SURA-WAVES Experiments: Calibration of the Cassini/RPWS/HFR Instrumentation
Abstract
The SURA facility transmitted signals in the 9 MHz frequency range to the Cassini spacecraft during the Earth flyby on August 18-23, 1999. Before reaching Cassini the emission was also observed by the WIND/RAD2 receiver, which had already been calibrated with similar former observational campaigns. The SURA signals recorded by both spacecraft are well above the background noise. We use these joint measurements to calibrate the Radio and Plasma Wave Science, High Frequency Receiver (Cassini/RPWS/HFR) in its monopole mode. An estimation of the conversion coefficient that links the measured signal in V^2/Hz to the incoming flux density in W m^(-2) Hz^(-1) near the main antenna resonance is conducted. A possibility to calibrate a radio receiver on board a spacecraft using cooperative simultaneous observations of solar type III emission by the WAVES instrument is pointed out.
- Publication:
-
Planetary Radio Emissions VI
- Pub Date:
- 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006pre6.conf..531T
- Keywords:
-
- Instrumentation;
- Cassini RPWS;
- antenna calibration