Publisher:Pasadena, CA : Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2005.
Citation:6th International Vacuum Electronics Conference IVEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, April 20-22, 2005
Abstract:
NASA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission would be faced with the challenging data transmission task of sending a 50 Mbps stream of science data back to Earth over a distance of 6.2 A.U. (9.3x10^8 km). This high data rate will require a transmitter power of 1 kW at 32 GHz which greatly exceeds the highest powers available from any currently existing space-qualified RF amplifiers. Initially, consideration was given to developing a space-qualified klystron or EIK because of the relatively narrow bandwidths implied by this data rate, but neither of these device types have any significant history of use in space
