Is each dish capable of only monitoring one frequency mission at a time?
Typically, if we have more than one spacecraft that’s in the same beam width of the antenna, like we have had with Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, we’ll be able to track both simultaneously even though they are using different frequencies. Part of our preparation for a mission is to practice that. So we’ll actually be receiving downlinks from two spacecraft, gathering all the telemetry and sending it offsite; and then we’ll uplink to only a single spacecraft or command only a single spacecraft at a time.
Related Questions
- I want to avoid the additional warm-up time of one hour required for operation at a very specific frequency (1/10000 of the set frequency). How can I do this?
- Can a 99% reliability for a particular mission time be achieved when a relay is only capable of 90%?
- Is each dish capable of only monitoring one frequency mission at a time?
