A balloon-borne very long baseline interferometry experiment in the stratosphere: Systems design and developments

The balloon-borne very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) experiment is a technical feasibility study for performing radio interferometry in the stratosphere. The flight model has been developed. A balloon-borne VLBI station will be launched to establish interferometric fringes with ground-based VLBI stations distributed over the Japanese islands at an observing frequency of approximately 20?GHz as the first step. This paper describes the system design and development of a series of observing instruments and bus systems. In addition to the advantages of avoiding the atmospheric effects of absorption and fluctuation in high frequency radio observation, the mobility of a station can improve the sampling coverage (“uv-coverage”) by increasing the number of baselines by the number of ground-based counterparts for each observation day. This benefit cannot be obtained with conventional arrays that solely comprise ground-based stations. The balloon-borne VLBI can contribute to a future progress of research fields such as black holes by direct imaging.     

Imaging a black hole: MAXIM

With the general acceptance of black holes as real entities the astrophysics community has turned its attention to studying their behavior and properties. Because of the great distance and compact size of the central engine, astronomers are limited to spectroscopic analysis. But to take a picture, or better yet a movie, of the black hole in silhouette against its accretion disk would be a triumph of exploration and scientific inquiry. Probing to the event horizon is best accomplished in the X-ray band, where material primarily radiates in the last orbits before its final plunge. Not only will the signal be bright and minimally confused in the X-ray, but the size of the required interferometer drops dramatically. We describe MAXIM, the Micro-Arcsecond X-ray Imaging Mission, which is now being studied and developed by NASA. We will explain the preliminary mission concept which will use currently existing technology to achieve spatial resolution one million times higher than that of the Hubble Space Telescope and capture the image of an event horizon in a nearby Active Galactic Nucleus. We will also describe the MAXIM Pathfinder. Designed as a stepping stone at resolution of 100 micro-arcseconds, it will demonstrate the techniques of X-ray interferometry and perform groundbreaking science like resolving the coronae of the nearby stars.     

System Design for the Event Horizon Imaging Experiment Using the PECMEO Concept

The concept for space interferometry from Polar or Equatorial Circular Medium Earth Orbits (the PECMEO concept) is a promising way to acquire the image of the “shadow” of the event horizon of Sagittarius A^* with an angular resolution of circa 5 microarcseconds. The concept is intended to decrease the size of the main reflector of the instrument to about 3 m using a precise orbit reconstruction based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) navigation, inter-satellite range and range-rate measurements, and data from the Attitude and Orbit Determination System (AODS). The paper provides the current progress on the definition of the subsystems required for the concept on the basis of simulations, radio regulations, and available technology. The paper proposes the requirement for the localization of the phase centre of the main reflector. The paper provides information about the visibility of GNSS satellites and the needed accuracies of the AODS. The paper proposes the frequency plan for the instrument and its Inter-Satellite Links (ISLs). The concepts for measurement of range and range rate using ISLs (as well as for the data exchange at these ISLs) are presented. The block diagram of the interferometer is described and its sensitivity is estimated. The link budget for both ISLs is given as well as their critical components. The calculated measurement quality factors are given. The paper shows the expected performance of the sub-systems of the interferometer. The requirements for the localization of the main reflectors and the information about the availability of the GNSS satellites are based on the simulations results. The frequency plan is obtained according to the PECMEO concept and taking into account the radio regulations. The existing technology defines the accuracies of the AODS as well as the link budgets and the measurement accuracies for both ISLs and the sensitivity of the instrument. The paper provides input information for the development of the orbit reconstruction filter and the whole PECMEO system.     

