Estimation of orbital parameters from (u,v)-coverage for a space radio interferometer

Searching for a suitable very long baseline (VLBI) interferometer geometry is a key task in planning observations, especially imaging sessions. VLBI image quality is characterized by (u,v)-coverage. With one or more radio telescopes located in space, such a task becomes more complex. This paper pres...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAstronomy and computing Vol. 48; p. 100855
Main Authors Bulygin, I.I., Shchurov, M.A., Rudnitskiy, A.G.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 01.07.2024
Subjects
Celestial mechanics
Interferometry
Methods: numerical
Orbit design
Space vehicles
Space vehicles
Orbit design
97M50
85A99
70F15
Celestial mechanics
Methods: numerical
Interferometry
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Summary:Searching for a suitable very long baseline (VLBI) interferometer geometry is a key task in planning observations, especially imaging sessions. VLBI image quality is characterized by (u,v)-coverage. With one or more radio telescopes located in space, such a task becomes more complex. This paper presents a method of recovering the optimal orbital parameters for space radio telescopes having a given desired (u,v)-coverage. In turn, this task can be called the inverse of the task of searching for the optimal geometry and orbital configurations of space-ground and pure space VLBI interferometers. •Created an algorithm for orbit design of space VLBI based on functional minimization.•Algorithm uses the Nelder–Mead method for local optimization.•Compared search effectiveness for the Kholshevnikov and Keplerian elements.•Tested and verified the algorithm on synthetic and real Radioastron mission data.
ISSN:2213-1337
DOI:10.1016/j.ascom.2024.100855