New Horizons communications system overview

[VK3BQ]

document on new horizons (pluto fly by satellite) radio systems - interesting read

Abstract—This paper describes the design and development of the RF telecommunications system for the New Horizons mission, NASA’s planned mission to Pluto. The system includes an advanced, low-power digital receiver, and a card-based transceiver implemented within an integrated electronics module. An ultrastable oscillator (USO) provides the precision frequency reference necessary for the uplink radio science experiment. The 2.1 meter high gain antenna is the primary communications antenna, with medium gain and low gain antennas used for wider beamwidths during early operations, cruise-phase and sun- pointing mission phases.
The paper will discuss the salient aspects of the system design, including design drivers from mission operations, science, and spacecraft considerations. It will also detail individual subsystems’ performance, operational modes (including beacon mode operation), and navigation technology, including the first deep-space flight implementation of regenerative ranging.

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/%7Etcase/NH ... _Deboy.pdf

and you can see the nasa DSN networked dishes receiving the various probes and spacecraft they have out in the solar system have..

http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

e.g...
DOWN SIGNAL for voyager 1 probe..

SOURCE
VOYAGER 1
TYPE
DATA
DATA RATE
159.00 b/sec
FREQUENCY
8.42 GHz
POWER RECEIVED
4.66 x 10-23 kW

[VK5ZD]

Using kW seems to be a rather oddball choice of units for the received signal strength.

[VK3BSF]

Well done Andrew..a great contribution...some of those engineers look very young!!!

[VK2AVR]

Using kW seems to be a rather oddball choice of units for the received signal strength.

well it's something people can relate to. they probably should have used watts for both (uplink 20,000 watts, downlink 0.0000000001 watt or similar).

dBm would be meaningless to the general public.

[VK5APN]

All

A lot of interesting info out there.

http://www.arrl.org/news/new-horizons-phones-home

To know which ground station is looking at what space craft....
Last night Canberra 43 was tracking the New Horizons, at time of posting this, it is now Madrid 55

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Above link has live Dish site pics, Space craft pics and a lot of other details.

Regards

Wayne