Picture |
Object
name
#NORAD |
Remarks |
Launch
Date |
Weight |
|
Voyager-2
Mariner Jupiter/Saturn B
#10271
(1977-076A) |
Voyager 2 was one of a pair of spacecraft
launched to explore the planets of the outer solar system
and the interplanetary environment. Each Voyager had
as its major objectives at each planet to: (1) investigate
the circulation, dynamics, structure, and composition
of the planet's atmosphere; (2) characterize the morphology,
geology, and physical state of the satellites of the
planet; (3) provide improved values for the mass, size,
and shape of the planet, its satellites, and any rings;
and, (4) determine the magnetic field structure and
characterize the composition and distribution of energetic
trapped particles and plasma therein. |
Aug 20th 1977 |
722 kg |
 NASA
placed on both spacecrafts Voyager 1 and 2 a disk which
contains messages to communicate a story of our world
to extraterrestrials. The Voyager messages are carried
by a phonograph record. The 12-inch gold-plated copper
disk contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds
to demonstrate the diversity of life and culture on
Earth. Enclosed please find some of the sounds.
birds:  chimpanzee: f-111
fire:
first:
herding:
horse:
kiss:
morse:
tame dog:
volcanoes: wind:
|
 Jovian
Electron Cyclotron Emissions recorded by Voyager-2
PWS (plasma wave sensor): Jovian electron
cyclotron emissions are intense narrow-banded emissions,
generated by energetic electrons spiraling along the
magnetic field lines of Jupiter and its magnetized moons.
The frequency bands of the electron cyclotron emissions
occur at harmonics or very precise multiples of the
electron cyclotron frequency, a characteristic frequency
of the plasma surrounding the planet. The frequencies
of the electron cyclotron emission bands track the variations
in the electron cyclotron frequency, which varies with
the strength of the magnetic field. The resulting tones
are high- pitched monotones which move up and down in
frequency scale on time scales of seconds to tens of
seconds. Provided by Don Gurnett. Courtesy of NASA and
the University of Iowa. |
|
Voyager-1
Mariner Jupiter/Saturn A
#10321
(1977-084A) |
Voyager-1 was launched only 2 weeks
after Voyager-2. Both provided communications through
a high-gain antenna with a low-gain antenna for backup.
The high-gain antenna supported both X-band (approx.
8420 MHz) and S-band downlink telemetry. |
Sep 5th 1977 |
722 kg |
On January 25th
2010 12:55 UTC Juan Daniel Gallego was able to use the
40m dish antenna of OAN in Yebes, Spain to receive Voyager
1 using a  Perseus
Software Defined receiver. At the time of reception
Voyager was 16.9 billion km away which is about 3.5
times the distance between Earth and Pluto! After converting
the 8.4 GHz signal down to about 3.5 MHz the beacon
signal was finally demodulated using CW detection of
the Perseus SDR receiver with an IF filter BW of 200
Hz. A description of the setup can be found when clicking
on the icon of the dish antenna.  The
audio recordings below are in non compressed wav format
and thus each 3 MBytes large. This allows you to analyze
the audio with an FFT program like Spectrum lab in case
you are interested. A spectrum capture can be seen by
clicking on the icon on the right.
In the
first recording you can hear the carrier of the beacon.
The signal is approx. 5 dB below noise level but can
be perceived by a trained (ham) ear.
In the
second recording the local oscillator of the receiver
is switched 50 Hz up and down in periods of a few seconds.
This makes it much easier to perceive the signal by
the change in pitch even by untrained ears.
Finally
the third audio files contains the same signal from
the beacon (no freq. switching) but compressed in time
by a factor of 50 and repeated 4 times. This makes easier
to appreciate the change in the Doppler shift.
Many thanks to Juan Daniel Gallego for kindly
providing the recordings and screenshots. |
Jovian
Bow Shock
recorded
by Voyager-1 PWS (plasma wave sensor): All
of the planets in the Solar System are embedded in the
interplanetary medium known as the solar wind. The solar
wind travels supersonically with respect to the slower
planets at a speed of about one million miles per hour.
And, just as a supersonic jet will create a sonic boom
in the slower atmosphere of Earth, a bow shock is created
in the solar wind in front of each planet.
Jupiter
has a strong magnetic field that reaches out more than
3.5 million miles in front of the planet, providing
a substantial obstacle to the flow of the solar wind.
The bow shock forms at that surface in interplanetary
space where the supersonic solar wind encounters the
magnetic force of Jupiter and it acts to slow and deflect
the solar wind. In the process, the energy of motion
of the solar wind is converted to thermal energy at
the bow shock, heating the particles behind the shock
and creating rapid and turbulent particle motions that
generate the plasma waves associated with the bow shock.
