This work combines 17 years of Mars Express radio science (MaRS) observations with proxies for insolation and local/global atmospheric dust to investigate the combined and individual effects on the dayside ionosphere of Mars from the top down to the ionospheric base.The increase in insolation from orbital apocenter to pericenter in combination with Mars' dust cycle causes an average rise of the whole photochemically dominated region of the dayside ionosphere, ranging from 13 km at the ionospheric base up to 22 km above the main peak during conditions without a global dust storm. The declining phase of the 2018 global dust storm was observed by MaRS on the southern hemisphere and close to pericenter. The observed lifting effect on the whole photochemically dominated region of the ionosphere from the increased insolation and the high local and global atmospheric dust levels exceeds that seen by MaRS from similar seasons during years without a global dust storm.The average ionospheric peak altitude at the subsolar point rises for increasing levels of local atmospheric dust until a maximum elevation is reached. This maximum depends on the available insolation at the top of the planetary atmosphere. Further increases of the local atmospheric dust levels do not lead to a further rise of the average ionospheric peak altitude in the investigated data set. This indicates a limit for the warming/expansion of the lower neutral atmosphere and the consecutive lifting of the ionosphere based on the available insolation and explains why regional dust storms can cause a similar lifting of the ionospheric main peak region as global dust storms.

The New Horizons spacecraft encountered the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) Arrokoth (486958), originally designated as 2014 MU 69 and formerly called “Ultima Thule,” on 2019 January 01. At 43.3 au from the Sun and 44.4 au from Earth, this was the most distant spacecraft reconnaissance of a solar system body to date. The Radio Science Experiment (REX) on New Horizons performed radiometry measurements of the KBO's thermal emission at λ = 4.2 cm in two observation slots, one before (dayside) and one after (nightside) the point of closest approach. Owing to the small size of the target, the intensity of the thermal emission was expected to be only marginally detectable. The KBO was not detected on approach because of unexpectedly large variations in the REX system temperature. A brightness temperature T b = 29 ± 5 K was derived for the nightside observation, considerably less than the predicted equilibrium temperature of ∼50 K derived for Arrokoth on the dayside. A model explaining this day−night contrast is used to constrain the global values of emissivity, thermal inertia, and electrical skin depth of the KBO. In particular, models with small values of thermal inertia and small values of electrical skin depth are excluded. Relatively high values of the effective radio emissivity ( E eff > 0.8) provide better agreement with the REX observation.

Illustration of a two-member constellation of small spacecraft at Venus with crosslinks for radio occultations that can lead to global coverage with high spatial and temporal resolutions. SummaryFrom Mercury to the outer reaches of the solar system, the past six decades have witnessed a vast set of discoveries utilizing radio science (RS) methods.For example, based on key gravitational evidence, sub-surface oceans have been inferred at Titan, Enceladus, and Europa, where potential future missions may search for life.

The main cloud deck within Venus' atmosphere, which covers the entire planet between approx. 50 and 70 km altitude, is believed to consist mostly of liquid sulfuric acid. The temperature below the main clouds is high enough to evaporate the H2SO4 droplets into gaseous sulfuric acid forming a haze layer which extends to altitudes as deep as 35 km. Gaseous sulfuric acid in Venus’ lower atmosphere is responsible for a strong absorption of radio waves as seen in Mariner, Pioneer Venus, Magellan and Venera radio science observations. Radio wave absorption measurements can be used to derive the amount of H2SO4 in Venus’ atmosphere. The radio science experiment VeRa onboard Venus Express probed the atmosphere of Venus between 2006 and 2014 with radio signals at 13 cm (S-band) and 3.6 cm (X-band) wavelengths. The orbit of the Venus Express spacecraft allowed to sound the atmosphere over a wide range of latitudes and local times providing a global picture of the sulfuric acid vapor distribution. We present the global H2SO4(g) distribution derived from the X-band radio signal attenuation for the time of the entire Venus Express mission. The observation is compared with results obtained from a 2-D transport model. The VeRa observations were additionally used to estimate the abundance of SO2 near the cloud bottom. The global distribution of SO2 at these altitudes is presented and compared with results obtained from other experiments. Eight years of VEX observation allow to study the long-term evolution of H2SO4 and SO2. The latter is presented for the northern polar region.

