Improved Accuracy On-Ground Testing of Spacecraft Antennas Using Numerical Calibration of Standard Gain Horn [EM Programmer's Notebook]

High accuracy testing of spacecraft antennas is one of the primary tasks in the space industry. The gain transfer method is a widely used IEEE standard method for gain measurement. Standard gain horns (SGHs) are usually provided with theoretical gain curves such as from the U.S. Naval Research Lab (NRL) with a typical gain accuracy of 0.3 dB, which is the major contributor in the overall measurement uncertainty of a facility. However, modern spaceborne applications require gain accuracy of the order of 0.1 dB or better. For such demanding applications, SGHs need to be calibrated in a standard laboratory such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology.