Abstract

Solar System Interiors, Atmospheres, and Surfaces Investigations via Radio Links: Goals for the Next Decade

Highlights

  • The ability to precisely measure properties of spacecraft radio signals — frequency, phase, delay, amplitude, polarization — provides unique leverage to extract new information about atmospheres, ionospheres, rings, surfaces, shapes, and internal structure of solar system bodies (Asmar et al, 2019)

  • Spacecraft Constellations for Interior Structure & Dynamics: Precision gravity experiments via spacecraft-to-spacecraft crosslinks have been utilized at Earth (GRACE, Tapley et al, 2004) and the Moon (GRAIL, Zuber et al, 2013, and SELENE’s farside subsatellite) for high-impact studies of planetary interiors and monitoring mass transport

  • Dynamical stability is determined by thruster balance or timing of spacecraft maneuver or solar electric propulsion events that disturb the Doppler data quality, and precision power calibration is required for comparing small variations in the two polarizations of received signals

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Summary

Current Status of RS Investigations

To plan for the future, it’s vital to understand RS current status. Interior Structure: Detailed gravity fields of Mercury, Venus, Mars, the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn leading to refined models for their interior structures; fundamental insights into the interiors of Phobos, Eros, Vesta, Ceres, Lutetia, Bennu, cometary nuclei, Triton, and many Saturnian and Galilean satellites, leading to evidence for fluid layers in icy moons. Surface properties: Surface characteristics of Venus, Moon, Mars, Titan, comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Pluto, Vesta, and Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth. Ongoing RS experiments will continue in the decade as MAVEN and Mars Express further investigate Mars’ atmosphere, Akatsuki investigates Venus’ atmosphere, InSight’s Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment characterizes the Martian core, and Juno investigates Jupiter’s interior structure, Jupiter’s satellites and the Io plasma torus.

Key Science Goals for the Next Decade
Atmospheric Winds Surfaces
Technology Development Needed in the Next Decade
Method

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