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At least 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1975

A 10.6 micron ladar for space rendezvous and docking

The paper describes a 10.6 micron ladar (a laser detection and ranging device) which is considered as a baseline sensor for space rendezvous and docking applications. The sensor uses a passively Q-switched CO2 laser as the transmitter active element, and a four-quadrant photodiode array, operated as a coherent receiver element in the heterodyne mode. The aperture will be about 3 inches, and the telescope will be able to steer the beam in a 40 by 40 degree window. Various aspects of the ladar system are examined in detail, including the laser control loop, the transmitter, the local oscillator, the telescope, and the output beam scanning.

Lowrey, D. O.↗
NASA NTRS1975

A SEASAT-A synthetic aperture imaging radar system

The SEASAT, a synthetic aperture imaging radar system is the first radar system of its kind designed for the study of ocean wave patterns from orbit. The basic requirement of this system is to generate continuous radar imagery with a 100 km swath with 25m resolution from an orbital altitude of 800 km. These requirements impose unique system design problems. The end to end data system described including interactions of the spacecraft, antenna, sensor, telemetry link, and data processor. The synthetic aperture radar system generates a large quantity of data requiring the use of an analog link with stable local oscillator encoding. The problems associated in telemetering the radar information with sufficient fidelity to synthesize an image on the ground is described as well as the selected solutions to the problems.

Jordan, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS1976

The 10 micrometer transmitter

The design, fabrication tests, and engineering model components of a 10.6 mum wideband transceiver system are reported. The effort emphasized the transmitter subsystem, including the development of the laser, the modulator driver, and included productization of both the transmitter and local oscillator lasers. The transmitter subsystem is functionally compatible with the receiver engineering model terminal, and has undergone high data rate communication system testing against that terminal.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1977

Unbalanced quadriphase demodulator

A new and improved apparatus and method are described for demodulation of quaternary phase shift keyed (QPSK) data, particularly unbalanced QPSK. Phase adjustment of the output of a phase locked loop local oscillator is performed to reduce sensitivity to amplitude variations internal to the demodulator.

Koybayashi, H. S.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Gregorian all-reflective optical system

An optical heterodyne receiver comprises a system of reflectors forming a folded Gregorian configuration for collecting a signal beam, and an optical detector located at the focus of the system. A paraboloidal primary reflector and an elipsoidal secondary reflector face each other on an optical axis with the focus of the secondary reflector coinciding with the focus of the primary reflector. An auxiliary laser generates a local oscillator beam that is combined with the signal beam after the signal beam emerges from the exit pupil (which is also the aperture stop) of the system, and the resultant is impinged on the detector. A pair of image motion compensators is located as close to the exit pupil as possible for aligning off-axis inputs to the detector.

King, W. L.↗
NASA NTRS1977

The 13.9 GHz short pulse radar noise figure measurements utilizing silicon and gallium-arsenide mixer diodes

An analysis was made on two commercially available silicon and gallium arsenide Schottky barrier diodes. These diodes were selected because of their particularly low noise figure in the frequency range of interest. The specified noise figure for the silicon and gallium arsenide diodes were 6.3 db and 5.3 db respectively when functioning as mixers in the 13.6 GHz region with optimum local oscillator drive.

Dombrowski, M.↗
NASA NTRS1976

A Seasat-A Synthetic Aperture Imaging Radar System

The Seasat-A Synthetic Aperture Imaging Radar System is the first radar system of its kind designed for the study of ocean wave patterns from orbit. The basic requirement of this system is to generate continuous radar imagery with a 100-km swath with 25 m resolution from an orbital altitude of 800 km. These requirements impose unique system design problems and their solutions will be stated. The end to end data system will be described including interactions of the spacecraft, antenna, sensor, telemetry link, and data processor. The synthetic aperture radar system generates a large quantity of data (110 megabits per second) requiring the use of a dedicated data link. The data link selected for use with the synthetic aperture radar is an analog link with stable local oscillator encoding. The problems associated in telemetering the radar information with sufficient fidelity to synthesize an image on the ground will be described as well as the selected solutions to the problems.

