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Published August 2021 | public
Book Section - Chapter

DSN Radio Astronomy Spectrometer

Abstract

The Deep Space Network (DSN) enables NASA to communicate with its deep space spacecraft. By virtue of its large antennas, the DSN can be used as a powerful instrument for radio astronomy. In particular, Deep Space Station (DSS) 43, the 70 m antenna at the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (CDSCC) has a K-band radio astronomy system covering a 10 GHz bandwidth at 17 to 27 GHz. This spectral range covers a number of atomic and molecular lines, produced in a rich variety of interstellar gas conditions. A new high-resolution spectrometer was deployed at CDSCC in November 2019 and connected to the K-band downconverter. The system has two different firmware modes: 1) Using a 65k-pt FFT to provide 32,768 spectral channels at 30.5 kHz (0.45 km/s velocity resolution) and 2) Using a 16k-pt polyphase filterbank (PFB) to provide 8,192 spectral channels with ~ 122 kHz resolution (1.8 km/s velocity resolution). Previous work extensively described the spectrometer system. In this paper we present added functionality and updates to the commissioned spectrometer. The changes include developments in system timing, metadata, firmware and data products.

Additional Information

© 2021 IEEE. Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). We would also like to acknowledge Joseph Lazio and Stephen Rogstad for their support and guidance throughout the project.

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023