<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Are signals received from a space probe by a DSN earth antenna, if it is not facing the probe at the time of reception? That is, if the probe was an hour away, an antenna that spun into view of the direction in which the probe’s radiation was coming from, a half hour after, an hour long radiated signal left the probe , and remained tracking to this direction as the earth turned, the earth antenna should pick up the radiation a half hour later and continue picking up radiation for another half hour. But does this happen?If it does, is this because the radiated signal eg each modulated bit of the sequence making up the signal, is repeated for more than the assumed speed of light delay and therefore the speed of light delay is not necessarily proved or disproved by such communications? <br />Posted by rnbs</DIV><br /><br />Welcome to space.com!</p><p>Your question is worded kind of fuzzily. The time when the antenna must be pointing at the place where the satellite was at the time it was sent is determined by the light time. </p><p>For example, The Voyager 1 spacecraft is currently the furthest from the earth, about 109 AU away. If it sends a signal at midnight, it takes 15 hours and 9 minutes for that radio signal to reach earth. If you want to receive that signal, at 3 :09 PM in the afternoon, the antenna must be pointing at the place where Voyager 1 was at midnight. (It will be in a different place 15 hours later)</p><p>Point the antenna there at midnight, or even 3:08 or 3:10 PM and you will not receive the signal. You must point it there exactly when those emitted radio waves arrive.</p><p>Oh, and BTW, that should be a "Radio" telescope question. Radar is different, it uses a signal sent out reflected by the object, than the reflection is received. Voyager 1 would be too far away and too small for that to work (the return signal would be too faint.)</p><p>Wayne</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>