Juice/SWI during the Lunar-Earth-Gravity-Assist (LEGA) – Part 4: Antenna pointing and beam characterisation
Abstract. The Submillimetre Wave Instrument (SWI) onboard the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft consists of a 29 cm off-axis paraboloid antenna and two double-sideband heterodyne receivers operating in the frequency ranges of 530–638 and 1066–1286 GHz. This instrument is designed to study Jupiter’s atmosphere and the exospheres of the Galilean moons. We used the Lunar-Earth-Gravity-Assist (LEGA) data from August 2024 to characterise this antenna using several SWI observations pointing towards the Earth. The data analysis of the LEGA observations dedicated to the antenna beam allows us to characterise the antenna beam Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM), sidelobes, absolute pointing and receiver coalignement. Moreover, an estimate of the calibration efficiency factor has been obtained.
Authors
- B. Dąbrowski
- Mikko Kotiranta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3731-5623)
- P. Hartogh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9550-6551)
- S. Szutowicz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6208-4786)
- R. Moreno (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9171-2702)
- Donal P. Murtagh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1539-3559)
- F. Herpin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2977-5072)
- Hideo Sagawa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2064-2863)
- Thibault Cavalié (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0649-1192)
- L. Rezac (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3299-425X)
- Axel Murk (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2949-844X)
- Tomáš Formánek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4766-638X)
- E. Lellouch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7168-1577)
- Yasuko J. Kasai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6986-5235)
- M. Rengel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6419-4893)
- C. Jarchow
- Samuel Goodyear
- Ali Schulz-Ravanbakhsh
- Alberto Carrasco Gallardo
- Eva Wirström
- Michael Olberg
Institutions
- University of Bern (CH)
- Centrum Badań Kosmicznych (PL)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Université de Bordeaux (FR)
- Kyoto Sangyo University (JP)
- Université Paris Cité (FR)
- Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (FR)
- Observatoire de Paris (FR)
- Sorbonne Université (FR)
- Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux (FR)
- Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (DE)
- Institute of Science Tokyo (JP)
- LIRA - Laboratoire d'instrumentation et de recherche en astrophysique (FR)
- Chalmers University of Technology (SE)
- National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (JP)
- Polish Academy of Sciences (PL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Annales Geophysicae
- Published
- 2026-10-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-44-1227-2026
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 9.17
Funders
- European Space Agency
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
- Swedish National Space Agency