Precise Relative Navigation in Medium Earth Orbits with Global Navigation Satellite Systems and Intersatellite Links for Black Hole Imaging

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a ground-based array of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) telescopes designed to image the event horizon of black holes. To overcome its limitations, this study explores a mission concept involving a two-satellite constellation of VLBI telescopes deployed...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in space research 2024-09, Vol.74 (6), p.2599-2614
Main Authors: Salas, María, Fernández, Jaime, van den IJssel, Jose
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
GNSS
Intersatellite Links
POD
Precise Orbit Determination
Relative Navigation
VLBI
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a ground-based array of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) telescopes designed to image the event horizon of black holes. To overcome its limitations, this study explores a mission concept involving a two-satellite constellation of VLBI telescopes deployed in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). Achieving high-resolution black hole images requires precise baseline determination at the millimetre level. To address this challenge, each satellite in the constellation is equipped with two Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers and an optical Intersatellite Link (ISL) to enhance orbit determination. The results highlight the importance of integer ambiguity resolution and reveal that the ISL primarily improves baseline estimation along the link direction, with minimal impact along the black hole direction. Large intersatellite distances lead to sub-optimal relative orbit accuracy, challenging the attainment of the 3.5 mm relative position accuracy goal along the black hole direction.
ISSN:0273-1177
1879-1948
DOI:10.1016/j.asr.2023.10.037