DSN tracking support to the international cometary explorerThe tracking of the ICE spacecraft at its encounter with the comet Giacobini-Zinner posed a major problem for the Deep Space Network (DSN). At the comet, ICE was nearly 50 times as distant from the earth as it was during its designed mission. Its signal strength at the ground was diminished by almost 2500 times from its designed level. The paper describes how the DSN met this challenge by combining antennas in arrays and cooperating with the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the Usuda 64m antenna in Japan.
Document ID
19870028725
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Reid, M. S. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Layland, J. W. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Martin, W. L. (California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States)
Farquhar, R. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 13, 2013
Publication Date
October 1, 1986
Subject Category
Space Communications, Spacecraft Communications, Command And Tracking