Keysight Technologies Teams with European Space Agency, Airbus, SpaceTech GmbH to Evaluate Radar for Icy Moons Exploration Antenna

12/19/2017

Keysight Technologies, Inc. announced that the FieldFox handheld RF analyzer was used in the evaluation of the impedance of the radar antenna for icy moons exploration (RIME), a key component of one of the ten science payloads of the European Space Agency's Jupiter icy moons explorer (JUICE) spacecraft scheduled for launch in 2022.

RIME engineers performed phase-matching and orientation tests on the RIME antenna in Heiligenberg, Germany in September 2017. They also evaluated two radar antennas, one aluminum and the other carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP), which will be used on the spacecraft. The antennas were housed on a satellite-sized enclosure, and the enclosure was lifted 300 meters in the air by helicopter to ensure low-RF coupling to the ground.

Keysight's handheld FieldFox analyzer was used in remote mode to measure S-parameter characteristics of the antenna in flight as it was rotated more than 180 degrees and with the spacecraft mock-up being maneuvered by helicopter. Test data was recovered at a base station on the ground via a wireless link between the FieldFox and the ground base station.

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