ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Low-Temperature Plasma Physics
This article is part of the Research TopicCalibration Techniques in Plasma ResearchView all 6 articles
Spacecraft Radio Signal Polarization Calibration
Provisionally accepted
Elizabeth Jensen1,2*
Amanda Kepley3
David B. Wexler4Adam Kobelski3
Jason E Kooi5Aahil Valliani6Aidan Cho6Egan Heisey-Grove6
Anshu Kumari7
Shing F Fung8- 1Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, United States
- 2ACS Engineering and Safety, Spring, United States
- 3National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, United States
- 4University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, United States
- 5US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, United States
- 6Thomas Jefferson High For Science And Technology, Alexandria, United States
- 7Udaipur Solar Observatory, Udaipur, India
- 8NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, United States
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The only reliable method to remotely obtain magnetic field information across large swaths of interplanetary/interstellar plasma is with the measurement of Faraday rotation of polarized radio signals. Focusing on the high frequency regime of magnetized plasmas, this paper discusses the most difficult first step toward obtaining these measurements. Transitioning from raw voltage samples to plane of polarization measurements requires both simulated signal tests and qualitative inspections of the behavior of the resulting measurements. To demonstrate how this calibration approach works, we show examples collected from the STEREO A and B spacecraft and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. While astronomical radio sources have their own challenges to data processing, we show that spacecraft data have their own unique characteristics that can benefit and hinder the data processing.
Keywords: Faraday rotation, radio science, Scintillation, Plasma Physics, Antenna design, Solar physics, Calibration, signals andsystems
Received: 16 Jul 2025; Accepted: 23 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jensen, Kepley, Wexler, Kobelski, Kooi, Valliani, Cho, Heisey-Grove, Kumari and Fung. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Elizabeth Jensen, ejensen@psi.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.