A High-Rate Telemetry System for the Mariner 1969 Mission

Abstract

This presentation deals with a multi-mission deep-space telemetry system, its rationale, analysis, development into hardware, and its subsequent planned application to an actual spacecraft mission whose preparation is now in progress. The spacecraft system encodes raw binary data into a comma-free, bi-orthogonal code which antipodally modulates a square-wave subcarrier, which in turn phase-modulates the downlink carrier. There is no separate signal for subcarrier, word, or symbol sync; all transmitted sideband power is thus available for data transmission.