The wideband backend at the MDSCC in Robledo. A new facility for radio astronomy at Q- and K- bands

TL;DR

The paper describes the development and commissioning of a new wideband backend system for the MDSCC antennas, significantly enhancing radio astronomy capabilities in Q- and K-bands by increasing bandwidth and spectral resolution.

Contribution

Introduces a novel wideband backend system for the MDSCC antennas, enabling broader bandwidth and improved spectral resolution for radio astronomical observations.

Findings

System successfully commissioned with stable frequency tuning and line intensities.

Provides 1.5 GHz instantaneous bandwidth with 212 kHz resolution in initial setup.

Upcoming upgrades will expand bandwidth up to 3 GHz and enable dual polarization observations.

Abstract

The antennas of NASA's Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC) in Robledo de Chavela are available as single-dish radio astronomical facilities during a significant percentage of their operational time. Current instrumentation includes two antennas of 70 and 34 m in diameter, equipped with dual-polarization receivers in K (18 - 26 GHz) and Q (38 - 50 GHz) bands, respectively. We have developed and built a new wideband backend for the Robledo antennas, with the objectives (1) to optimize the available time and enhance the efficiency of radio astronomy in MDSCC; and (2) to tackle new scientific cases impossible to that were investigated with the old, narrow-band autocorrelator. The backend consists of an IF processor, a FFT spectrometer (FFTS), and the software that interfaces and manages the events among the observing program, antenna control, the IF processor, the FFTS operation, and data recording. The whole system was end-to-end assembled in August 2011, at the start of commissioning activities, and the results are reported in this paper. Frequency tunings and line intensities are stable over hours, even when using different synthesizers and IF channels; no aliasing effects have been measured, and the rejection of the image sideband was characterized. The first setup provides 1.5 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth in a single polarization, using 8192 channels and a frequency resolution of 212 kHz; upgrades under way include a second FFTS card, and two high-resolution cores providing 100 MHz and 500 MHz of bandwidth, and 16384 channels. These upgrades will permit simultaneous observations of the two polarizations with instantaneous bandwidths from 100 MHz to 3 GHz, and spectral resolutions from 7 to 212 kHz.