The APL 18.3m station upgrade and its application to lunar missions

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has conducted an upgrade to its 18.3 meter ground station. These upgrades include adding a high-power S-band uplink, dual polarization S- and X-band downlink, multiple parallel downlink channel capability and software-defined telemetry, trackin...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Copeland, David J, Deboy, Christopher C, Royster, Darryl W, Dove, William C, Srinivasan, Dipak K, Bruzzi, Jonathan R, Garcia, Antonio
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Application software
Downlink
Laboratories
Moon
Physics
Polarization
Satellite ground stations
Target tracking
Telemetry
Transceivers
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has conducted an upgrade to its 18.3 meter ground station. These upgrades include adding a high-power S-band uplink, dual polarization S- and X-band downlink, multiple parallel downlink channel capability and software-defined telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) units. The 18-m antenna size provides full-disk lunar coverage in S-band. This coverage, in combination with the parallel downlink capability and APL's coherent transceiver technology, affords the ability to track multiple lunar targets simultaneously. This paper presents the upgraded station architecture, its performance for current lunar missions, and discusses its application for different lunar mission scenarios.
ISSN:1095-323X
2996-2358
DOI:10.1109/AERO.2010.5446935