Abstract-The NASA Earth Science System Pathfinder (ESSP) mission Aquarius, will measure global ocean surface salinity with -120 km spatial resolution every 7-days with an average monthly salinity accuracy of 0.2 psu (parts per thousand) [l]. This requires an L-band low-noise radiometer with the long-term calibration stability of 10.15 K over 7 days. The instrument utilizes a push-broom configuration which makes it impractical to use a traditional warm load and cold plate in front of the feedhorns. Therefore, to achieve the necessary performance Aquarius utilizes a Dicke radiometer with noise injection to perform a warm -hot calibration. The radiometer sequence between antenna, Dicke load, and noise diode has been optimized to maximize antenna observations and therefore minimize NEDT. This is possible due the ability to thermally control the radiometer electronics and front-end components to 0.1 'Crms over 7 days.
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) is an interferometric synthetic aperture radar system that flew on the space shuttle in February 2000. SRTM has an inboard antenna in the shuttle cargo bay and an outboard antenna at the end of a 60-m mast, extending from the cargo bay. In order to meet the elevation mapping accuracy requirement, the relative phase delay between the radar signals received via the outboard channel, compared with the inboard channel has to be known to within 8 at 5.3 GHz. This paper describes the design solutions and constraints, the devices, the analysis, and validation used to implement an optical calibration loop for SRTM. The calibration method involves injecting a tone into one panel of the inboard antenna, and sending an optical copy of the tone via a fiber-optic cable to be injected into the outboard antenna. A portion of the optical signal is reflected off an outboard partial mirror and travels back via the fiber to the inboard calibration system. There, it is converted back into a radio frequency tone and its phase is compared with the phase of the original tone. As the temperature of the mast fiber changes, a phase error is detected in the phase comparator. This error is used to control a custom designed optical phase shifter connected in series with the mast fiber. This phase-locked-loop guarantees that the phase of the calibration tone at the outboard stays within 1 relative to the phase of the calibration tone at the inboard antenna.
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