Jordan, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Infrared heterodyne spectrometer measurements of vertical profile of tropospheric ammonia and ozone

Remote sensing of the concentration and vertical distribution of atmospheric gases has been carried out using a dual CO2 laser multichannel infrared heterodyne spectrometer (IHS). The high specificity and nearly quantum-noise-limited sensitivity of the IHS provide the capability of scanning individual signature lines of selected atmospheric constituents in the 9 to 11 micron region. A comprehensive investigation of the spectral overlap between CO2 laser local oscillator transitions and selected atmospheric constituents was performed; measurements of the atmospheric absorption of solar radiation from the ground were carried out at selected laser transitions for ammonia and ozone.

Peyton, B. J.↗
NASA NTRS1977

CO2 laser communication systems for near-earth space applications

Projections of the growth of earth-sensing systems for the latter half of the 1980's show a data-transmission requirement of 300 Mbit/s and above. The most efficient technique to return the data from a sensing satellite to a ground station is through a geosynchronous data relay satellite. A laser system is most attractive for the space-to-space link. A five-year program was conducted which has shown the basic technical feasibility of accomplishing this link with a CO2 laser system operating at a wavelength near 10 microns. The system uses a mercury-cadmium-telluride infrared mixer cooled to approximately 100 K by a radiative cooler. The laser local oscillator and coupling-modulated laser transmitter use conductively cooled beryllium oxide construction. The optical antenna for transmission and reception has a gain of nominally 92 dB with a 3-dB beamwidth of 80 microrad. Tracking jitter is less than ten microrad, and signal acquisition occurs in less than 1 min. The receiver subsystem has a sensitivity of 10 to the -19th power W/Hz, accommodates a 300-Mbit/s data rate, and can track Doppler frequency variations over a + or - 700-MHz range.

Mcelroy, J. H.↗
NASA NTRS1976

The Seasat-A Synthetic Aperture Imaging Radar System

The Seasat-A Synthetic Aperture Imaging Radar System is the first radar system of its kind designed for orbital use. The requirement of this system is to generate continuous radar imagery with a 100-km swath with 25 m resolution from an orbital altitude of 800 km. These requirements impose unique system design problems and a description of the implementation will be given. The end to end data system will be described including interactions of the spacecraft, antenna, sensor, telemetry link, and data processor. The synthetic aperture radar system generates a large quantity of data (110 megabits per second) requiring the use of a dedicated data link. The data link selected for use with the synthetic aperture radar is an analog link with stable local oscillator encoding. The problems associated in telemetering the radar information with sufficient fidelity to synthesize an image on the ground will be described as well as the selected solutions to the problems. The interactions between the antenna attitude control system, rotation of the earth and the data processor will be described as well as proposed solutions, both optical and digital, to generate final imagery with the required 25 m resolution.

Jordan, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Ozone monitoring with an infrared heterodyne radiometer

Measurements of the total burden and of the concentration-versus-altitude profiles of ozone have been made with a ground-based heterodyne radiometer at Pasadena, California. The measurements were made in the 9.5-micron wavelength region, where a strong ozone infrared absorption band exists. The radiometer measured solar absorption at selected wavelengths with a spectral resolution of 0.001 reciprocal centimeter, equivalent to the half-width of an ozone absorption line at the 10-millibar altitude level. A carbon dioxide laser served as the local oscillator. This technique can be used to gather important data on both tropospheric and stratospheric ozone, which are not readily accessible with other remote-sensing techniques.

Menzies, R. T.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Advanced development of Pb-salt semiconductor lasers for the 8.0 to 15.0 micrometer spectral region

The technology was studied for producing Pb-salt diode lasers for the 8-51 micron spectral region suitable for use as local oscillators in a passive Laser Heterodyne Spectrometer (LHS). Consideration was given to long range NASA plans for the utilization of the passive LHS in a space shuttle environment. The general approach was to further develop the method of compositional interdiffusion (CID) recently reported, and used successfully at shorter wavelength. This technology was shown to provide an effective and reproducible method of producing a single-heterostructure (SH) diode of either the heterojunction or single-sided configuration. Performance specifications were exceeded in several devices, with single-ended CW power outputs as high as 0.88 milliwatts in a mode being achieved. The majority of the CID lasers fabricated had CW operating temperatures of over 60K; 30% of them operated CW above the boiling temperature of liquid nitrogen. CW operation above liquid nitrogen temperature was possible for wavelengths as long as 10.3 microns. Operation at 77K is significant with respect to space shuttle operations since its allows considerable simplification of cooling method.