The radio thermal emission from Pluto was observed from the New Horizons spacecraft at a wavelength of 4.2 cm along two scans across the planetary disk shortly after closest approach to Pluto on 14 July 2015. The measurements were performed as part of the New Horizons Radio Science Experiment (REX) using the 2.1 m High Gain Antenna (HGA) and the spacecraft's X-Band receiver. The HGA boresight first scanned along a diametric chord across the Pluto disk and then reversed direction to traverse a chord that crossed close to Pluto's winter pole. The diametric scan reveals a "hot spot" on the Pluto nightside associated with an optically bright region centered roughly at the planetocentric coordinates 280 degrees E, 55 degrees S, imaged in 2002-03 with the Hubble Space Telescope. The nightside was also found to be warmer than the dayside during the polar scan. The highest emission was not observed at the maximum southern latitude, however, but rather near the outbound Pluto limb at lower latitude. The REX emission profile from the polar scan is qualitatively consistent with a bright U-shaped polar cap observed on Pluto's Charon-facing hemisphere during the recurring Pluto/Charon mutual events in the late 1980's. The REX radiometer measurements show distinct variations in microwave brightness that constrain volatile transport models and provide unique information on the thermal structure and composition on the regions in winter night during the New Horizons encounter at Pluto.

Studies of planetary systems using spacecraft radio links constitute the field of Radio Science (RS). Experiments have been conducted on almost every planetary mission in the past five decades and have led to numerous discoveries. With substantial technical advancements in recent years, the following significant accomplishments are noted: 1) Elucidated the thermal history of the Moon from the GRAIL high precision gravitational field 2) Unveiled the interiors of Titan, Enceladus, Mercury, Phobos, Vesta, Ceres, and cometary nuclei from gravity fields, contributing to understanding their origins (Figure 1) 3) Sounded Titan, Saturn, and Pluto's atmospheres 4) Explored the surface properties of Pluto and 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko 5) Refined models for the atmospheres, surfaces, and interior structure of Mars and Venus 6) Juno and Cassini are currently measuring the gravity fields of Jupiter and Saturn to reveal their interior structures 7) Provided evidence for subsurface oceans on icy moons to expand understanding of potentially habitable bodies 8) Investigated the solar corona and the interaction of the solar wind with planetary atmospheres, and 9) Profiled the structure of Saturn's rings, which interact with moonlets.

The outer Solar System object (486958) Arrokoth (provisional designation 2014 MU69) has been largely undisturbed since its formation. We studied its surface composition using data collected by the New Horizons spacecraft. Methanol ice is present along with organic material, which may have formed through irradiation of simple molecules. Water ice was not detected. This composition indicates hydrogenation of carbon monoxide-rich ice and/or energetic processing of methane condensed on water ice grains in the cold, outer edge of the early Solar System. There are only small regional variations in color and spectra across the surface, which suggests that Arrokoth formed from a homogeneous or well-mixed reservoir of solids. Microwave thermal emission from the winter night side is consistent with a mean brightness temperature of 29 ± 5 kelvin.

The Kuiper Belt is a distant region of the outer Solar System. On 1 January 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft flew close to (486958) 2014 MU69, a cold classical Kuiper Belt object approximately 30 kilometers in diameter. Such objects have never been substantially heated by the Sun and are therefore well preserved since their formation. We describe initial results from these encounter observations. MU69 is a bilobed contact binary with a flattened shape, discrete geological units, and noticeable albedo heterogeneity. However, there is little surface color or compositional heterogeneity. No evidence for satellites, rings or other dust structures, a gas coma, or solar wind interactions was detected. MU69's origin appears consistent with pebble cloud collapse followed by a low-velocity merger of its two lobes.

Results of experiments on polarized radio sounding of the outer solar corona using the Helios spacecraft from 1975 to 1984 are presented. The characteristic parameters of the temporal spectra of fluctuations in the Faraday rotation of the plane of polarization for heliocentric distances from 3.5 to 5.5 solar radii are obtained. The absolute level of these fluctuations and, consequently, the level of fluctuations of the magnetic field, is almost independent of the solar activity. It is well known that the global structure of the solar wind varies with the solar cycle such that there is slow solar wind at low latitudes and fast solar wind at high latitudes during solar minima. In contrast, a slow solar wind dominates at all latitudes during solar maxima. One explanation for the invariance of the fluctuations observed by sounding the circumsolar plasma is that the mean magnetohydrodynamic turbulence of the low-latitude, slow solar wind depends weakly on the phase of the solar cycle.

