Parker Solar Probe's 1st Year of Ka-band Operations

Abstract

Launched in 2018, NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) mission has been described as “The Mission to Touch the Sun”. Over a 7 year prime mission, the spacecraft will make 24 close encounters with the Sun. In order to meet requirements, PSP's telecom subsystem needed to incorporate a Ka-band downlink for radiometrics and science data return. PSP uses a 0.6 meter High Gain Antenna (HGA). This antenna is used only for a Ka-band downlink, and during its use is nominally the only time the science data is transmitted. Aspects of the mission design also restrict the use of the HGA to short periods in between each solar flyby. These constraints require the RF team and Mission Operations team to be extra diligent in optimizing the downlink data return. This paper provides a summary of PSP's first year of operations at Ka-band. In addition to presenting the overall Ka-band performance, other items that will be focused on include: planning considerations for Ka-band coverage with the DSN, observed effectiveness of a HGA calibration, pre-launch link assumptions, and possible future work. With multiple future deep space missions utilizing a Ka-band downlink, this information will hopefully be beneficial to help with planning and optimizing the data return.