Solar Corona and plasma effects on Radio Frequency waves

Solar corona (plasma) effects on radio signal waves for three different frequency bands S (2.3 GHz), X (8.4 GHz), and Ka (32 GHz), currently used to track probes in the solar system, have been computed using different models of the total electron content (TEC) along the propagation path between the Earth and Mars. The Earth-Mars-Sun configuration has been obtained from the planetary ephemerides DE421 (using SPICE kernels) for the period from September 2004 to September 2006. This configuration is expressed as a function of the Sun-Earth-Probe (SEP) angles (the probe being in close orbit to Mars). We used the TEC values provided by the different models proposed in the literature in order to estimate the TEC along the propagation path (STEC, for Slant TEC). From these model-dependent STEC estimates, the time delay on the wave propagation as well as the associated frequency shift with a 10 seconds sampling time have been obtained for each of the three frequency bands. For the X-band mostly used in radio science, we have obtained estimates differing by up to several orders of magnitude due to the different STEC values derived from different models of TEC. For example, if the propagation path passes near the Sun such that SEP angle is 1.55° the STEC is ranging from 4.6x1020 electron/m2 to 6.07x1016 electron/m2, which corresponds to a time delay range between 0.87 μs and 1.15x10-4 μs, respectively. For SEP angles between 2° and 8°, the range of the different time delay values reduces to 2.8x10-1 μs and becomes as small as 1.6x10-2 μs for SEP angles larger than 8° (1x10-2 μs is about the order of magnitude of the radioscience instrument precision). These results show that the correction of the solar corona effect on radio frequency waves can be reliably done on usual X-band tracking data of spacecraft for SEP angles >12°, but should be use with caution for lower SEP angles, especially lower than 2°.