Micro Vlbi Network For Geo Satellite Monitoring

According to the requirements of all-time, all-weather and high precision gcostationary orbit (GEO) satellite monitoring, a simple very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observing system was developed and a micro VLBI network (MVN) including Shanghai, Duyun and Urumqi was built. Debugging in collocated stations was performed and GEO satellite named as Apstar6C was monitored by MVN, whose observing capability was evaluated. The receiving accuracy of single station without systematic errors was 2 ns. The results show that the post fit residuals of different baselines arc about several nanoseconds. Moreover, the accuracy of observed GEO satellite orbit is in the level of 100 m (internal and external accuracy of about 100 m and 100 m respectively). Unlike traditional VLBI or other GEO monitoring techniques, MVN has features including all-time, all-weather, low cost, easy deployment and convenient marketing, showing its great application value in the field of GEO satellite monitoring.