Dark energy,co-evolution of massive black holes with galaxies,and ASTROD-GW

The detection of low frequency band (100 nHz–100 mHz) and very low frequency band (300 pHz–100 nHz) gravitational waves (GWs) is important for exploration of the equation of state of dark energy and the co-evolution of massive black holes (MBHs) with galaxies. Most galaxies are believed to have a massive black hole in the galactic core. In the formation of these black holes, merging and accretion are the two main processes. Merging of massive black holes generate GWs which could be detected by space GW detectors and Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) to cosmological distances. LISA (Laser-Interferometric Space Antenna) is most sensitive to the frequency band 1 mHz–100 mHz, ASTROD-GW (ASTROD [Astrodynamical Space Test of Relativity using Optical Devices] optimized for Gravitational Wave detection) is most sensitive to the frequency band 100 nHz–1 mHz and PTAs are most sensitive to the frequency band 300 pHz–100 nHz. In this paper, we discuss the sensitivities and outlooks of detection of GWs from binary massive black holes in these frequency bands with an emphasis on ASTROD-GW. The GWs generated by the inspirals, merging and subsequent ringdowns of binary black holes are standard sirens to the cosmological distance. Using GW observations, we discuss the methods for determining the equation of state of dark energy and for testing the co-evolution models of massive black holes. ASTROD-GW is an optimization of ASTROD to focus on the goal of detection of GWs. The mission orbits of the 3 spacecraft forming a nearly equilateral triangular array are chosen to be near the Sun-Earth Lagrange points L3, L4 and L5. The 3 spacecraft range interferometrically with one another with arm length about 260 million kilometers. With 52 times longer in arm length compared to that of LISA, the strain detection sensitivity is 52 times better toward larger wavelength. The scientific aim is focused for gravitational wave detection at low frequency. The science goals include detection of GWs from MBHs, and Extreme-Mass-Ratio Black Hole Inspirals (EMRI), and using these observations to find the evolution of the equation of state of dark energy and to explore the co-evolution of massive black holes with galaxies.     

Beyond Einstein: scientific goals and missions

A century ago, Albert Einstein began creating his theory of relativity, the ideas we use to understand space, time, and gravity, and he took some of the first steps towards the theory of quantum mechanics, the ideas we use to understand matter and energy. Time magazine named Einstein the “Person of the Century” because his ideas transformed civilization. But his work is not finished: spacetime is not yet reconciled with the quantum. Einstein’s general theory of relativity opened possibilities for the formation and structure of the Universe that seemed unbelievable even to Einstein himself but which have all been subsequently confirmed: that the whole Universe began in a hot, dense Big Bang from which all of space expanded; that dense matter could tie spacetime into tangled knots called black holes; and that “empty” space might contain energy with repulsive gravity. Despite these discoveries, we still do not understand conditions at the beginning of the Universe, how space and time behave at the edge of a black hole, or why distant galaxies are accelerating away from us. These phenomena represent the most extreme interactions of matter and energy with space and time. They are the places to look for clues to the next fundamental revolution in understanding – Beyond Einstein.     

PROBA-3 mission and the Shadow Position Sensors: Metrology measurement concept and budget

PROBA-3 is a space mission of the European Space Agency that will test, and validate metrology and control systems for autonomous formation flying of two independent satellites. PROBA-3 will operate in a High Elliptic Orbit and when approaching the apogee at 6·10⁴ Km, the two spacecraft will align to realize a giant externally occulted coronagraph named ASPIICS, with the telescope on one satellite and the external occulter on the other one, at inter-satellite distance of 144.3 m. The formation will be maintained over 6 hrs across the apogee transit and during this time different validation operations will be performed to confirm the effectiveness of the formation flying metrology concept, the metrology control systems and algorithms, and the spacecraft manoeuvring. The observation of the Sun’s Corona in the field of view [1.08;3.0]R_Sun will represent the scientific tool to confirm the formation flying alignment. In this paper, we review the mission concept and we describe the Shadow Position Sensors (SPS), one of the metrological systems designed to provide high accuracy (sub-millimetre level) absolute and relative alignment measurement of the formation flying. The metrology algorithm developed to convert the SPS measurements in lateral and longitudinal movement estimation is also described and the measurement budget summarized.     

Inter-satellite ranging and inter-satellite communication links for enhancing GNSS satellite broadcast navigation data

Recently the European Space Agency (ESA) has initiated a number of exploratory Projects, within the General Studies Programme (GSP), to analyze what potential improvements on a GNSS system navigation determination and dissemination performance could be brought by introducing inter-satellite ranging & inter-satellite communication-links. The key improvements targeted by these Projects are the enhancement of the orbit and clock prediction accuracy and the reduction of the dependency from ground infrastructure. Both projects adopted the Galileo system architecture as the initial working point.     

