Value chain · CLM-0957
In plain terms
The idea was to listen to the pitch of the reference signal at each antenna element, work out how fast that element is moving, and add it up to get where it is. It fails three ways: the pitch cannot be measured finely enough over the time the structure takes to move; the 1981 design's own timing system deliberately cancels exactly that pitch change at the element; and the reference signal travels along the structure, not along the beam, so it barely notices the bending the beam cares about.
The claim as recorded
Measuring the reference tone's received frequency at each element and integrating to displacement does not sense line-of-sight structural deformation, for three independent reasons. Frequency counting over one mode period resolves 91 to 667 mHz - 11 to 80 mm/s - against a slowest structural velocity of 1.4 mm/s from CALC-109's band, a miss of 8 to 58x. The 1981 baseline's returnable timing loop holds the reference phase at the element constant "even if the path length varies", leaving no Doppler to read there. And an internal reference path projects onto the line of sight with zero sensitivity for an in-plane master, and only as cap strain for a routed cable. Phase tracking rather than counting resolves 34 micrometres - but of path, not line of sight, and a tracked phase is already the displacement, so integrating its derivative adds nothing.
Evidence behind this: T0-derivation on held figures, and the architectural half rests on a T3 primary document read first-hand.
Scope and limits
THE ARCHITECTURAL REASON IS ABOUT THE 1981 BASELINE. CASSIOPeiA's reference distribution is proprietary and undisclosed, and SRC-001's one-metre breadboard has no returnable-timing loop, so a small array would see the Doppler. The resolution and geometry reasons are independent of architecture. Each of the three reasons is sufficient alone, so the conclusion does not rest on any one of them.
What it assumes
The RP-1076 reference architecture for the architectural reason; an in-plane or cap-routed reference path for the geometric one.
Where it comes from
This is the project's own working, shown in full:
CALC-111, sections 1 to 3, with every figure reproduced independently on registration: lambda 120.7 mm at 2.485 GHz; 1 mm/s as 8.3 mHz; mode 1 at 0.088 Hz and 2.5 mm as 1.38 mm/s; 1/T over 1.5 to 11 s as 91 to 667 mHz; 0.1 degree of lambda as 34 micrometres. RP-1076 p.98 transcribed from the render for the loop behaviour, and the same behaviour in SRC-647 printed p.34 (PDF 42), RP-1076's reference 23; p.75 for the carrier-loop jitter under 0.1 degree rms; p.224 for the 4.2 degree breadboard residual.
Basis: millimetres per second; millihertz at 2.485 GHz
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-013 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0957
CLM-0957, Energy Aperture, as of 2026-09-17.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-107
- CLM-0033 (low confidence)Apart from a 1981 NASA review that found no evidence for the number and suggested a higher one, nobody was found to have revisited it, and...CLM-0060In 1981 a NASA review panel said the 230 watts per square metre figure rested on an obsolete theory with no experimental support, and made...CLM-0061The experiments were done. They found heating two or three times stronger than normal, not the tenfold effect predicted, no irregularities...CLM-0062By 1981 the theory was being revised to a steeper frequency dependence, which would raise the permitted power density.CLM-0063NASA suggested in 1981 that 550 to 600 watts per square metre might be reasonable, roughly two and a half times the figure still in use...CLM-0101The 1978 contract required the researchers to report fixes if ionospheric disturbance pushed the pilot-beam phase error past 2 to 3...CLM-0160A 1978-81 NASA design study calculated that simply pointing the satellite's structure accurately enough, without any electronic correction...CLM-0420NASA's 1981 report says the experiments found nothing supporting the 23 milliwatt limit, that the measured heating was two or three times...More on the source page.