Linden, K. J.↗
NASA NTRS1978

An aircraft radiometer front end, addendum

A detailed description is given of a completely quasi-optical aircraft radiometer for use at frequencies of 150 GHz and above. The radiometer calibration and beam switching is described as well as a reflection isolator utilizing a reciprocating mirror and a quasi-optical local oscillator injection system. Receiver applications and performance levels are also given.

Gustincic, J. J.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Low-noise Josephson mixers at 115 GHz using recyclable point contacts

Thermally recyclable Nb point-contact Josephson junctions are investigated as low-noise mixers with an external local oscillator at 115 GHz. The best single sideband mixer noise temperature achieved is 140 (+ or - 20) K with a single sideband conversion loss of 2.4 (+ or - 0.5) dB. Such rugged junctions are suitable for use in practical receivers and should give unprecedented sensitivity at the shorter millimeter wavelengths.

Taur, Y.↗
NASA NTRS1979

A user oriented computer program for the analysis of microwave mixers, and a study of the effects of the series inductance and diode capacitance on the performance of some simple mixers

A user oriented computer program for analyzing microwave and millimeter wave mixers with a single Schottky barrier diode of known I-V and C-V characteristics is described. The program first performs a nonlinear analysis to determine the diode conductance and capacitance waveforms produced by the local oscillator. A small signal linear analysis is then used to find the conversion loss, port impedances, and input noise temperature of the mixer. Thermal noise from the series resistance of the diode and shot noise from the periodically pumped current in the diode conductance are considered. The effects of the series inductance and diode capacitance on the performance of some simple mixer circuits using a conventional Schottky diode, a Schottky diode in which there is no capacitance variation, and a Mott diode are studied. It is shown that the parametric effects of the voltage dependent capacitance of a conventional Schottky diode may be either detrimental or beneficial depending on the diode and circuit parameters.

Siegel, P. H.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Voltage tunable differential heterodyne spectroscopy in the far-infrared with Josephson junctions

The basic methods of differential heterodyne spectroscopy with Josephson junctions are described. A technique is outlined for bridging the gap between a local oscillator frequency and a signal frequency through the use of a voltage-tunable internal oscillation frequency in a Josephson junction structure. It is shown that an intermediate frequency can be converted to a conveniently low frequency by double frequency conversion carried out directly in a Josephson junction. The expected conversion efficiency is estimated qualitatively. Experiments are discussed in which the differential heterodyne frequency-conversion technique was demonstrated at a wavelength of 0.4 mm and a voltage-tunable oscillation in a double Josephson junction structure was observed, with oscillation line widths as narrow as 0.5 Hz, for a resistance of 3.3 nanohms and an estimated inductance of the order of 1 nH.

Ulrich, B. T.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Description of the ISEE satellite-to-satellite kilometric wavelength interferometer system

The International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE) spacecraft 1 and 2 carry receivers for detecting electromagnetic waves with kilometric wavelengths. For selected receiver frequencies from 30 kHz to 2 MHz, a 10-kHz bandwidth channel is single-sideband mixed down to baseband. These analog data and a reference frequency, which is a submultiple of the local oscillator frequency, are transmitted to ground stations and tape recorded along with the precise time and frequency information. Cross correlation of these tape recorded signals constitutes a satellite-to-satellite interferometer with a fringe spacing of 0.4 to 41 arcmin (at a range of 10,000 to 100 km spacing between spacecraft for 250 kHz in frequency) and with a time-delay resolution of 32 microsec for a 10-kHz bandwidth, which gives an angular resolution of 3 min to 6 deg of arc. For kilometric radiation at earth, sources in the size range of 25 to 2500 km can be identified (from 20 earth radii) and located in relative position ranging from 0.02 to 2 earth radii, depending on spacecraft spacing. Reception and analysis of solar and Jovian bursts may also be possible.

Shawhan, S. D.↗
NASA NTRS1979

On-axis velocity component measurement with laser velocimeters

The application of Doppler shifted laser light to the measurement of the two velocity components normal to the optical axis of the system is relatively simple as compared to the measurement of the on-axis velocity component. The present paper deals with the reference-beam (local oscillator) technique and the dual-beam (fringe mode) technique, which have been developed for measuring the on-axis component. Some results obtained for the on-axis component are examined.

Neti, S.↗