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Path length variations due to changes in tropospheric refraction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

Allen Joel Anderson
Allen Joel Anderson*
Affiliation:
Department of Solid Earth Physics Box 556 S-751 22 UPPSALA Sweden

Abstract

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An experiment is described in which microwave Doppler is used to determine very small changes in path length to spacecraft tracked by the Deep Space Tracking Network (DSN). The experiment was carried out to test the detection capabilities of the DSN system to gravitational radiation of very low frequency (10−2–10−4 Hz). In this work spectral analysis of Doppler variations were performed for periods over 4 hours and more.

These results indicated that one of major sources of noise was due to rapid variations in tropospheric refraction. The results obtained a differential path length variation, ΔL/L, of 1 part in 1014 for periods between 100 and 1 000 seconds.

Doppler spectra are shown and a general discussion of the experiment is given.

Type
Research Article
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 89: Refractional Influences in Astrometry Andgeodesy , 1979 , pp. 157 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1979 

References

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