| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1780985 | Planetary and Space Science | 2015 | 7 Pages |
•The CONSERT instrument has to be synchronized ("tuned") before measurement.•To improve amount and quality of CONSERT's scientific data, tuning should be done as short before a measurement as possible.•As CONSERT uses elliptically polarizing antenna systems, great care has to be taken to calculate the link power budget.•A statistical analysis of the influence of ROSETTA's pointing accuracy was done using a self-implemented simulation tool.•The most important factor influencing the link budget is the polarization loss. This knowledge will help operation planning.
In bistatic radar systems utilizing elliptical polarization on both the sending and receiving side, great care must be taken to correctly calculate the received power, as a mismatch in polarization may incur significant additional losses. In this paper, we present a method to simulate the link budget of the CONSERT instrument aboard the Rosetta mission, including polarization effects. The correctness of the simulation method is demonstrated by comparing with a state-of-the-art Method of Moments solver.The CONSERT instrument's components aboard the Philae lander and the Rosetta orbiter need to be synchronized before the actual sounding. This synchronization can only be performed in line-of-sight conditions. In order to maximize sounding time for the propagation through 67P's core, the synchronization should happen as close to the approximate point of occultation as possible. A statistical analysis is presented to determine the probability of sufficient received power for the synchronization regarding uncertainties in the orbiter's pointing accuracy.