On the non-occurrence of Type I X-ray bursts from the black hole candidates

It has been justifiably questioned if the black hole candidates (BHCs) have “hard surface” why Type I X-ray bursts are not seen from them [Narayan, R., Black holes in astrophysics, New J. Phys, 7, 199–218, 2005]. It is pointed out that a “physical surface” need not always be “hard” and could be “gaseous” in case the compact object is sufficiently hot [Mitra, A., The day of the reckoning: the value of the integration constant in the vacuum Schwarzschild solution, physics/0504076, p1–p6, 2005; Mitra, A., BHs or ECOs: A review of 90 years of misconceptions, in: Focus on Black Holes Research, Nova Science Pub., NY, p1–p94, 2005]. Even if a “hard surface” would be there, presence of strong intrinsic magnetic field could inhibit Type I X-ray burst from a compact object as is the case for Her X-1. Thus, non-occurrence of Type I bursts actually rules out those alternatives of BHs which are either non-magnetized or cold and, hence, is no evidence for existence of Event Horizons (EHs). On the other hand, from the first principle, we again show that the BHCs being uncharged and having finite masses cannot be BHs, because uncharged BHs have a unique mass M = 0. Thus the previous results that the so-called BHCs are actually extremely hot, ultramagnetized, Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Objects (ECOs) [Robertson, S., Leiter, D., Evidence for intrinsic magnetic moment in black hole candidates, Astrophys. J., 565, 447–451, (astro-ph/0102381), 2002 ; Robertson, S., Leiter, D., MECO model of galactic black hole candidates and active galactic nuclei, in: New Developments in Black Hole Research, Nova Science Pub., NY, p1–p44, astro-ph/0602453, 2005] rather than anything else get reconfirmed by non-occurrence of Type I X-ray bursts in BHCs.     

A VLBI search for pulsar wind nebulae in supernovae

We examine recent supernovae which have been observed with very-long-baseline interferometry in order to detect or limit the emission from a possible compact remnant of the explosion. Such a remnant could be a neutron star, generating a pulsar wind nebula, or a black hole with an accretion disk and jets. Four supernovae, and also more than a dozen supernovae or their young remnants in M82, have structure sufficiently resolved to allow useful conclusions as to the strength of the emission from such young neutron stars or black holes. We recently discovered a compact component in the center of SN 1986J’s shell with a spectral luminosity at 15 GHz 200 times that of the Crab Nebula. This is most likely the compact remnant of the explosion, the first and only one found in any modern supernova. For other modern supernovae, the upper limits on the radio spectral luminosities of such young compact remnants range from 180 times that of the Crab Nebula for SN 1979C in M100 in the Virgo cluster to 0.001 times that of the Crab Nebula for SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud.     

The X-ray properties of accreting black holes

Accreting black holes in binary systems exhibit two properties that distinguish them from the vast majority of binary X-ray sources: (1) rapid ≤ 1 s variability and (2) bi-modal spectral behaviour. These findings are based primarily on the observed properties of Cyg X-1 where an estimate of the X-ray source mass from radial velocity studies indicates a mass of 10 M. The recently suggested black hole candidacy of LMC X-3 is based on a similar mass estimate. The X-ray properties are similar to those of Cyg X-1 in its “high state”. The unique spectral properties of these systems are used to search for other similar systems, and new “possible” candidates are suggested, that include several transient sources. A possible spectral connection between these systems and their more massive counterparts in AGN is discussed.     

深空星间链路信道建模及硬件模拟器研制

针对深空通信信道距离长、信噪比低、链路损耗巨大等特点,提出了太阳闪烁与多径效应影响下的深空星间链路信道理论模型。在此基础上,构建了一个基于硬件现场可编程门阵列和控制计算机的深空星间链路信道模拟器,有效模拟了深空星间通信的多径衰落、传播路径损耗和信道延迟,规避了投入高、风险高、耗时长的实地通信实验。实测结果表明,该深空星间链路模拟器输出的载噪比及误比特率波形与理论结果吻合,可用于实验室条件下对深空星间链路的实时模拟复现。     

联合北斗导航与星间链路的大椭圆卫星定轨方法

传统的地面测控和GNSS均无法实现HEO卫星全弧段的跟踪观测.在分析北斗导航信号及其星间链路信号对典型HEO的观测几何及覆盖特性的基础上,利用北斗导航及其星间链路对HEO测控支持形成互补的特点,提出了一种卫星导航与星间链路相结合的自主导航方法.对HEO定轨进行分段划分并基于EKF设计了卫星导航与星间链路数据融合定轨的自主导航算法.分析结果表明,本文提出的方法能够从全弧段上改善HEO的观测几何,定轨精度比仅使用卫星导航提高了2个数量级,并且仅需较少的星间链路资源.     

A scheduling strategy to inter-satellite links assignment in GNSS

By introducing inter-satellite link (ISL), the dependence of the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) on ground infrastructure can be reduced and its performance enhanced via inter-satellite ranging and communication. Owing to platform restrictions, there are usually fewer onboard Ka-band ISL antennas than the number of visible satellites, which poses a problem when optimizing the inter-satellite links assignment of the GNSS. In this study, to optimize inter-satellite ranging and communication, a multi-objective optimization model is built and a scheduling strategy is proposed for the inter-satellite links assignment scheduling problem. The position dilution of precision (PDOP) of links and the transmission time-delay of telemetry data are set as the ranging performance and communication metrics, respectively. We regard the links assignment in each slot as a general graph-matching problem, and apply the Blossom algorithm to obtain the maximum matching. We then generate and optimize the satellite sequences for whole slots using non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II). The simulation scenes include 10,080 epochs of GNSS constellation, and the simulation results show that the performance of the proposed strategy is better than that of other methods published recently, and can provide various solutions to meet the different preferences of system managers.     

