This paper discusses the analysis of the UHF (401 MHz) plasma-induced communications blackout (and brownout) experienced by the Mars InSight spacecraft during its entry, descent, and landing (EDL) phase into the Martian atmosphere on 26 November 2018. The UHF relay links from InSight to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and to the Mars Cube One A and Mars Cube One B CubeSats suffered a period of about 52 s of degradation, consisting of a combination of brownout (signal fades) and blackout (complete loss of signal). The observed signal fades and outages on these proximity links spanned the interval from about 48 to 100 s after entry started at the atmospheric interface. In addition, the degradation of the weaker signal received at the Green Bank, West Virginia 100 m radio telescope is also discussed, which occurred from about 40 to 120 s after atmospheric entry. The observations were in agreement with existing models of signal degradation given the entry trajectory of the vehicle. This paper discusses model estimates and measurements of signal degradation during the peak heating phase of the InSight EDL, as well as the results of high-fidelity analysis performed using computational fluid dynamics tools.

本文讨论了火星InSight航天器于2018年11月26日进入火星大气层的进入，下降和着陆（EDL）阶段经历的UHF（401 MHz）等离子体诱导的通信停电（和停电）的分析。UHF从InSight到火星侦察轨道飞行器以及火星魔方一号A和火星魔方一号B的中继链路CubeSats遭受了约52 s的退化，包括掉电（信号衰落）和停电（信号完全消失）的组合。在大气界面开始进入后，这些邻近链路上观察到的信号衰减和中断的时间跨度约为48到100 s。此外，还讨论了西弗吉尼亚州格林银行100 m射电望远镜接收到的较弱信号的衰减，这是在大气进入后约40至120 s发生的。考虑到车辆进入的轨迹，这些观察结果与现有的信号衰减模型一致。本文讨论了在InSight EDL的峰值加热阶段进行信号衰减的模型估计和测量，以及使用计算流体动力学工具执行的高保真分析结果。