卫星VLBI测轨资料处理中的电离层延迟改正

结合我国探月项目卫星VLBI测轨资料分析中的实际需求讨论了两个问题:一是在S、X波段时延测量精度均为1 ns情况下,电离层延迟改正所能够达到的精度;二是在飞行器VLBI测轨过程中,不能确保S、X波段双频观测情况下获取电离层时延改正的可能途径,包括借助于相关电离层模型、利用常规VLBI历史观测资料积累、借助于局域GPS观测网和IGS网单站GPS测量以及借助于专门设计的单站GPS测量等.最后对电离层VLBI和GPS技术实测结果进行了比较和问题分析.     

卫星VLBI测轨资料处理中的电离层延迟改正

结合我国探月项目卫星VLBI测轨资料分析中的实际需求讨论了两个问题：一是在S、X波段时延测量精度均为1ns情况下，电离层延迟改正所能够达到的精度；二是在飞行器VLBI测轨过程中，不能确保S、X波段双频观测情况下获取电离层时延改正的可能途径，包括借助于相关电离层模型、利用常规VLB1历史观测资料积累、借助于局域GPS观测网和IGS网单站GPS测量以及借助于专门设计的单站GPS测量等。最后对电离层VLB1和GPS技术实测结果进行了比较和问题分析。     

利用天测与测地VLBI观测建立天球与地球参考架

本文讨论了利用天测与测地 VLBI观测建立天球与地球参考架过程中所面临的问题及解决的技术途径 ,涉及天球参考架与地球参考架原点与定向的确定、地球参考架时间演变的确定等。并通过实测数据分析与结果比对证明解决途径的有效性。     

利用中国VGOS站开展国际联测的EOP精度仿真分析

甚长基线干涉测量(very long baseline interferometry, VLBI)是测量地球定向参数（earth orientation parameters,EOP）的主要空间测地技术之一,中国正在建设名为VLBI全球观测系统（VLBI global observing system, VGOS）的新一代测地VLBI站,通过国际联测优化站网构型是实现高精度EOP测量的必由之路。以3个中国VGOS站为核心站,通过引入2个国外站构建5站联合观测网,分析评估了不同站网构型的EOP测量能力。针对每个站网构型,通过调整4个约束条件的权重因子批量生成相应的观测纲要,采用蒙特卡洛仿真方法选择最优的观测纲要,评价指标为EOP解算值的可重复性。仿真结果表明,由中国站、南非哈特比站以及澳大利亚霍巴特站组成的网型EOP测量能力最强,相对于中国3站组成的网型,dUT1测量精度提高5.7倍,极移的X、Y分量的测量精度分别提高2.8倍和18.3倍。仿真结果可为后续开展高精度EOP组网观测提供参考依据。     

VGOS超宽带观测的首次UT1测量数据处理及分析

在国际甚长基线干涉测量（very long baseline interferometry, VLBI）大地测量与天体测量服务组织协调下,首次利用隶属于VLBI全球观测系统（VLBI global observing system, VGOS）的美国Kokee和德国Wettzell观测站及并置的传统VLBI观测站开展了世界时（universal time, UT1）联合测量试验,观测数据在上海VLBI中心进行了干涉处理。结果表明,VGOS超宽带观测系统的UT1测量精度约为7 μs,并置基线的传统S/X双频系统测量精度约为14 μs,VGOS系统的UT1解算结果优于S/X系统。通过试验建立了从相关处理、相关后处理到UT1参数解算的完整数据处理流程,验证了上海VLBI相关处理机的VGOS数据处理能力,为承担国内和国际VGOS观测数据的相关处理任务奠定了基础。     

中国VLBI网软件相关处理机测地应用精度分析

为支持国际VLBI大地测量数据处理,中国VLBI网(CVN)软件相关处理机完成了功能、性能升级,提高了信噪比,实现了以国际测地通用Mk4格式数据输出结果,可以直接被VLBI通用测地后处理软件用于时延数据解算。本文通过与国外软件相关处理机DiFX的实测数据比对,系统地分析了CVN软件处理机带宽综合残余时延和时延率精度、带宽综合总时延和时延率精度、信噪比和VLBI站坐标解算值。数据显示,CVN软件相关处理机已经达到了测地数据处理的精度要求,可以用于IVS国际联测数据处理。     

C波段转发测轨系统测站偏差的标校

C波段转发测轨体制在GEO卫星测定轨中有突出优势,但其测量系统偏差的标校精度对定轨结果影响显著。基于L波段载波相位多星定轨结果,提出一种基于标准轨道拟合残差的系统偏差标校方法。该方法能够同时标校测量偏差及时标偏差,有利于弥补激光测距标校方法观测量较少的缺陷。利用国内监测站对中国导航卫星实测数据分析结果表明,经过标校后的C波段转发测轨精度可优于5 m,测量偏差及时标偏差具有较好的稳定性。     

