Advancing Solar System Dynamics Investigations with Calibrated Precision Doppler Tracking

Planetary gravitation and solar system dynamics investigations rely on precision Doppler tracking of spacecraft. In the most sensitive Doppler measurements carried out by the NASA/JPL Deep Space Network (Allan deviations ~3×10-15 at 1000 s integration time), the unmodeled time-dependent motion of the large (34 m) tracking antennas emerges as the leading noise contributor since other contributions to the noise budget from the interplanetary plasma and Earths ionosphere and troposphere can be calibrated. The intrinsic antenna mechanical noise can be reduced by combining two-way Doppler tracking data from the large antenna with receive-only tracking data from a smaller, more stable antenna. This method of time-delay mechanical-noise cancellation (TDMC) can produce up to an order-of-magnitude improvement in the data quality when combined with other calibration techniques. Here we present preliminary results from the application of the TDMC concept using two-way tracking data of BepiColombo at X- and Ka-bands from ESAs 35 m Malargue antenna in Argentina and overlapping receive-only tracking data from the smaller and more stable 13.2 m diameter VLBI antenna at the RAEGE station in Santa Maria of the Instituto Geografico Nacional (Spain) and Regional Government of Azores (Portugal).

Zubair Abdulla[1], Sami Asmar[1], Andre Jongeling[1], Lisa M Mauger[1], Meegyeong Paik[1], Christopher Volk[1], José A López-Pérez[2], João Ferreira[3],

Francisco Beltrán[2], Javier Gonzalez[2], Carlos Albo[2], Paolo Cappuccio[4]

Type Poster

Event American Geoscience Union AGU Fall Meeting 2021

[1] Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States

[2] Observatory of Yebes – National Geographic Institute of Spain, Yebes, Spain

[3] Estação RAEGE de Santa Maria, Associação RAEGE Açores, Santa Maria – Azores, Portugal

[4] Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy