Remote sensing of the turbulence characteristics of a planetary atmosphere by radio occultation of a space probe.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of small-scale turbulence on radio waves propagating through a planetary atmosphere. The analysis provides a technique for inferring the turbulence characteristics of a planetary atmosphere from the radio signals received from a spacecraft as it is occulted by the planet. The planetary turbulence is assumed to be localized and smoothly varying, with the structure constant varying exponentially with altitude. Rytov's method is used to derive the variance of log-amplitude and phase fluctuations of a wave propagating through the atmosphere.