天球参考架的稳定源选取及其最新实现

天球参考架是对理想的天球参考系的实现,其稳定性直接决定了所描述天体运动规律及某些地球物理现象的精度。基于1979-2007年期间全球IVS(international VLBI service)网近30年的观测资料,利用上海天文台的Calc_Solve系统对天测与测地VLBI资料进行解算和分析,得到一系列由射电源坐标(赤经和赤纬)构成的时间序列。通过对该时间序列的稳定性的检验和分析,制定选择稳定源的标准,得到一套稳定的河外射电源表列,最终实现由173颗稳定的定义源与135颗补充源构建的稳定天球参考架。     

USB-VLBI综合确定SMART-1环月探测器轨道

我国绕月探测工程中"嫦娥一号"(CE-1)卫星将综合使用统一S波段系统(USB)和甚长基线干涉仪(VLBI)完成测定轨任务。为了检验USB-VLBI综合测定轨精度,测控系统于2006年5月利用欧空局(ESA)的SMART-1环月探测器进行了USB-VLBI综合测定轨试验。本文对这次试验的测轨数据进行了分析,研究了不同观测弧长和不同类型观测数据组合情况下的定轨和预报精度,得出了一些结论。     

关于我国天测与测地VLBI网络未来建设的讨论

结合国内外VLBI技术发展的历史、现状与动态,从天体测量、空间大地测量和深空探测等角度,对我国天测与测地VLBI观测网络的未来建设进行了需求分析和测站配置技术指标分析。     

The impact of radio source structure on European geodetic VLBI measurements

European geodetic very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) sessions (also known as EUROPE sessions) have been carried out on a regular basis for the past 15 years to study relative crustal motions within Europe. These sessions are based on observations of extragalactic radio sources, which serve as distant fiducial marks to establish an accurate and stable celestial reference frame for long-term geodetic measurements. The radio sources, however, are not always point-like on milliarcsecond scales, as VLBI imaging has revealed. In this work, we quantify the magnitude of the expected effect of intrinsic source structure on geodetic bandwidth synthesis delay VLBI measurements for a subset of 14 sources regularly observed during the EUROPE sessions. These sources have been imaged at both X-band (8.4 GHz) and S-band (2.3 GHz) based on dedicated observations acquired with the European VLBI Network (EVN) in November 1996. The results of this calculation indicate that the reference source 0457+024 causes significant structural effects in measurements obtained on European VLBI baselines (about 10 picoseconds on average), whereas most of the other sources produce effects that are only occasionally larger than a few picoseconds. Applying the derived source structure models to the data of the EUROPE5-96 session carried out at the same epoch as the EVN experiment shows no noticeable changes in the estimated VLBI station locations.     

差分VLBI测量的一种实现方案

差分VLBI通过交替观测目标天体和参考天体,将共同的误差因素从观测量中扣除,能够实现高精度的相对定位,因而在深空探测中有重要作用。然而,差分VLBI高精度的实现要求目标天体和参考天体的角距很近,这大大限制了其应用。讨论设计了差分VLBI测量的一种实现方案,利用多颗参考源的观测内插出目标源的非几何时延修正,放宽了对目标源和参考源的角距限制。该方案在S波段对目标源非几何时延的修正精度可以达到1 ns水平。     

差分VLBI测量的一种实现方案

差分VLBI通过交替观测目标天体和参考天体,将共同的误差因素从观测量中扣除,能够实现高精度的相对定位,因而在深空探测中有重要作用.然而,差分VLBI高精度的实现要求目标天体和参考天体的角距很近,这大大限制了其应用.讨论设计了差分VLBI测量的一种实现方案,利用多颗参考源的观测内插出目标源的非几何时延修正,放宽了对目标源和参考源的角距限制.该方案在S波段对目标源非几何时延的修正精度可以达到1 ns水平.     

Ionospheric calibration of single frequency VLBI and GPS observations using dual GPS data

Summary The ionospheric effect is one of the main sources of error in Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and Global Positioning System (GPS) high precision geodesy. Although the use of two frequencies allows the estimation of this effect, in some cases dual observations are not possible due to the available equipment or the type of observation. This paper presents the ionospheric calibration of single frequency VLBI and GPS observations based on the ionospheric electron content estimated from dual frequency GPS data. The ionospheric delays obtained with this procedure and the VLBI baseline length results have been compared with those obtained with dual frequency data. For the European geodetic VLBI baselines, both solutions agree at the 3–5 parts in 10^–9 level. The noise introduced by the GPS-based calibration is in the order of 3 cm for the VLBI observables and of 10 cm for the GPS observables.     

