NEAR Shoemaker

Telecommunications Description

Telecommunications occur mainly through the 1.5 meter high-gain antenna. There are also two low-gain antennas and one medium-gain antenna. The X-band system can simultaneously transmit telemetry, receive commands, and provide doppler and range tracking. Doppler tracking uplink is at 7182 MHz and downlink is at 8438 MHz. Communications will utilize both the 34 m and 70 m antennae of NASA's Deep Space Network. A solid state amplifier with an output of 5 W is used for downlink.