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Monitoring the sightlines of Mars to study interplanetary plasma scintillation

Presented by:

Pradyumna Kummamuru

Pradyumna Kiran Kummamuru

The technique of Doppler spacecraft tracking provides us great insight into different aspects of planetary science, solar physics, and space weather phenomenon. 22 different radio telescopes from the European VLBI Network (EVN) and the University of Tasmania’s (UTAS) were collectively used in an observing campaign of the Mars Express between the years 2014-2020. The two-way mode radio signal of the spacecraft was observed in the X-band with over 300 epochs providing the temporal characterisation of the solar wind. The phase residuals processed from the carrier signal provide the scintillation index which is a quantification of the phase fluctuation caused by the long-scale structure of the solar wind. Thus, we establish the total electron content between solar elongations of 0-1800 along the sightlines of Mars for nearly 3.5 Mars orbital periods. We present to you these results and the importance of pursuing studies of space weather phenomena for both purposes of space science and precision tracking of satellites.

Category:

Space physics

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