Effect of the selection of reference radio sources on geodetic estimates from VLBI observations

This paper evaluates the effect of the accuracy of reference radio sources on the daily estimates of station positions, nutation angle offsets, and the estimated site coordinates determined by very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), which are used for the realization of the international terrestrial reference frame (ITRF). Five global VLBI solutions, based on VLBI data collected between 1979 and 2006, are compared. The reference solution comprises all observed radio sources, which are treated as global parameters. Four other solutions, comprising different sub-sets of radio sources, were computed. The daily station positions for all VLBI sites and the corrections to the nutation offset angles were estimated for these five solutions. The solution statistics are mainly affected by the positional instabilities of reference radio sources, whereas the instabilities of geodetic and astrometric time-series are caused by an insufficient number of observed reference radio sources. A mean offset of the three positional components (Up, North, East) between any two solutions was calculated for each VLBI site. From a comparison of the geodetic results, no significant discrepancies between the respective geodetic solutions for all VLBI sites in the Northern Hemisphere were found. In contrast, the Southern Hemisphere sites were more sensitive to the selected set of reference radio sources. The largest estimated mean offset of the vertical component between two solutions for the Australian VLBI site at Hobart was 4 mm. In the worst case (if a weak VLBI network observed a limited number of reference radio sources) the daily offsets of the estimated height component at Hobart exceeded 100 mm. The exclusion of the extended radio sources from the list of reference sources improved the solution statistics and made the geodetic and astrometric time-series more consistent. The problem with the large Hobart height component offset is magnified by a comparatively small number of observations due to the low slewing rate of the VLBI dish (1°/ s). Unless a minimum of 200 scans are performed per 24-h VLBI experiment, the daily vertical positions at Hobart do not achieve 10 mm accuracy. Improving the slew rate at Hobart and/or having an increased number of new sites in the Southern Hemisphere is essential for further improvement of geodetic VLBI results for Southern Hemisphere sites.     

EOP and scale from continuous VLBI observing: CONT campaigns to future VGOS networks

Continuous (CONT) VLBI campaigns have been carried out about every 3 years since 2002. The basic idea of these campaigns is to acquire state-of-the-art VLBI data over a continuous time period of about 2 weeks to demonstrate the highest accuracy of which the current VLBI system is capable. In addition, these campaigns support scientific studies such as investigations of high-resolution Earth rotation, reference frame stability, and daily to sub-daily site motions. The size of the CONT networks and the observing data rate have increased steadily since 1994. Performance of these networks based on reference frame scale precision and polar motion/LOD comparison with global navigation satellite system (GNSS) earth orientation parameters (EOP) has been substantially better than the weekly operational R1 and R4 series. The precisions of CONT EOP and scale have improved by more than a factor of two since 2002. Polar motion precision based on the WRMS difference between VLBI and GNSS for the most recent CONT campaigns is at the 30 \(\upmu \)as level, which is comparable to that of GNSS. The CONT campaigns are a natural precursor to the planned future VLBI observing networks, which are expected to observe continuously. We compare the performance of the most recent CONT campaigns in 2011 and 2014 with the expected performance of the future VLBI global observing system network using simulations. These simulations indicate that the expected future precision of scale and EOP will be at least 3 times better than the current CONT precision.     

Is there utility in rigorous combinations of VLBI and GPS Earth orientation parameters?

Combinations of station coordinates and velocities from independent space-geodetic techniques have long been the standard method to realize robust global terrestrial reference frames (TRFs). In principle, the particular strengths of one observing method can compensate for weaknesses in others if the combination is properly constructed, suitable weights are found, and accurate co-location ties are available. More recently, the methodology has been extended to combine time-series of results at the normal equation level. This allows Earth orientation parameters (EOPs) to be included and aligned in a fully consistent way with the TRF. While the utility of such multi-technique combinations is generally recognized for the reference frame, the benefits for the EOPs are yet to be quantitatively assessed. In this contribution, which is a sequel to a recent paper on co-location ties (Ray and Altamimi in J Geod 79(4–5): 189–195, 2005), we have studied test combinations of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) and Global Positioning System (GPS) time-series solutions to evaluate the effects on combined EOP measurements compared with geophysical excitations. One expects any effect to be small, considering that GPS dominates the polar motion estimates due to its relatively dense and uniform global network coverage, high precision, continuous daily sampling, and homogeneity, while VLBI alone observes UT1-UTC. Presently, although clearly desirable, we see no practical method to rigorously include the GPS estimates of length-of-day variations due to significant time-varying biases. Nevertheless, our results, which are the first of this type, indicate that more accurate polar motion from GPS contributes to improved UT1-UTC results from VLBI. The situation with combined polar motion is more complex. The VLBI data contribute directly only very slightly, if at all, with an impact that is probably affected by the weakness of the current VLBI networks (small size and sparseness) and the quality of local ties relating the VLBI and GPS frames. Instead, the VLBI polar motion information is used primarily in rotationally aligning the VLBI and GPS frames, thereby reducing the dependence on co-location tie information. Further research is needed to determine an optimal VLBI-GPS combination strategy that yields the highest quality EOP estimates. Improved local ties (including internal systematic effects within the techniques) will be critically important in such an effort.     

