The Planck LFI RCA flight model test campaign

The Planck satellite is the third generation of space missions devoted to cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements. It will perform two sky surveys and measure the CMB anisotropies and polarization between 30 and 850 GHz. The low frequency instrument is an array of 22 pseudo-correlation radiometers at 30, 44, and 70 GHz. Before integrating the complete array assembly, a first set of tests is performed for each radiometer chain assembly (RCA), consisting of two radiometers. In this paper, the test campaign experimental setup and methods are discussed. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.