HiCal 2: An instrument designed for calibration of the ANITA experiment and for Antarctic surface reflectivity measurements

• Main Authors: Prohira, S, Novikov, A, Besson, DZ, Ratzlaff, K, Stockham, J, Stockham, M, Clem, JM, Young, R, Gorha, PW, Allison, P, Banerjee, O, Batten, L, Beatty, JJ, Belov, K, Binns, WR, Bugaev, V, Cao, P, Chen, C, Chen, P, Connolly, A, Cremonesi, L, Dailey, B, Deaconu, C, Dowkontt, PF, Fox, BD, Gordon, J, Hast, C, Hill, B, Hupe, R, Israel, MH, Kowalski, J, Lam, J, Learned, JG, Liewer, KM, Liu, TC, Ludwig, A, Matsuno, S, Miki, C, Mottram, M, Mulrey, K, Nam, J, Nichol, RJ, Oberla, E, Rauch, BF, Roberts, J, Romero-Wolf, A, Rotter, B, Russell, J, Saltzberg, D, Schoorlemmer, H, Seckel, D, Stafford, S, Strutt, B, Tatem, K, Varner, GS, Vieregg, AG, Wissel, SA, Wu, F
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV 2019
• Subjects: Radio; Antarctica; Ice properties; High-voltage; Pulse; Pulser; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10068494/1/1710.11175.pdf; https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10068494/

The NASA supported High-Altitude Calibration (HiCal)-2 instrument flew as a companion balloon to the ANITA-4 experiment in December 2016. Based on a high-voltage (HV) discharge pulser producing radio-frequency (RF) calibration pulses, HiCal-2 comprised two payloads, which flew for a combined 18 days, covering 1.5 revolutions of the Antarctic continent. ANITA-4 captured over 10,000 pulses from HiCal-2, both direct and reflected from the surface, at distances varying from 100–700 km, providing a large dataset for surface reflectivity measurements. Herein we present details on the design, construction and performance of HiCal-2.