When the Voyager spacecraft encountered the Jovian bow
shock, there was a very sudden burst of intense, low-frequency
emissions extending over a wide range of frequencies.
These emissions are directly associated with the Jovian
bow shock and are similar to the loud sound associated
with a sonic boom. The shock noise signature is a sudden,
loud, rumbling roar lasting more than a minute.
Provided
by Don Gurnett. Courtesy of NASA and the University
of Iowa. |
Jovian
Chorus recorded
by Voyager-1 PWS (plasma wave sensor): Jovian
chorus is generated in Jupiter's radiation belts by
electrons spiraling along Jupiter's magnetic field lines
in this region. Once generated, the chorus waves interact
with the moving electrons, disturbing the spiral orbit
of the electrons and causing them to fall into the Jupiter's
ionosphere along the magnetic field lines at high latitudes.
Chorus waves consist of a rapid succession of intense
ascending tones, rising in frequency over very short
time intervals, each tone lasting typically less than
one second. The frequencies of these rising tones occur
in the audio frequency range and sound like a dawn chorus
of chirping birds, a sound which gives these waves their
name. Provided
by Don Gurnett. Courtesy of NASA and the University
of Iowa. |
Jovian
upstream ion acoustic waves recorded by Voyager-1. Provided
by Don Gurnett. Courtesy of NASA and the University
of Iowa. |
Jovian
Whistlers
recorded
by Voyager-1 PWS (plasma wave sensor): Jovian
whistler waves propagate at audio frequencies along
closed field lines in Jupiter's magnetosphere. Like
Earth whistlers, the higher frequency components of
the Jovian whistler propagate faster than the lower
frequency components, resulting in a descending tone
that decreases rapidly in frequency over several seconds.
The descending tone sounds like a high-pitched whistle.
Also like Earth whistlers, Jovian whistlers are generated
by lightning discharges in the atmosphere. The detection
of Jovian whistlers by the Voyager spacecraft provided
the first indirect evidence of lightning on the giant
planet. Provided
by Don Gurnett. Courtesy of NASA and the University
of Iowa. |
|
Mars Global Surveyor
(MGS)
#24648
(1996-062A) |
Mars
Global Surveyor was launched by NASA on a Delta II rocket
and arrived at Mars on September the 12th 1997. The
spectrum plot was recorded on April 14th 2006 on 8422.744
MHz and was kindly provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
Nov 7th
1996 |
1030 kg |
|
Cassini
#25008
(1997-061A)
&
Huygens
(1997-061C) |
The Cassini Orbiter's
mission consists of delivering a probe (called Huygens,
provided by ESA) to Titan and then remaining in orbit
around Saturn for detailed studies of the planet and
its rings and satellites. The atmospheric probe Huygens
landed on Saturn's moon Titan. |
Oct 15th 1997 |
Cassini:
2523 kg
Huygens:
319 kg |
This recording
is a laboratory reconstruction of the sounds heard by
Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI), which
includes an acoustic sensor. Several sound samples,
taken at different times during the descent, are here
combined together and give a realistic reproduction
of what a traveller on board Huygens would have heard
during one minute of the descent through Titan's atmosphere
on Jan 14th
2005. Source: ESA |
This
recording was done on July 25th
2004. Time on this recording has been compressed such
that 13 seconds corresponds to 27 seconds. Since the
frequencies of these emissions are well above the audio
frequency range, they were shifted downward by a factor
of 260. Source: NASA |
|
2000 Cluster
2
FM6
Salsa
#26411
(2000-041B) |
The Cluster II spacecraft, FM6 (Salsa),
was launched together with FM7 (Samba). The four similar
spacecraft of the Cluster II mission are part of ESA's
and NASA's Solar-Terrestrial Science Program (STSP).
|
Jul 16th 2000 |
550 kg |
Earth
AKR (Auroral Kilometric Radiation) recorded
in stereo by the Cluster 2 spacecraft. The four Cluster
II WBD (wideband) instruments were designed and built
at The University of Iowa through funding provided by
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Provided
by Don Gurnett. Courtesy of NASA and the University
of Iowa. |
Earth
whistlers recorded in stereo by the Cluster 2
spacecraft. The aim of the Cluster mission is to study
small-scale structures of the magentosphere and its
environment in three dimensions. To achieve this, Cluster
is constituted of four identical spacecrafts which fly
in a tetrahedral configuration. Provided by Don Gurnett.
