Enhancing Science from Future Space Missions and Planetary Radar with the SKA

TL;DR

The paper discusses how the SKA telescope can significantly enhance future space mission science through increased sensitivity and new tracking capabilities, complementing existing space communication infrastructure.

Contribution

It introduces specific applications and future prospects of SKA for planetary and space mission tracking, emphasizing its potential to outperform current systems.

Findings

SKA can increase downlink data rates during critical mission phases.

SKA enables high-precision VLBI phase referencing for spacecraft.

SKA offers several times greater sensitivity than current Deep Space Network antennas.

Abstract

Both Phase 1 of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA1) and the full SKA have the potential to dramatically increase the science return from future astrophysics, heliophysics, and especially planetary missions, primarily due to the greater sensitivity (AEFF / TSYS) compared with existing or planned spacecraft tracking facilities. While this is not traditional radio astronomy, it is an opportunity for productive synergy between the large investment in the SKA and the even larger investments in space missions to maximize the total scientific value returned to society. Specific applications include short-term increases in downlink data rate during critical mission phases or spacecraft emergencies, enabling new mission concepts based on small probes with low power and small antennas, high precision angular tracking via VLBI phase referencing using in-beam calibrators, and greater range and signal/noise ratio for bi-static planetary radar observations. Future use of higher frequencies (e.g., 32 GHz and optical) for spacecraft communications will not eliminate the need for high sensitivities at lower frequencies. Many atmospheric probes and any spacecraft using low gain antennas require frequencies below a few GHz. The SKA1 baseline design covers VHF/UHF frequencies appropriate for some planetary atmospheric probes (band 1) as well as the standard 2.3 GHz deep space downlink frequency allocation (band 3). SKA1-MID also covers the most widely used deep space downlink allocation at 8.4 GHz (band 5). Even a 50% deployment of SKA1-MID will still result in a factor of several increase in sensitivity compared to the current 70-m Deep Space Network tracking antennas, along with an advantageous geographic location. The assumptions of a 10X increase in sensitivity and 20X increase in angular resolution for SKA result in a truly unique and spectacular future spacecraft tracking capability.