| Name: | Anshu Kumari |
| Affiliation: | NASA GSFC |
| Conference ID : | ASI2024_633 |
| Title : | On the design requirements of space-based radio instrumentation for faraday rotation measurements |
| Authors : | Anshu Kumari1, Nat Gopalswamy1, Liz Jensen2, Shing F. Fung1, Lihua Li1, Manohar D. Deshpande1 |
| Authors Affiliation: | 1NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Rd, MD 20771, USA
2Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA |
| Mode of Presentation: | Oral |
| Abstract Category : | Facilities, Technologies and Data science |
| Abstract : | The Faraday Effect Tracker of Coronal and Heliospheric Structures (FETCH) is a relatively new instrument concept for the proposed next-generation multi-spacecraft comprehensive mission, called the Multiview Observatory for Solar-Terrestrial Science (MOST). The MOST mission consists of four spacecraft (S/C), two located at L4 and L5; and two drifting ahead of L4 and behind L5. These S/C will be carrying a range of instruments to perform several in situ and remote sensing measurements. While most of the instruments to be onboard the MOST mission are at high technology readiness level, FETCH's instrument capabilities are yet to be tested, characterised and demonstrated. Although it is being developed based on the successful Fast On-orbit Rapid Recording of Transient Events (FORTE) satellite design. FETCH aims to reconstruct the geometry, orientation, and intensity of magnetic field associated with the coronal and heliospheric plasma structures by measuring the Faraday rotation (FR) effect on radio waves propagating through these structures. FR measurements can provide insights into plasma density and magnetic fields and resolve CME geometry by FR observations through multiple lines of sight.
We employed Monte Carlo simulations to comprehensively analyse how various noise sources affect the polarisation properties of a linearly polarised signal as might be expected in signals transmitted and received between MOST spacecraft. The preliminary results provide insights into the system's performance under realistic noise conditions and assist in determining acceptable Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) thresholds for designing the FETCH Link budget. We found that with an averaging of ~50 time samples of the received signals is sufficient to reconstruct polarization plane of transmitted signal. We also demonstrated how noise affects the polarisation properties of the received signal. The plane of polarisation can be recovered with input SNR> 5 dB, which may also depend on the plane of polarisation of transmitted signal. |