空间计量技术研究现状及展望

空间计量是保障地外空间的测量单位统一、测量量值准确可靠的技术和管理活动。本文对空间计量概念进行了全面描述,介绍了国内外在空间计量技术领域的发展现状及取得的部分成果,并提出了空间计量领域的发展趋势。     

Studies of strong gravitational fields near super-massive black hole horizons with space missions

General relativity (GR) can be probed by several tests in the weak gravitational field limit. On the contrary, very poor information exists about GR tests in strong gravitational fields. Here, we focus on the interaction of light rays with the strong gravitational field of a massive black hole and show that relativistic images may form. Hence, we calculate the shapes of shadows (mirages) forming just near BH horizons and discuss the possibility to estimate the black hole parameters (mass, spin and charge) by future astrometric missions. In 2007, the Radioastron space telescope will be launched and it will allow to evaluate those parameters for the black hole hosted at the center of our Galaxy.     

基于最小PDOP准则的星间链路拓扑方案

星间链路是卫星导航系统实现自主运行的一项关键技术.研究了一种 Walker(24/3/2) 星座,通过对卫星间可见性以及星间链路相关约束条件的分析,计算并确定了同轨卫星的A,B类排列方案,探索了建立位置精度因子(PDOP,Position Dilution Of Precision)值最小,即测距精度最高的星间链路拓扑结构的方法,并在此基础上利用Dijkstra算法计算出卫星之间以及卫星与地面站之间的最优路径.通过对星间数据传输时间延迟和星座网络卫星节点数据流量的统计,表明这种链路生成方案切实可行,能够满足预先设定的技术指标要求.同时对最短路径、最小跳数和网络流量均衡3种不同的计算策略进行了仿真,验证了这3种策略所造成的结果差异.      

Metrology on-board PROBA-3: The shadow position sensors subsystem

PROBA-3 is an ESA mission aimed at the demonstration of formation flying performance of two satellites that will form a giant coronagraph in space. The first spacecraft will host a telescope imaging the solar corona in visible light, while the second, the external occulter, will produce an artificial eclipse. This instrument is named ASPIICS (Association of Spacecraft for Polarimetric and Imaging Investigation of the Corona of the Sun). To accomplish the payload's scientific tasks, PROBA-3 will ensure sub-millimeter reciprocal positioning of its two satellites using closed-loop on-board metrology. Several metrology systems will be used and the Shadow Position Sensor (SPS) subsystem senses the penumbra around the instrument aperture and returns the 3-D displacement of the coronagraph satellite, with respect to its nominal position, by running a dedicated algorithm. In this paper, we describe how the SPS works and the choices made to accomplish the mission objectives.     

星间相位干涉仪测角系统设计及精度分析

针对微小卫星编队飞行、星间组网等多星协同任务中的相对测角问题,提出了一种高精度的星间无线电测角系统。该系统的优势是在伪码测距系统的基础上增加两条相同的接收通道,对载波相位值采用相位干涉法得到高精度的星间相对角度值,可以在不增加额外软硬件开销的情况下完成实时性较好的高精度星间相对状态自主测量。从该系统的设计出发,对相位干涉仪测角系统进行了详细的精度分析,推导了链路中各个噪声源的传递函数和理论噪声水平,并搭建实物平台对角度测量精度的理论值和实测值进行比较。结果表明系统对本振相位噪声有抑制作用,热噪声是角度测量的最大噪声源,系统实际测角精度在强信号下可达1.4×10^-3度。     

A few metrological aspects of the Gaia mission

The ESA space astrometry mission Gaia is designed to measure the positions, parallaxes and proper motions of more than one billion stars of our Galaxy brighter than 20 magnitude. The expected astrometric accuracies are in the range 7–25 μas for the point-like sources down to 15 mag. To achieve this staggering performance, several issues of highly accurate metrology must be solved and implemented on the spacecraft. In this paper, I discuss first some constraining principles to perform global astrometry in space, and then a couple of examples of the metrological issues currently faced by the design or to be encountered during the operations. One concerns the optimisation of the sky coverage with a scanning instrument like Gaia, and the other deals with the instrument stability and how the stringent requirements are met in practice.