Doppler receiver for Cassini radio science experiments

The Ka band tracking capability of the Cassini spacecraft allows for greate r accuracy in most Radio Science experiments, but can be used only with the Goldstone DSN complex, i.e, for one third of the total time. A digital rec eiver has been designed to allow receiving the Ka band signal from a generi c VLBI antenna. The receiver interfaces with the VLBI receiver land formatt er. It records an instantaneous bandwidth from 1 Hz to 125 kHz, with corres ponding accuracy of 16 to 8 bits respectively. The receiver is implemented as a VME card and is controlled by a standard VME computer. (C) 1998 Publis hed by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.