An Analysis of Ionospheric Electron Content Measurements Utilizing Satellite-Emitted Signals,

摘要

Analytical techniques are available which make use of the Faraday polarization rotation and the Doppler frequency shift phenomena for determining the ionospheric electron content by the passive monitoring of radio wave transmissions emanating from earth satellites. The accuracy of the various techniques can be evaluated by the simulator-computer program described in this report. The major components of the simulator consist of a satellite-orbit generator, a time-variant three-dimensional electron density model and an earth magnetic field model expressed in terms of a series of spherical harmonics. Ray tracings are performed utilizing Simpson's rule for numerical integration of the definite integrals defining the propagation phenomena. Preliminary results are presented of an analysis performed for one location in the midlatitudes. (Author)