

Abstract

During the superior solar conjunction of spacecraft, the spacecraft have a very limited communication with the ground station due to the effects of the Sun on the RF signal transmission. Our analyses of data received during a recent solar conjunction of MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENivornment, GEochmeisty, and Ranging) shown that within the time during which a single frame is transmitted, the RF signal propagation is strongly dominated by amplitude scintillation. We observed frequency broadening in our data on a time scale that is on the order of hours. The scintillation index is also calculated. The X-band scintillation data follows a curve that is representative of Ka-band performance as predicted by a previous model.

Keywords

Sun; radiowave propagation; signal processing; solar wind; space communication links; space vehicles; Ka-band performance; MESSENGER solar scintillation measurements; MErcury Surface Space ENivornment GEochmeisty and Ranging spacecraft; RF signal propagation; RF signal transmission; X-band scintillation data; amplitude scintillation; data analyses; frequency broadening; ground station; scintillation index; spacecraft; superior solar conjunction; time scale; Amplitude modulation; Frequency modulation; Indexes; Noise; Space vehicles; Time-frequency analysis; Universal Serial Bus;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Aerospace Conference, 2015 IEEE

Conference_Location

Big Sky, MT

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-5379-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/AERO.2015.7119068

Filename

7119068