A spacecraft transmits telemetry data using Reed-Solomon coding. Which risk increases if the receiver incorrectly estimates the channel's noise characteristics during decoding?

💡 Explanation

If the noise characteristics are misestimated, the error correction thresholds will be incorrect; because the decoder relies on accurate noise models for syndrome calculation and error location via the Peterson algorithm, therefore the error-correction capability degrades significantly, rather than improving, leading to higher error rates.

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