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24-11-2011
Today's Colloquium: Towards the ultra-precise determination of spacecraft state vectors- Dmitry Duev (JIVE/Moscow State University)
| Submitter: | colloquium |
| Description: | The Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment (PRIDE) is designed as a multi-disciplinary enhancement of a planetary mission science return by means of precise estimates of the spacecraft state vectors. These estimates can be used for a variety of applications starting from studies of planetary bodies gravitational fields and their interior all the way to gravitational physics experiments. During the last two years, as a preparatory stage for PRIDE, several operational planetary spacecraft have been observed with the European VLBI radio telescopes. The PRIDE group has been developing a suite of software tools for measurements of the Doppler-shift of the spacecraft carrier signal and accurate estimates of the spacecraft state vectors using the VLBI phase referencing technique. PRIDE observing sessions with the ESA Venus Exspress (VEX) and Mars Express (MEX) spacecraft were used as a test-bench for optimizing the technique and reducing the lag of data processing from weeks down to several hours. Rapid results are crucial for the upcoming deep space missions in view of their potential applicability for mission operations. On behalf of the PRIDE group, I will report the latest results of PRIDE observations of the VEX and MEX orbiters, as well as of the Russian space VLBI mission RadioAstron with the European VLBI Network (EVN) radio telescopes. In these experiments we have achieved a milli-Hz level of the radio signal spectral resolution and extracted the phase of the spacecraft carrier signal with the accuracy of 0.1 radian. I will also explain in detail our data processing, reduction and analysis pipeline. |
| Copyright: | Dmitry Duev |
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