HR: 1330h
AN: P22A-0057 [PDF]
TI: Specular Reflection of Odyssey's UHF Beacon from the Northern Latitudes of Mars
AU: Barbieri, A J
EM: Andrea.J.Barbieri@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: Callas, J L
EM: jcallas@mail1.jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: Cousins, M D
EM: michael.cousins@sri.com
AF: SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025 United States
AU: Gunnarsdottir, H M
EM: hrefna@stanford.edu
AF: Stanford University, 350 Serra Mall MC9515, Stanford, CA 934305 United States
AU: Ilott, P A
EM: Peter.A.Ilott@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: * Linscott, I R
EM: linscott@Stanford.edu
AF: Stanford University, 350 Serra Mall MC9515, Stanford, CA 934305 United States
AU: Tyler, G L
EM: len@nova.stanford.edu
AF: Stanford University, 350 Serra Mall MC9515, Stanford, CA 934305 United States
AB:
In the morning (UTC) of August 29th, 2003, with Mars in it closest opposition in 60,000 years, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft
was tracked with the SRI 46-m dish antenna located in the Stanford foothills. At 07:44 UTC, Odyssey's UHF Relay was turned
on, with its 10 watt beacon in CW mode, and a 22 dB/Hz SNR signal was received three minutes later at the SRI dish. The
Doppler compensated frequency of 437.100 MHz was observed using real time spectrograms that revealed a weaker, 0 dB/Hz SNR
signal crossing the Odyssey beacon with the apparent Doppler signature of a specular surface reflection. Further analysis
of the Doppler profile supports the interpretation of a surface reflection which traverses northern Martian latitudes from 16
N to close to the pole and back down to 60 N. The reflection's intensity profile laid across the ground track affords a
comparison of the UHF's 0.7 m wavelength with the surface reflections from the X-band MGS occultation profiles.
DE: 6964 Radio wave propagation
DE: 6969 Remote sensing
DE: 6974 Signal processing
DE: 6979 Space and satellite communication
DE: 6999 General or miscellaneous
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting