The New Wuqing 70 m Radio Telescope and Measurements of Main Electronic Properties in the X-band

Abstract

The new Wuqing 70 m radio telescope is first used for the downlink data reception in the first Mars exploration mission of China, and will be used for the other deep space communications and radio astronomical observations in the future. The main specifications and measurement results of some properties in the X-band are introduced in this paper, such as pointing calibration, gain and efficiency, system noise temperature, system equivalent flux density, and variations with elevation. The 23 parameters pointing calibration model considering the atmospheric refraction correction in real time is presented in the telescope, and the pointing accuracy reaches 5.″70 in azimuth direction and 6.″07 in elevation direction for different weather conditions. More than 62% efficiencies are achieved at full elevation range, and more than 70% in the mid-elevation. The system equivalent flux density of the X-band in the mid-elevation reaches 26 Jy.