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Volume 50 Supplement 3

Special Issue: The PLANET-B Misson and Related Science

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A new altimeter for Mars land shape observations utilizing the ionospheric sounder system onboard the Planet-B spacecraft

Abstract

A new altimeter has been developed for the observation of the land shape of a planet from an orbiting spacecraft by transmitting RF pulses. The present system utilizes an RF sounder for observing the electron density profile of the topside ionosphere by selecting a transmission frequency f higher than the local cutoff frequency of the ionosphere by adding upper and lower side band modulations with a frequency p; i.e. at frequencies f + p and f −p. The phase difference of the propagating signals at the upper and lower side band frequencies gives a fine delay time with a range resolution of 100 m for p = 50 kHz and 20 m for p = 250 kHz with f = 9 MHz corresponding to a resolution of 6 ° of the phase detector of the system onboard the spacecraft. Using 600 Watts transmitting power applied to a 52 m tip-to-tip dipole antenna, the altitude of the spacecraft and the land shape can be measured while the spacecraft is in the range below 300 km altitude at the planet.

References

  • Jackson, J., The reduction of topside ionograms to electron-density profiles, Proc. IEEE, 57, 960–976, 1969.

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  • Ulaby, F. T., R. K. Moore, and A. K. Fung, Microwave remote sensing fundamentals and radiometry, Reading Mass., pp. 456, 1981.

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Correspondence to Hiroshi Oya.

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Oya, H., Ono, T. A new altimeter for Mars land shape observations utilizing the ionospheric sounder system onboard the Planet-B spacecraft. Earth Planet Sp 50, 229–234 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03352108

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03352108

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