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uhoh
uhoh
2:51 AM
2
Q: Did any of Voyagers' receivers' front ends take advantage of the "cold of space" to lower noise?

uhohMost of the Voyagers' electronics are kept warm by electrical heaters powered by their RTG's, and presumably protected by some amount of insulation from the "cold of space" which means loss of heat via blackbody radiation. This is done because the carrier density in semiconductors (both intrinsic...

communication voyager deep-space-network antenna electronics
4
Q: Why is the operating temperature for the Voyagers' receiver noise calculation about 1550K?

uhohIn line 10 of Table 5.2 of DESCANSO IV - Voyager Telecommunications it shows a value of the uplink receiver noise spectral density of -166.7 dBm/Hz, which is 196.7 dBW/Hz which is 2.1E-20 Watts/Hz = $k_B T$. With $k_B$ = 1.381E-23 J/K that's a temperature of about 1500 K (which seems really hot!)...

voyager radio-communication deep-space-network
I've just added bounties to both
 

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