Development of a Multi-Channel Dielectric Resonator Oscillator for Space Communication Applications
Matthew S. Dennis, Narayan R. Mysoor, Brian Cook · 2005
A novel multi-channel dielectric resonator oscillator (DRO) for Advanced Trans-ponder use is developed for deep-space communication applications. The Advanced Transponder receives a 7.2-GHz (X-band) uplink signal and generates an 8.4-GHz (X-band) coherent or non-coherent downlink signal. The Advanced Transponder ar-chitecture incorporates two miniature DROs. These DROs are used in receiver and exciter frequency synthesis phase-locked loops (PLLs) in the Advanced Transpon-der. The DRO is capable of tuning over 27 Deep Space Network (DSN) X-band uplink channels (30 MHz). The DROs are designed with custom monolithic mi-crowave integrated-circuit (MMIC) negative-resistance voltage-controlled oscillator chips. The receiver DRO design demonstrated a free-running single-sideband phase noise of −107 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz off the carrier frequency, a tuning linearity of ±3 percent over the channel locking range, and output power of +10 dBm ± 1 dB. Advantages of the multi-channel DRO include in-flight selection of transponder channel frequency, the enabling of novel mission operations techniques, frequency agility, and a single transponder design that will serve many missions and simplify hardware sparing strategies. I.