Voyager 2 Saturn Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) Calibrated Low-Frequency Receiver Band, V

NASA's Voyager 2 Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) instrument collected this dataset during the Saturn encounter from 1981-06 05 to 1981-09-28. It contains calibrated low-frequency radio receiver band data at the highest 6-second time resolution possible during normal operations, packaged into 48-second spacecraft major frame records. The data are provided in ASCII format with power measurements in millibels.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal variations in Saturn's radio emissions based on the 6-second sweep cycle and 48-second major frame structure.
• Studying the spectral power distribution across the low-frequency band (1326.0 kHz to 1.2 kHz) based on the 70-channel receiver.
• Investigating spacecraft and receiver noise characteristics based on the described minimum detected values of 2300-2400 mB.
• Correlating radio astronomy events with other Voyager 2 instrument data based on the provided Spacecraft Event Time (SCET).

Strengths

• Data covers the entire Saturn encounter phase from June 5 to September 28, 1981.
• Provides the highest time resolution (6 seconds per sweep) possible during normal PRA operations.
• Measurements are calibrated and given in defined units of millibels with a documented zero-point reference.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The description notes that positions 70 and 71 in the data array should be ignored, and missing or bad data values are set to zero.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Acquired by the Voyager 2 Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) instrument.

Time Range

1981-06-05 to 1981-09-28

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 13:55:46.370565; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Saturn encounter region (interplanetary space).