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<title>Amplifiers</title>
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<center>
<h2>
Central Development Laboratory</h2></center>

<center>
<h3>
Microwave Anisotropy probe</h3></center>
The Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) project is led by researchers at <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/">Princeton
University</a> and <a href="http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/">Goddard Space Flight
Center.</a>
<p>For detailed information, see the&nbsp; <a href="http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/">NASA
MAP home page</a>
<p>The purpose of MAP is to map the <a href="http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/html/cbr.html">cosmic
microwave background</a> radiation with angular resolution of 0.3 &deg;
and an accuracy of 40 microKelvin. This is expected to reveal much about
the early history of the universe at the time matter and radiation uncoupled,
and to provide values for such cosmoloical parameters as the Hubble constant
and the baryon density.
<p>The role of the NRAO CDL in the MAP project is to design and build the
<a href="amplifiers.shtml">HEMT
amplifiers</a> which have the very low noise level necessary to perform
these observations.
<p>The satellite will be placed at the L2 point (far beyond the Moon, but
tracking the Earth-Moon pair) for isolation from interference from the
Earth and full sky visibility. The amplifiers will be cooled to about 80K
by passive radiators, and will have about twice the noise temperature they
would have at the usual 15K operating temperature. There will be 80 flight-qualified
amplifiers incorporated into radiator assemblies by Princeton researchers.
The satellite is planned to operate for at least two years beyond its target
launch date of September 2000.
<p>To see pictures of some of the MAP amplifiers:
<ul>
<li>
<a href="amp_closed_2.jpg">Q band flight amplifier proto-type
(MQ7) (94K bytes)</a></li>

<li>
<a href="amp_open_2.jpg">Inside a Q band flight amplifier proto-type
(MQ7) (106K bytes)</a></li>

<li>
<a href="w_amp_internal_1.jpg">Inside a W band pre-prototype
amplifier (48K bytes)</a></li>

<li>
<a href="w2_in_dish_at_angle.jpg">Pretty photo of W flight amplifier
prototype (MW2) (141K bytes)</a></li>

<li>
<a href="w2_internal.jpg">Inside the W flight amplifier prototype
(MW2) (92K bytes)</a></li>
</ul>
See graphs of the room temperature gain of the amplifiers:
<ul>
<li>
<a href="q_band_room.jpg">Room temperature gain of 10 Q band amplifiers
(172K bytes)</a></li>

<li>
<a href="v_band_room.jpg">Room temperature gain of 5 V band amplifiers
(124K bytes)</a></li>

<li>
<a href="w_band_room.jpg">Room temperature gain of 7 W band amplifiers
(149K bytes)</a></li>
</ul>
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<em>Author: Vince Summers;
    Modified on Friday, 15-Nov-2002 10:41:43 EST
</em>
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