NASA's alphasat propagation terminals: Milan, Italy, and Edinburgh, Scotland

SummarySince May of 2014, NASA's Glenn Research Center has operated measurement campaigns for the Alphasat Aldo Paraboni Propagation Experiment alongside the European community of propagation experimenters. Presently, three NASA stations have been deployed to distinct climatological regions acr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International Journal of Satellite Communications and Networking
Main Authors: Lorenzo Luini, George Goussetis, Carlo Riva, James A. Nessel, Michael Zemba
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.openaccessrepository.it/record/78477
https://doi.org/10.1002/sat.1296
Description
Summary:SummarySince May of 2014, NASA's Glenn Research Center has operated measurement campaigns for the Alphasat Aldo Paraboni Propagation Experiment alongside the European community of propagation experimenters. Presently, three NASA stations have been deployed to distinct climatological regions across Europe. NASA's participation in the campaign began in 2014 through a collaborative effort with the Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) to jointly operate a 20/40 GHz ground terminal at the POLIMI campus in Milan, Italy. Subsequently, a single‐channel 40 GHz terminal was deployed to Edinburgh, Scotland in March 2016 in collaboration with Heriot‐Watt University (HWU). A third terminal was deployed to NASA's Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC) in March 2017 with NASA'S Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), also observing the 40 GHz beacon. In addition, a fourth station is planned for deployment to Andøya, Norway by early 2019 in collaboration with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). This paper will detail the design and results of the two most established terminals, Milan and Edinburgh, which together comprise 11 station years of propagation measurements.