Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA Lewis Research Center space qualified hybrid high temperature superconducting/semiconducting 7.4 GHz low-noise downconverter for NRL HTSSE-II program

Journal Article · Mon Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996 · IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/22.508232· OSTI ID:282442

Javadi, H H.S.; Bowen, J G; Rascoe, D L ^[1]; Romanofsky, R R; Bhasin, K B ^[2]; Chorey, C M

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1. California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab.
2. NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH (United States)

A deep space satellite downconverter receiver was proposed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC) for the Naval Research Laboratory`s (NRL) high temperature superconductivity space experiment, phase-II (HTSSE-II) program. Space qualified low-noise cryogenic downconverter receivers utilizing thin-film high temperature superconducting (HTS) passive circuitry and semiconductor active devices were developed and delivered to NRL. The downconverter consists of an HTS preselect filter, a cryogenic low-noise amplifier, a cryogenic mixer, and a cryogenic oscillator with an HTS resonator. HTS components were inserted as the front-end filter and the local oscillator resonator for their superior 77 K performance over the conventional components. The semiconducting low noise amplifier also benefited from cooling to 77 K. The mixer was designed specifically for cryogenic applications and provided low conversion loss and low power consumption. In addition to an engineering model, two space qualified units (qualification, flight) were built and delivered to NRL. Manufacturing, integration and test of the space qualified downconverters adhered to the requirements of JPL class-D space instruments and partially to MIL-STD-883D specifications. The qualification unit has {approximately}50 K system noise temperature which is a factor of three better than a conventional downconverter at room temperature.

• OSTI ID: 282442
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques Journal Issue: 7Pt2 Vol. 44; ISSN IETMAB; ISSN 0018-9480
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
66 PHYSICS
AMBIENT TEMPERATURE
CRYOGENICS
DESIGN
HIGH-TC SUPERCONDUCTORS
HYBRID SYSTEMS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MICROWAVE EQUIPMENT
PERFORMANCE
SPACE FLIGHT
SUPERCONDUCTING DEVICES