Courtesy of NASA and the University of Iowa. |
|
2001 Mars Odyssey
#26734
(2001-014A) |
2001
Mars Odyssey was launched on a Delta II rocket from
Cape Canaveral. The spectrum plot was recorded on April
11th
2006 and was kindly provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
Apr 7th
2001 |
725 kg |
|
Mars Express
#27816
(2003-022A) |
Mars
Express was launched by the European Space Agency on
a Soyuz-Fregat from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It included
a lander called Beagle 2. It features the following
communication downlinks:
X-band: 8420.43207 MHz
(61.27 dBW)
S-band: 2296.481481 MHz (37.53dBW)
The used high gain antenna is a 1.6m centered parabolish
dish which provides 39.3 dBi gain at X-band and 27.3
dBi at S-band.
The sound file as well as the spectrum
plot were recorded on April 11th
2006 and were kindly provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
Jun 2nd
2003 |
1120 kg |
|
Spitzer Space Telescope
#27871
(2003-038A) |
Launched
by NASA on a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral. It is
a space-borne, cryogenically-cooled infrared observatory
capable of studying objects ranging from our Solar System
to the distant reaches of the Universe. The spectrum
plot was recorded at 8413.626490 MHz on April 23rd 2006 and was
kindly provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
Aug 25th
2003 |
950 kg |
|
Smart-1 moon Orbiter
#27949
(2003-043C) |
Launched
by ESA on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou. Mission
ended September 3rd 2006 with its planned impact into
moon. It transmitted at 8453.024225 MHz and at 32121.49350
MHz. The spectrum plot was recorded at 8453 MHz on August
15th
2006 and was kindly provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
Sep 27th
2003 |
367 kg |
|
Rosetta
#28169
(2004-006A) |
Rosetta
is is en-route
to Comet 67 P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko.
It transmits on 8421.790123 MHz. The spectrum plot was
recorded on May 4th
2006 and was kindly provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
Mar 2nd 2004 |
810 kg |
Michael
OH2AUE built an 8.4 GHz receiver from junk and received
Rosetta using his club station 4 m dish. He webcasted
the event, video of the shack and the BPSK carrier audio
to other interested people. Audio recording kindly provided
by Michael Fletcher OH2AUE. |
|
Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter (MRO)
#28788
(2005-029A) |
Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was launched by NASA on
an Atlas V-401 from Cape Canaveral. MRO arrived at Mars
on March 10th
2006. The sound file as well as the spectrum plot were
recorded on December 20th
2005 when the spacecraft was 53258740 miles away from
Earth. They were kindly provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
Aug 12th
2005 |
2180 kg |
|
Venus Express
#28901
(2005-045A) |
Venus
Express was launched by the European Space Agency on
a Soyuz-Fregat from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It transmits
a tracking / telemetry beacon on DSN channel 17 which
is 8419.074074 MHz. The data enclosed was recorded when
the probe was 4.17 million miles away. Record and spectrum
plot were kindly provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
Nov 9th 2005 |
1270 kg |
On January 25th
2010 11:10 UTC Juan Daniel Gallego was able to use the
40m dish antenna of OAN in Yebes, Spain to receive Venus
Express using a Perseus
Software Defined receiver. At the time of reception
Venus Express was 256 million km away ! After converting
the 8.4 GHz signal down to about 3.1 MHz the beacon
signal was finally demodulated using USB detection of
the Perseus SDR receiver with an IF filter BW of 2.4
kHz. A description of the setup can be found when clicking
on the icon of the dish antenna.
 In
the first recording you can hear the carrier of the
beacon (changing pitch over time due to doppler effect).
 In
the second recording the upper sideband of the signal
carrying the downlink data was demodulated.
Many thanks to Juan Daniel Gallego for kindly
providing the recordings and screenshots. |
|
New Horizons Pluto
Charon
#28928
(2006-001A) |
New Horizons
Pluto Charon was launched by NASA on an Atlas V from
Cape Canaveral and is en-route to Pluto. It transmits
on 8437.894737 MHz and 8438.181818 MHz. The spectrum
plot was recorded on April 12th
2006 when it was 64509465 miles away from earth. It
was kindly provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
Jan 19th
2006 |
393 kg |
|
Stereo
A
#29510
(2006-047A)
&
Stereo B
#29511
(2006-047B) |
Stereo A & B (Solar
TErrestrial RElations Observatory) were jointly launched
by NASA aboard a single Boeing Delta II rocket from
Cape Canaveral. They are providing 3D images of the
sun. |
Oct 25th 2006 |
642 kg
each |
Stereo
A transmits on 8443.5185 MHz, Stereo
B transmits on 8446.2345 MHz. The spectrum plots from
both spacecrafts were kindly
provided by www.uhf-satcom.com. |
|
Selene
Kaguya
#32054
(2007-039A) |
SELenological and ENgineering
Explorer was funded by the Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency. This lunar orbiter mission consists of three
satellites:
1.) an orbiter containing most of the
scientific equipment named "Kaguya"
2.)
a VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) Radio (VRAD)
satellite named "Ouna"
3.) a relay satellite
named "Okina" designed to receive a doppler
ranging signal from the orbiter when it is around the
far side of the moon out of direct contact with the
Earth and transmit the signal to Earth to estimate the
far-side gravitational field. |
Sep 14th 2007 |
1984 kg |
The S-band
downlink of Kaguya at 2363.6 MHz was received by Michael
OH2AUE using only a bent paper clip as the antenna.