Radio source instability in VLBI analysis

The source position time-series for many of the frequently observed radio sources in the NASA geodetic very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) program show systematic linear and non-linear variations of as much as 0.5 mas (milli-arc-seconds) to 1.0 mas, due mainly to source structure changes. In standard terrestrial reference frame (TRF) geodetic solutions, it is a common practice to only estimate a global source position for each source over the entire history of VLBI observing sessions. If apparent source position variations are not modeled, they produce corresponding systematic variations in estimated Earth orientation parameters (EOPs) at the level of 0.02–0.04 mas in nutation and 0.01–0.02 mas in polar motion. We examine the stability of position time-series of the 107 radio sources in the current NASA geodetic source catalog since these sources have relatively dense observing histories from which it is possible to detect systematic variations. We consider different strategies for handling source instabilities where we (1) estimate the positions of unstable sources for each session they are observed, or (2) estimate spline parameters or rate parameters for sources chosen to fit the specific variation seen in the position-time series. We found that some strategies improve VLBI EOP accuracy by reducing the biases and weighted root mean square differences between measurements from independent VLBI networks operating simultaneously. We discuss the problem of identifying frequently observed unstable sources and how to identify new sources to replace these unstable sources in the NASA VLBI geodetic source catalog.     

Simulations of VLBI observations of a geodetic satellite providing co-location in space

We performed Monte Carlo simulations of very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of Earth-orbiting satellites incorporating co-located space-geodetic instruments in order to study how well the VLBI frame and the spacecraft frame can be tied using such measurements. We simulated observations of spacecraft by VLBI observations, time-of-flight (TOF) measurements using a time-encoded signal in the spacecraft transmission, similar in concept to precise point positioning, and differential VLBI (D-VLBI) observations using angularly nearby quasar calibrators to compare their relative performance. We used the proposed European Geodetic Reference Antenna in Space (E-GRASP) mission as an initial test case for our software. We found that the standard VLBI technique is limited, in part, by the present lack of knowledge of the absolute offset of VLBI time to Coordinated Universal Time at the level of microseconds. TOF measurements are better able to overcome this problem and provide frame ties with uncertainties in translation and scale nearly a factor of three smaller than those yielded from VLBI measurements. If the absolute time offset issue can be resolved by external means, the VLBI results can be significantly improved and can come close to providing 1 mm accuracy in the frame tie parameters. D-VLBI observations with optimum performance assumptions provide roughly a factor of two higher uncertainties for the E-GRASP orbit. We additionally simulated how station and spacecraft position offsets affect the frame tie performance.     

Earth rotation and network geometry optimization for very long baseline interferometers

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is one of the new techniques which will probably dominate geodesy and geophysics in the near future. Its main advantage lies in the fact that it brings the accuracy of direction measurements to a level previously possible only for range measurements. This closes the gap between powerful range determination techniques such as laser ranging and the much less accurate determination of directions through photographic tracking of artificial earth satellites. The technique is geometric in the sense that the relevant observations are independent of the gravity field of the earth. However, the “orbits” of the observed extragalactic radio sources with respect to an earth-fixed system are dominated and perturbed by the rotation of the earth with respect to inertial frame. This allows the determination of polar motion, precession-nutation and length-of-the-day variations, and the technique becomes also “dynamic” in this respect. The capability of determining the geometry of a network of stations within a short time interval and with a centimeter level accuracy also allows the study of the variation of network geometry with time caused by earth tides and other periodic or secular station drifts. The main objective of the present work is the exploration of the capabilities of VLBI for the recovery of earth rotation and network geometry parameters. For this purpose, a number of characteristic experimental designs based on present and candidate for the near future station locations is chosen. The results from the analysis of simulated observations for each particular design are presented in the paper. Presented at IAG International Symposium on “Optimization of Design and Computation of Control Networks”, Sopron, Hungary, 4–10 July 1977.