NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was launched on August 12, 2005 and was inserted into Mars orbit successfully on March 10, 2006. From September 2005 through January 2006, the Ka-band signal from the spacecraft was tracked several times by NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). During these tracks a number of Ka-band functions for both the spacecraft and the ground systems were tested. These tests were performed to assess the readiness of the ground system and spacecraft to support Ka-band demonstration activities during MRO's primary science phase (PSP). As a result of these tests a number of important lessons were learned regarding the performance of the Ka-band link and the performance of the ground equipment. This paper presents the performance of the ground antenna pointing, Delta Differential One-Way Ranging (¿DOR) performance and the telemetry performance of the Ka-band link. These results indicate that the extra effort for pointing calibration of the ground antennas at Ka-band is extremely useful; Ka-band shows potential for improved ¿DOR performance and the models for Ka-band performance of the ground station microwave noise temperature are very accurate.
MRO Ka-band Demonstration: Cruise Phase Lessons Learned
2007-03-01
14774880 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Ka-Band Demonstration: Cruise Phase Operations
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2007
|Lessons Learned to Improve HCF Demonstration Tests
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2005
|