Preliminary analysis of atmospheric attenuation and sky brightness temperature at deep-space antenna site of cebreros for communications in Ka band

The move towards higher frequency bands like 26GHz or 32GHz for scientific satellite data downlinks calls for the need to better characterise the atmosphere at the sites where ground antennas are located. For this reason ESA is undertaking the deployment of microwave radiometers at its Deep Space station locations. This paper reports the results of the first two years of site characterisation at the ESA Deep Space antenna 2 located in Cebreros, Spain.