One component of the REX instrument on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was an investigation of the radio continuum radiation from Pluto and Charon during the flyby on 14 July 2015. The planetary thermal emission was recorded at a wavelength of 4.17 cm (7.18 GHz) during approach, departure, and specifically on the non illuminated hemispheres of Pluto and Charon during the respective intervals between occultation ingress and egress. We derive the brightness temperatures for these disk-resolved and unresolved observations. The mean values and la deviations of brightness temperature for the unresolved sunlit disk are 33.2 +/- 1.4 K and 47.2 +/- 5.3 K for Pluto and Charon, respectively, consistent with the global albedos of the two bodies as well as with previous ground-based estimates at smaller wavelengths. A slightly colder temperature of 29.0 +/- 2.5 K was determined for the disk-integrated nightside of Pluto and a larger drop in temperature was observed for Charon (40.9 +/- 0.9 K), implying a smaller thermal inertia for Charon than Pluto. The measured brightness temperature of Pluto across the nightside diametric scan reached a maximum of 29.0 +/- 1.5 K in the center of the disk. The profile shape is attributed to an emissivity effect, which favors thermal emission toward higher elevation angles. As a first approximation, the effective emissivity for thermal emission is calculated for the case when Pluto and Charon are uniformly smooth homogenous spheres. Under this assumption, the effective emissivity for these observations is close to unity for all probable surface constituents, implying that the effective temperature of the Pluto subsurface is only a few percent higher than the observed brightness temperature. A considerably lower subsurface emissivity is implied, however, if the higher atmospheric temperatures near the surface determined from the REX occultation measurements are also valid for the subsurface.

Coronal mass ejections from active regions on the Sun can be observed as series of individual events separated in time in the inner solar wind and near-Earth plasma. To find such events we have analyzed experimental data of dual-frequency solar wind radio sounding by the Rosetta and Mars Express spacecraft. The cycles of experiments performed in 2010 and 2011 measured the frequency fluctuations of X- and S-band signals. The temporal variations in the level of frequency fluctuations measured in the inner solar wind have been compared with the time variations in average plasma parameters recorded near Earth’s orbit. Since radio-sounding cycles were sufficiently long, we have managed to record events where significant amplifications of frequency fluctuations in the inner solar wind and increases in the plasma concentration near Earth’s orbit are associated with flare processes in the same active region on the Sun. Here, the amplifications of frequency fluctuations on the east limb occur earlier than near Earth’s orbit, and those on the west limb occur later. The time shift for the west limb turns out to be less than for the east limb. The sign of the time shift and the ratios between its numerical values depend on active region displacement relative to the central meridian due to the rotation of the Sun.

In 2013 and 2015, investigations of the internal solar wind were carried out using the method of two-frequency radio sounding by signals from the Mars Express European spacecraft. The values of the S-and X-bands' frequency and the differential frequency were registered with a sampling rate of 1s at the American and European networks of ground-based tracking stations. The spatial distribution of the frequency fluctuation's level has been studied. It has been shown that the intensity of frequency fluctuation considerably decreases at high heliolatitudes. In some radio sounding sessions, quasiperiodic oscillations of sub-mHz band have been observed in the temporal spectra of frequency fluctuations; they are supposed to be associated with the density inhomogeneities, the sizes of which are close to the turbulence outer scale.

The radio brightness temperatures of Pluto and Charon were measured at a wavelength of 4.2 cm, during the New Horizons encounter of the Pluto system on July 14, 2015, (a) on the dayside on approach, (b) near closest approach to Pluto, and (c) for the nightside on departure. These measurementsused the on-board Radio Science Experiment (REX). Pluto and Charon were unresolved for (a), but the measurements near closest approach (b), scanned two chords across the Pluto disk with a resolution of about 12% of Pluto’s diameter. Further, the nightside measurements, during the REX radio occultation, scanned across the Pluto at a resolution close to 50% of Pluto’s diameter. Separate full-disk observations of Pluto and Charon were done on departure. Connecting the brightness temperatures to composition and morphology involves knowledge of the emissivity, not only for the surface materials, but also the composition and structure of the subsurface, considering the low absorptivity of the materials on Pluto and Charon at 4.2 cm wavelength. Independently, the surface material composition on Pluto’s dayside was imaged at high resolution by the New Horizons on-board infrared imaging spectrometers [1,2], but only to a depth of the order of 0.1 cm. Adding to the uncertainties, the emissivity of materials identified by the spectral images, such as tholins and the ices of nitrogen and methane, at temperatures in the range 30-40 K is poorly known, and further confounded by the lack of knowledge of the subsurface. Models of emissivity, derived from sparse laboratory experiments and extended via numerical computation, are introduced for choices of surface and subsurface composition and structure. Sorting out possible physical temperatures for Pluto and Charon is a task that relies on fitting the observations within the constraints of emissivity, surface composition, topography and physical plausibility. [1] Stern S. A., et al., The Pluto System: Initial Results from its exploration by New Horizons, Science 350, id.aad1815 (2015). [2] Protopapa S., et al., Pluto's global surface composition through pixel-by-pixel Hapke modeling of New Horizons Ralph/LEISA data. Icarus 287, 218-228 (2017).