NASA Miniaturizes Century-Old Radio Sounder Technology

A century-old technology that scientists use to probe the ionosphere - the important atmospheric layer that can interfere with the transmission of radio waves - is getting smaller.

A team of NASA scientists and engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, MD) is upgrading and miniaturizing the electronics on a prototype instrument called the Concentration vs. Height for an Orbiting Electromagnetic Sounder (ECHOES). The device could be used to “sound” the ionosphere from either a ground-based observatory or ultimately a constellation of CubeSats.