Articles | Volume 44, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-44-1227-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Juice/SWI during the Lunar-Earth-Gravity-Assist (LEGA) – Part 4: Antenna pointing and beam characterisation
Download
- Final revised paper (published on 30 Oct 2026)
- Preprint (discussion started on 22 Apr 2026)
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor
| : Report abuse
-
RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-2064', Anonymous Referee #1, 26 May 2026
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Raphael Moreno, 02 Jul 2026
Peer review completion
AR – Author's response | RR – Referee report | ED – Editor decision | EF – Editorial file upload
ED: Submit a revised manuscript (22 Jul 2026) by Elias Roussos
AR by Raphael Moreno on behalf of the Authors (27 Jul 2026)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
Manuscript
ED: Publish as is (04 Aug 2026) by Elias Roussos
AR by Raphael Moreno on behalf of the Authors (11 Aug 2026)
General Comments:
The paper describes the observed properties of the beams of the two
frequency bands of SWI onboard Juice. For this a point source and an
extended source (earth) were repeatedly observed to construct 1D cuts
and 2D maps. These allowed to derive half-power beamwidths,
ellipticity, alignment, pointing and errors. Beam properties were
compared with simulations of the far-field beam pattern. The paper
is well written, to the point, concise, and represents an important
contribution to the success of this mission. I still have a couple of
largely minor points:
Table 1 gives a mean of CTS1 FWHM_AT of 8.32+-0.07. How is this
error of 0.07 derived ? What is it ? The standard deviation of the
measured FWHMs is much larger, 0.78 ! This comment concerns all
errors or 1sigma values given in the paper.
Specific Comments:
+ Abstract: say that the calibration efficiency factor was obtained
from simulations only.
+ Sec.2: CTS has 1GHz or 4.4GHz bandwidths ? The text is confusing.
+ Sec.3.1: When discussing observations of a point source,
which source was actually observed and what was its angular diameter ?
+ "...scans that cross the limb of the target" for targets
that are much larger than the main beam.
+ Sec.4: Observations are done in DSB mode, i.e. both sidebands are observed
simultaneously. When comparing the observations with the GRASP
simulations, how were the two sidebands taken into account ?
+ Sec.3.1.1: "samling >=2arcmin" Better give range of sampling,
i.e. 2' to 6'.
+ "two pairs of observations" Scanning Back and forth ?
+ Figure 1: The CT scans show the temperatures to vary over the
limb of earth. For 1107.45GHz, there even is a discontinuity.
I suggest to add a sentence, describing in how are such effects
were taken into account and how they may effect the overall
accuracy of the beam properties.
+ Figure 6: The extended main beam seems to be not exactly
symmetrical, showing a broadening or "shoulder" at negative
offsets, which is especially prominent at CT 1119GHz.
This seems worth mentioning. In the future, 2D maps may help to
study this feature in more detail.
+ "mb=3xFWHM" seems arbitry. Maybe say that this corresponds
roughly to the main beam down to the 1st null of the simulated
diffraction pattern.
Technical Corrections:
+ slated -> scheduled/foreseen to arrive...
+ Sec.2: Say that each band is observed in single polarisation
+ Sec.3.1.2 "arrange the measured data by" -> plot as function of...
+ "fit them with a model" refer to section in which the model is presented.
+ Figure 4: Explain the white circle in the centers.