In a telemetry system, what is the function of the ground station receiver?

• A. It receives signals from the transmission link and passes data to processing.
• B. It encodes the payload into frames.
• C. It performs signal conditioning.
• D. It calculates orbital parameters.

Answer: (B)

The ground station receiver’s job is to capture the downlink from the spacecraft and deliver the recovered data to the processing system. It handles the RF front end, downconversion, digitization, and demodulation so that a clean bitstream can be passed onward. Once the signal is converted to data, telemetry processing can apply error correction, de-framing, and higher‑level interpretation.

Encoding the payload into frames is a preparation step that happens before transmission, typically on the transmitter side or at the data-link layer to organize data for sending. The receiver doesn’t encode data into frames; it decodes and reconstructs the transmitted information so processing can extract the usable telemetry. Orbital parameter calculations are performed by tracking and analysis tools that use timing and ephemeris data, not the receiver’s data-path function.