This is to show what is possible with even such a small/simple
antenna: the signal is really weak but you can clearly
identify it especially at the end of the recording.
Recorded on December 18th 2007 by Michael OH2AUE. |
 Here
is a spectrum plot recorded by Paul M0YET on November
14th 2008 at 21:12 UTC. Please note the excellent signal
quality: he achieved more than 30 dB SNR using a 7 Hz
bandwidth.
|
|
Kepler
Discovery 10
#34380
(2009-011A) |
NASA's Kepler Mission is to survey
our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover hundreds
of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable
zone and determine how many of the billions of stars
in our galaxy have such planets. It includes a 0.95m
aperture differential photometer with a 105° FOV.
Kepler was launched on March 6th
2009 from Cape Canaveral/Florida on a Delta rocket into
an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. |
Mar 6th
2009 |
1000 kg |
Kepler uses the following communication
links:
- Uplink X-band: 7.8125 bps up to 2 kbps
- Downlink X-band: 10 bps up to 16 kbps, antenna gain
is 6.5dB, transmit power is 14dBW, activated twice a
week for commanding, health and status.
- Downlink
Ka-band: up to 4.33125 Mbps, antenna gain is 46.6dB,
transmit power is 14dBW, activated once a month for
science data download. |
 The
X-band downlink was received by Paul Marsh on March
8th 2009. The FFT was received in a 5KHz b/w of the
8424.476 MHz downlink at 19:18 UTC on March 8th 2009.
|
 The
Ka-band downlink was received by Paul Marsh on April
29th 2009 who had put together a 32GHz down converter
from commonly available parts and then used a SDR-14
FFT receiver from RF-Space.
 The
first FFT was received in a 5KHz b/w of the 32166.1711
MHz downlink at 19:41UTC on April 29th 2009 while the
space-probe was about 3226045 Miles away from Earth.
 The
second FFT was received in a 3KHz b/w of the 32166.1653
MHz downlink at 21:27UTC on April 29th 2009 while the
space-probe was about 3226445 Miles away from Earth.
Note: The FFT shows the drift due to doppler shift and
a slight wobble in the carrier which is caused by Paul's
receiver: the GPS reference oscillators 10MHz output
is being multiplied 3420 times to generate the 34.2GHz
local oscillator. Therefore a very slight wobble in
the GPS control loop is strongly amplified.
|
|
Herschel
(FIRST)
#34937
(2009-026A) |
Herschel Space Observatory
carries the largest space telescope ever launched before.
Herschel was launched together with Planck on an
Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou / French Guiana.  From
a point in space called the 2nd Lagrangian Point (or
L2), its 3.5-m diameter mirror will collect long-wavelength
infrared radiation from some of the coolest and most
distant objects in the Universe. Herschel was received
by Paul Marsh when its distance to Earth was only ~170,000
Miles.  The
downlink frequency was 8468.454MHz. The first FFT plot
shows the tail end of a coherent locking cycle. On the
second plot sidebands carrying data can clearly be seen.
Received on May 15th 2009 at 22:25 UTC by Paul Marsh. |
May 14th
2009 |
3300kg |
|
Planck
#34938
(2009-026B) |
Planck was launched together
with Herschel on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou
/ French Guiana. In the lower picture on the left you
can see it is located below Herschel. The Planck satellite
will observe the cosmic microwave background radiation
(CMB). This is the radiation released into the Universe
by the Big Bang about 14 thousand million years ago.
Planck carries a telescope with an effective aperture
of 1.5 m that feeds microwave radiation to two instruments:
 1.)
High Frequency Instrument (HFI) which is an array of
52 bolometric detectors and will image the sky at six
frequencies between 100 GHz and 857 GHz.
 2.)
Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) which is an array of
22 tuned radio receivers and images the sky at three
frequencies between 30 GHz and 70 GHz.
Downlink
frequency was 8468.454MHz, the FFT below shows the tail
end of a coherent locking cycle. The distance to the
probe is only ~170,000 Miles. The FFT's below are from
the IF frequency, simply add 8GHz to get the receive
frequency. In the second plot the data sidebands can
be seen. Received on May 15th 2009 at 22:04 UTC by Paul
Marsh. |
May 14th
2009 |
1800 kg |
Picture |
Object
name
#NORAD |
Remarks |
Launch
Date |
Weight |
