Influences of Turbulent Reentry Plasma Sheath on Wave Scattering and Propagation

The randomness of turbulent reentry plasma sheaths can affect the propagation and scattering properties of electromagnetic waves.This paper developed algorithms to estimate the influences.With the algorithms and typical reentry data,influences of GPS frequency and Ka frequency are studied respectively.Results show that,in terms of wave scattering,the scattering loss caused by the randomness of the turbulent plasma sheath increases with the increase of the ensemble average electron density,ensemble average collision frequency,electron density fluctuation and turbulence integral scale respectively.Also the scattering loss is much smaller than the dielectric loss.The scattering loss of Ka frequency is much less than that of the GPS frequency.In terms of wave propagation,the randomness arouses the fluctuations of amplitude and phase of waves.The fluctuations change with altitudes that when the altitude is below 30 km,fluctuations increase with altitude increasing,and when the altitude is above 30 km,fluctuations decrease with altitude increasing.The fluctuations of GPS frequency are strong enough to affect the tracking,telemetry,and command at appropriate conditions,while the fluctuations of Ka frequency are much more feeble.This suggests that the Ka frequency suffers less influences of the randomness of a turbulent plasma sheath.

Influence of Plasma Pressure Fluctuation on RF Wave Propagation

Pressure fluctuations in the plasma sheath from spacecraft reentry affect radiofrequency（RF） wave propagation.The influence of these fluctuations on wave propagation and wave properties is studied using methods derived by synthesizing the compressible turbulent flow theory,plasma theory,and electromagnetic wave theory.We study these influences on wave propagation at GPS and Ka frequencies during typical reentry by adopting stratified modeling.We analyzed the variations in reflection and transmission properties induced by pressure fluctuations.Our results show that,at the GPS frequency,if the waves are not totally reflected then the pressure fluctuations can remarkably affect reflection,transmission,and absorption properties.In extreme situations,the fluctuations can even cause blackout.At the Ka frequency,the influences are obvious when the waves are not totally transmitted.The influences are more pronounced at the GPS frequency than at the Ka frequency.This suggests that the latter can mitigate blackout by reducing both the reflection and the absorption of waves,as well as the influences of plasma fluctuations on wave propagation.Given that communication links with the reentry vehicles are susceptible to plasma pressure fluctuations,the influences on link budgets should be taken into consideration.