Spacecraft Doppler tracking: Noise budget and accuracy achievable in precision radio science observations
Abstract
We discuss noise in Doppler tracking of deep space probes and provide a detailed noise model for Doppler radio science experiments. The most sensitive current experiments achieve fractional frequency fluctuation noise of about 3 × 10-15 at 1000-s integration time, corresponding to better than 1 micron per second velocity noise. Our noise model focuses primarily on the Fourier range ≈10-4-1 Hz, but we briefly discuss noise in lower-frequency observations. We indicate applications of the noise model to experiment planning, identify phenomena limiting current Doppler sensitivity, and discuss the prospects for significant sensitivity improvements.
- Publication:
-
Radio Science
- Pub Date:
- April 2005
- DOI:
- 10.1029/2004RS003101
- Bibcode:
- 2005RaSc...40.2001A
- Keywords:
-
- Radio Science: Instruments and techniques (1241);
- Radio Science: Radio wave propagation;
- Radio Science: Signal processing (0674);
- Doppler;
- tracking;
- precision